The Week That Was, february 18, 2018

     A commission that once seemed lost is back in play for Tiger Woods. We’re talking about Two Farms, a community in suburban Nashville, Tennessee that’s being developed by Woods’ most dedicated client, Beacon Land Development. Woods designed the golf course for Beacon’s Bluejack National, in suburban Houston, Texas, and he’s agreed to produce at least one track for Jack’s Bay, the company’s forthcoming community in the Bahamas. Woods had also been pegged to design the golf course at Two Farms, but his participation became doubtful when Beacon took on Discovery Land Company as its development partner. Discovery, as most everyone knows, nowadays works exclusively with Tom Fazio, a proven commodity whose career has been untouched by scandal. But last fall Discovery dropped out of the picture – it expressed concerns about water availability at Two Farms – and Beacon’s replacement partner doesn’t have any architectural prejudices. The result: If the developers can secure the required entitlements, they’ll build 1,180 houses, a retail/commercial area, a waste-water treatment plant, and an 18-hole golf course. According to Beacon’s president, Woods is “looking to take the character of the [Two Farms] land today and enhance it.” The nature of the enhancement hasn’t yet been outlined.

     You wouldn’t think that having a hotel operator for a president would have a negative effect on the U.S. travel business, but it has. Over the past two years, according to the U.S. Travel Association, the U.S. share of inbound international travel has been falling – from 13.6 percent in 2015 to 12.9 percent in 2016 to 11.9 percent last year. What’s more, says the Commercial Observer, the United States is one of only two nations among the world’s top 12 travel destinations that has experienced a significant decline in its share of international travel during that period. (The other, not surprisingly, was Turkey.) “International tourism is definitely down,” acknowledged Chris Muoio, the chief economist for Ten-X, an Irvine, California-based real-estate research firm. In an interview with the Observer, Muoio put the blame squarely on the White House. “As long as this administration is in place,” he said, “I think there’s going to be a tepid, cooler response toward traveling to the U.S. It’s just become a less desirable destination based off the rhetoric and attitude that’s been put out there.” On the campaign trail, the Very Stable Genius promised to be good for business. He never confessed that he was talking about his own.

     The golf course at a community that once bragged of being America’s first fly-in dude ranch was recently sold at a foreclosure auction. Doug and Cindy Stevens, operating as Equalizer Inc., bid $3 million for Flying L Hill Country Resort, a faded, 70-year-old vacation getaway in Bandera, Texas, a town in greater San Antonio that bills itself as “the cowboy capital of the world.” Flying L features a forgettable 18-hole golf course that dates from 1972, and its air strip was long ago replaced by a driving range. Since 2013, it had been in the hands of Jody and Susan Jenkins, who reportedly “lived the ranch life and really supported the cowboy way.” Unfortunately, their Trey West LLC defaulted on a debt and was forced to declare for bankruptcy protection. The new owners have promised to revive the community, but they haven’t said how.

     Surplus Transactions – A bakery owner has acquired a “neglected” par-60 track on Hawaii’s O’ahu island. Kerry Lau, the president of Regal Food, Inc., reportedly paid $5.8 million for Bayview Golf Course, a Robin Nelson-designed track that opened in 1997. Pacific Business News reports that Windward Church of the Nazarene was hoping to get $8.5 million for the 98-acre property. . . . Lake Wissota Golf Course, an under-performing 18-hole track in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin – the birthplace of Annie Hall! – has a new owner. Can’t say who it is, though, because the facilitator of the transaction is keeping his or her identity a secret. For what it’s worth, the Don Stepanik-designed track was being marketed as “a hidden gem” that could “benefit from new ownership with a drive to increase business.” The asking price was $1.5 million. . . . For $850,000, the city of Louisville, Kentucky has assumed control of Quail Chase Golf Club. The 27-hole, David Pfaff-designed complex (it opened in two phases, in 1988 and 1991) is located on city-owned property, and it had been leased by an entity called Golf Development Company, Inc.

     Membership no longer has all of its privileges at Walmer Country Club, a venue in Port Elizabeth, South Africa that’s operated since 1942. In an attempt to cope with the Eastern Cape’s debilitating water crisis, the club has outlawed the use of its showers. According to a local radio station, Walmer has experienced “a marked increase in its water usage” since authorities put residential water restrictions into place.

     Some golf writers have gotten all gloomy and forlorn about the loss of Steve Wynn’s golf course on the Las Vegas Strip, but their discontent isn’t shared by the property’s owner. The Tom Fazio-designed layout at Wynn Golf Club never quite lived up to Wynn’s expectations – he apparently believed it was better than the Fazio-created course he’d built at Shadow Creek, an opinion shared by few others – and he couldn’t shake the idea that its location was worth a fortune. (“I’ve got a billion and a half dollars of real estate under that golf course,” he once said.) So, late last year, the casino mogul and accused sexual harasser pulled the blinds on Wynn Golf Club. No tears need be shed. The course was never anything more than a means to an end. Great golf, by contrast, is always an end in itself.

     Desolation Row Extended – Sandy Woodruff has agreed to sell her Valley Gardens Golf Course, a nine-hole, executive-length track in metropolitan San Jose, California, to a developer. “The numbers have been bad for the past five years,” she told the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Woodruff’s father opened Valley Gardens, a 29-acre, Bob Baldock-designed layout, in 1971. Pending a successful rezoning, the course will be replaced by nearly 200 houses and apartments. . . . Time has run out on Fox Hill Golf Course, an 18-hole, 5,844-yard track in Massena, New York. “The golf business is not lucrative these days,” John Kearns, the course’s owner, told North Country Now. “It was costing me money to stay open.” Kearns, who built the course in 1999, plans to retire and live in Fox Hill’s clubhouse. . . . Pocomoke, Maryland, which dubs itself as “the friendliest town on the Eastern Shore,” has pulled the plug on its golf course. The nine-hole Winter Quarters Golf Course, which had operated since 1934, has reportedly lost about $150,000 annually in recent years.

     This year’s India Golf Expo is going back to where it all started. The networking event, described by its organizers as “an exciting mix of golf and business,” will be held in Bangalore, where it was initiated seven years ago. The R&A has promised to send “a complete delegation,” and “lavish buffet lunches, industry dinners, and entertainment” are guaranteed for all. The dates: April 19 and 20.