The Week That Was, january 21, 2018

     Attention, traveling golfers: South Africa, Turkey, and Thailand are among the world’s emerging golf destinations, according to the most dedicated golfers from four of Europe’s top golf nations. The news comes via Sports Marketing Surveys, which recently polled 9,500 “core” golfers from France, Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom on their spending habits. When it comes to vacations in established golf destinations, the respondents identified Spain as their nation of choice, with Austria and Portugal getting nods as well.

     It took a while, but Pacific Links International has unloaded its last remaining golf property in greater Las Vegas, Nevada. For an undisclosed price, a group of 10 members has purchased SouthShore Golf Club, a 22-year-old venue with a Jack Nicklaus “signature” layout that “ignites a golfer’s passion and provides a peaceful escape.” The course, part of the reinvigorated Lake Las Vegas lifestyle community, is now operating as SouthShore Country Club LLV. PLI, a Chinese/Canadian company that operates an international network of limited-access membership golf clubs, formerly owned close to a dozen U.S. golf properties, but it’s been engaged in asset sales for several years. It sold its other Vegas-area holdings, DragonRidge Country Club and Southern Highlands Golf Club, in 2016.

     Surplus Transactions – In mid December 2017, ClubCorp and Cooper Communities sold Diamante Country Club, a venue that features one of Arkansas’ top-rated golf courses. Diamante is the only private club in Hot Springs Village, a seniors-only community with a total of nine courses, many of them named after famous explorers (DeSoto, Magellan, Ponce de Leon). The buyer, a corporation created by property owners, paid an undisclosed price for the club and its 18-hole, Ault Clark-designed course. . . . Southworth Development has bought out its partners and assumed full control of Abaco Club, a private, 534-acre oceanfront community in the Bahamas that features what’s said to be “the world's first Scottish-style links in a tropical location.” The 18-hole track, co-designed by Donald Steel and Tom MacKenzie, opened in 2004. Southworth has been a co-owner of Abaco since 2014, and it owns a handful of other golf properties in Puerto Rico, Scotland, and the United States. . . . A 54-year-old venue in Decatur, Alabama has changed hands. Late last year, Andy and Belinda Villarreal paid an undisclosed price for Burningtree Country Club, which features an 18-hole, George Cobb-designed golf course. The seller was Tom Flowe, who’d owned the property since 2004.

     The Very Stable Genius has suspended some U.S. aid payments to Pakistan, but his threats haven’t put an end to the nation’s golf-development dreams. Just weeks ago, Chinese-funded coastal resorts with golf courses were announced. Now it appears that a project that’s been percolating for at least two years, Eighteen Islamabad, has been revived. The 540-acre, American-style community outside Islamabad will include 1,100 villas, 900 apartments, a boutique hotel, a shopping mall, and other attractions, including a “championship” golf course designed by Bob Hunt. The goal is to offer amenities that are “second to none” and “delivered in a safe, secure, and exclusive location." Eighteen Islamabad is being co-developed by Naguib Sawiris, a member of the family whose Orascom Group built two wildly popular golf resorts on the Red Sea in Egypt. Sawiris believes he’s going to “revolutionize” Pakistan’s real-estate industry by creating “a new lifestyle destination in a world-class capital city,” and it’s worth noting that he’s working off a master plan created by U.S. companies.

     Pipeline Overflow – Valery Garipov. a Russian investor, has secured permission to build a “tourist complex,” including a golf course, in an abandoned village in Croatia. The complex, in Sikuli, will also feature some houses and apartments, two hotels, and a water park. Garipov hopes to break ground on it next year. . . . Iceland, which has more golf courses per capita than any other nation on earth, may soon get another. According to a news report, an Icelandic couple wants to build “a standard golf course,” some hotels, and other attractions in Skálabrekka, a town roughly 30 miles northeast of Reykjavik. Local officials are said to be evaluating the proposal. . . . Lee Schmidt’s golf course outside the last royal capital in Myanmar is scheduled to open in the spring. Myotha National Golf Club, a co-design with a former executive director of the Asian Tour, will be among the attractions at the Mandalay-Myotha Industrial Park, and it’s expected to contend for regional professional events. Schmidt, a principal of Schmidt-Curley Design, once predicted that the 18-hole track would offer “a stern test for today’s best players.”

     One of America’s toughest plays may soon bite the dust. Despite the usual complaints from neighbors, Stan Burton seems intent on building a subdivision on his Wolf Run Golf Club, a high-profile spread in suburban Indianapolis, Indiana. Wolf Run was established in 1989 by an amateur golfer, Jack Leer, who enlisted Steve Smyers to design what’s been described as “a demanding, world-class golf club for serious golfers.” Leer got what he wanted, but in retrospect the course’s challenge was its fatal flaw. “You have to be pretty good to enjoy that course,” the director of the state’s PGA section told the Indianapolis Business Journal. “That course is simply too hard for a segment of the golf population.” Burton, who bought Wolf Run in 2003, is the property’s third owner. He’s reportedly been trying to find a buyer for several years, without luck.

     Desolation Row Extended – Citing an analysis of “sales reports, expense reports, and market trends,” late last year Sierra Golf Management pulled the plug on a venue that opened in the early 1970s as Forest Meadows Golf Course. A couple of years ago the 18-hole layout, the centerpiece of an artsy community located outside Yosemite National Park in northern California, had been reduced to nine holes and given a new name, Murphys 9. The original course had been designed by Robert Trent Jones and his first-born son. . . . Pulte Homes has agreed to buy Cypress Creek Country Club, a venue in Boynton Beach, Florida that’s reportedly been “struggling to make money.” Cypress Creek, which features an 18-hole, Robert von Hagge-designed golf course, opened in the mid 1960s. It may continue to operate in 2018, but the prospective owner wants to begin building houses on the 116-acre property by 2019. . . . Sometime this month, the city of Milton, in suburban Atlanta, Georgia, is expected to acquire Milton Country Club, a 25-year-old venue that features an 18-hole, Willard Byrd-designed golf course. The price: $5 million. The city expects to convert the club’s roughly 140 acres into parkland.