The Week That Was, september 10, 2017

     Golf participation in the Old Country peaked in 2009 and has been falling ever since, but the European Golf Course Owners Association believes that the market has “stabilized.” In “European Golf Statistics for 2017,” its latest data crunch, the EGCOA counts more than 4.15 million “registered” golfers across the Continent (and a significant number of others who don’t register), which it views positively as only a slight decline from the number posted a year earlier. The group finds growth in registrations in Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and Belgium but worrisome declines in Spain, England, and Wales. In fact, England’s longtime hold on golf participation – it’s home to 16.86 percent of the Continent’s golfers – is in jeopardy. The report states that Germany, with 15.49 percent of the total number of golfers, is “quickly catching up,” and it “may not be long until it leads demand for golf in Europe.” For what it’s worth, more than half of Europe’s golfers are in five nations: England, Germany, Sweden, France, and the Netherlands.

     Golf Canada’s search for the future permanent (or semi-permanent) home of the Canadian Open may be over. The Oakville Beaver reports that Golf Canada is thinking that RattleSnake Point Golf Club, in Milton, Ontario, might be a suitable replacement for Glen Abbey Golf Course, which has hosted the Open on 29 occasions but may very well do it for the final time next year. By happy coincidence, ClubLink owns both Glen Abbey and RattleSnake Point, so it gets to profit on the sale of the 3,000 houses that it intends to build at the former while it continues to bank revenues from the nation’s premier professional tournament. RattleSnake Point has a pair of 18-hole, Tom McBroom-designed golf courses (plus a nine-hole “academy” track), and for years it’s hosted qualifying events for the Open. Plans for a redesign of the complex are said to be “still in their earliest stages.” The newspaper didn’t name an architect, but RattleSnake Point is almost certainly one of the three properties that Jack Nicklaus evaluated during a recent scouting trip to the Toronto area.

     Pipeline Overflow – Royal Hobart Golf Club, which has hosted the Tasmanian Open several times and the Australian Open in 1971, has hired Richard Chamberlain to oversee a substantive makeover, the goal being to ensure that the venue on Seven Mile Beach “keeps pace with the changes in the game and the expectations of its members.” Royal Hobart’s Vern Morcom-designed course is more than 50 years old, and club officials believe it’s “lost some of its design principles.” Chamberlain also figures to beef up the club’s practice facilities and add a nine-hole pitch-’n’-putt course. . . . If golf was priced by the minute, Gil Hanse’s new layout at Pinehurst – the Cradle, it’s been named – might be the resort’s most expensive course. This fall, golfers will reportedly pay $50 for a round at the nine-hole, 789-yard course, with prices to presumably increase during the high season. . . . Prince Ned Nwoko, a member of a royal family in Nigeria, is plowing ahead with plans to build a golf course in his home town, Idumuje Ugboko. The course will be part of the prince’s proposed Stars University, a legacy project that’s stirred controversy since it was originally announced, in 2011.

     Confident that they have “a solid foundation” to build upon, Dan Glick and three partners have acquired the cash-poor Meadia Heights Golf Club, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The club, which has been in business since 1922, has reportedly lost roughly half of its members since the late 1990s (it’s now down to about 160) and has therefore “lacked the money to fund changes that its leadership believes are necessary to grow its membership.” But the new owners don’t believe they’ll affect a turnaround by simply investing in overdue improvements. They also plan to slash monthly dues (by $70 for singles and $100 for families) and eliminate the club’s annual “operating assessment” (on average, $600 per member), an approach that some quick math suggests will trim about $110,000 from the end-of-year bottom line. Glick believes the lower prices will be “really advantageous for growing our membership,” and he’d better be right, because he’s giving up some significant income.

     Surplus Transactions – In what it believes is part of its “natural evolution,” the Union League of Philadelphia has agreed to buy its second golf property, Sand Barrens Golf Club, an 18-year-old venue just down the coast from Atlantic City, New Jersey. Sand Barrens, which features a 27-hole, Dana Fry-designed golf complex, will operate as Union League National Golf Club when the transaction closes. It’ll complement Union League Golf Club at Torresdale, a venue in Philadelphia that was acquired in 2014. . . . A half-dozen investors operating as Clinton C.C. LLC have acquired Plattsburg Country Club, a distressed property in Plattsburg, Missouri. The club, which was reportedly on the brink of bankruptcy, is said to have only 140 members, less than half the number it had at the turn of the century. Its members unanimously approved the sale. . . . In March, Lucas Armstrong and some of his family members bought Silver Lake Golf Club, a nine-hole track outside Kingsport, in the eastern tip of Tennessee. The course now operates under its original name, Bays Mountain Golf Club.

     A former home of the Dallas Open, an event that evolved into the Byron Nelson Golf Classic, is in a home builder’s crosshairs. Huffines Communities wants to buy the 150 acres currently occupied by Golf Club of Dallas, a site that the area’s developers view as “a beautiful piece of property in a close-in location.” The club is home to an 18-hole, Perry Maxwell-designed golf course that opened in 1953. Its ownership group has said that the property isn’t for sale, and nearby home owners are upset about the prospect of losing an important asset, but Huffines has reportedly made an offer that’s “pretty unbelievable.” Huffines and the club’s owners are said to be negotiating.

     Desolation Row Extended – Tartan Pines Golf Club, an 18-year-old venue outside Dothan, Alabama, will likely soon become a subdivision. The club has closed, and its owners have concluded that “pursuing development of the land is a more viable financial option than to continue operating the golf course.” Tartan Pines’ 18-hole layout was co-designed by Alan Blalock and Glen Day. . . . A supermarket chain plans to purchase Vince’s Sports Center, a 17.5-acre venue in Newark, Delaware that features a nine-hole, par-3 golf course. Phil Santucci, the seller, told the Newark Post that he’s “ready to make a change,” and Lidl, the prospective owner, needs a site for a new store. . . . The last rounds have been played at River Cliff Golf Course, a nine-hole track in Fremont, Ohio. Bob and Adam Crockett have sold River Cliff, originally known as Thornwood Public Golf Course, to a conservation group that will turn the 75 acres into a park. The Crocketts own two other golf properties, Green Hills Golf Course in Clyde and Woussickett Golf Course in Sandusky.

     For an online feature that blurs the lines between journalism and self-promotion, Golf polled its course raters – “evaluators” is what the magazine calls them – on some questions related to its recently published best-of lists. Regarding architects, the prevailing opinion is that Bill Coore (with Ben Crenshaw) is the greatest modern architect and that Alister MacKenzie is the greatest Golden Age architect. The most over-rated course, the raters say, is Seminole (“by a mile”), while North Berwick’s West Links is the most under-rated. And for their final round on the planet, this select group of anonymous individuals would play at Cypress Point, which is also the course they’d play every day if they could.