The Week That Was, march 18, 2018

     Ric Kayne is starting to act like the proverbial Ugly American. The California-based billionaire, the owner of the sublime Tara Iti Golf Club – Golf Digest ranks it #6 in the world, after three royals (County Down, Dornoch, and Melbourne), Muirfield, and the Old Course – has begun complaining publicly about proposed legislation that would prevent foreigners like him from owning property in New Zealand and creating their own personal Mar-a-Lago-like enclaves. In fact, Kayne is leveling the same threat that Donald “David Dennison” Trump leveled at Scotland when an ungrateful nation wasn’t bending to his will: If the law passes, Kayne warns, he won’t build a second golf course at Tara Iti or an expensive new house for himself or who knows how many cabins for other wealthy Americans or make any other vitally important investments in New Zealand. It’s hard to figure why Kayne decided to put himself in the middle of such a controversial issue – rich people usually hire lawyers to do their dirty work – but he should learn a lesson from Trump’s experience. If he thinks New Zealand needs him more than he needs it, he’s wrong.

     Nick Faldo has been hired to design his third golf venue in Vietnam. This one will be a 27-hole complex in Long An Province, somewhere roughly 40 miles north of Hồ Chí Minh City, that will take shape on what appears to be lackluster farmland. The developer, Hoàn Cầu Group – the company that staged the Miss Universe pageant in Vietnam in 2008 – aims to build “the best golf course in the greater Hồ Chí Minh area,” and to ensure that it succeeds, Faldo and his team intend to create “our own features,” including “lots of water and landscape.” Faldo’s first golf course in the socialist republic, Ocean Dunes Golf Club in Bình Thuận Province, closed in 2014, but his Laguna Lăng Cô Golf Club, outside Hue, is still operating. Hoàn Cầu reportedly owns two golf properties in Vietnam, one of them being Diamond Bay Golf & Villas in Khánh Hòa Province.

     Pipeline Overflow – Desert Mountain’s next golf course will be an 18-hole, par-3 track that aims to be “user-friendly, inclusive, and fun but challenging.” The tony private community in Scottsdale, Arizona already has six Jack Nicklaus “signature” tracks,” but its seventh will be designed by Bill Brownlee, one of the developers, and Wendell Pickett, a club member. The track will be accompanied by as many as 190 houses that will cost $1 million or more. . . . Rees Jones has been directed to turn Asiad County Club, in Busan, South Korea, into a venue suitable for LPGA events. Come next summer, after the Open Doctor enhances “the strategy and character of each hole” at Asiad’s 27-hole complex, the property will be re-branded as LPGA International Busan. The mayor of Busan expects the club to become “the heart of golf in Asia.” . . . John Picerne, a Providence, Rhode Island-based developer, has set out to build a golf course on an ancient estate in the southern Midlands of Ireland. The founder of Corvias Group believes that his recently purchased Capard House, which occupies 100 acres in County Laois, is an ideal site for what’s been described as a “private” track.

     Our industry’s institutional powers in Australia have unveiled a “wide-ranging” plan to boost participation among girls and women. Golf Australia has launched “Vision 2025” to address what’s said to be “a record low” in participation, as females now account for just 20 percent of the players Down Under. “I think we’ve got some important challenges as a sport, and we need to recognize them,” the group’s CEO said in a press release. Golf Australia aims to increase the level of participation to 30 percent over the next seven years, a goal that it understands will be difficult to achieve. “It’s a massive task,” a board member acknowledged. “That’s why we’ve made it 2025.”

     A pair of management companies have teamed up to buy Fox Hollow Golf Club, an under-performing venue in Branchburg, New Jersey that celebrated its 50th anniversary last year. Billy Casper Golf and Morningstar Golf & Hospitality are the principal partners in the investment group that now owns Fox Hollow, which claims to have “an award-winning restaurant with an ‘anything you can think of’ menu.” Matt Galvin, the president of Morningstar, believes that the club is a “gem” that will benefit from his company’s “local presence and hands-on involvement” and GCG’s “marketing prowess and infrastructure.” The club originally had a Hal Purdy-designed course, but in 2000 the track was reportedly “completely redesigned” to make it “more challenging while at the same time improving its playability.”

     Surplus Transactions – Last fall, a private equity firm bid $16.1 million at auction for the financially troubled Salilshan Resort, a 250-acre spread in Gleneden Beach, Oregon that features a 53-year-old, Fred Federspiel-designed golf course. The 18-hole track has seen better days – the Portland Business Journal reports that it “averages just six foursomes a day” – but Alpha Wave Investors thinks it’s found a jewel that just needs a little polish. . . . Time appears to be ticking for Emerald Greens Golf Course, an 18-hole track in St. Louis, Missouri. The non-profit group that raises money for the St. Louis Zoo has agreed to buy 425 acres for zoo expansion, and Emerald Greens, which opened in 1994, will be part of the purchase. St. Louis Today reports that the course will remain open “for now.” . . . Terry Sjostrom is about to give up his job as a truck driver, as he’s acquired Birchwood Golf Course in Pelican Rapids, Minnesota. The nine-hole layout opened in 1930, and it had been owned and operated by Brian Evenson and members of his family since the late 1970s.

     ClubLink has given up on its plans to engineer a turnaround at Woodlands Golf & Country Club, the centerpiece of a community that was envisioned to be the Palm Springs of Florida. The largest owner/operator of golf properties in Canada bought Woodlands from its members in 2011, promising to put the property in Tamarac back on its financial feet, but a home builder has persuaded it to get out while the getting is still good. Pending approval by local elected officials, 13th Floor Homes – the same company that hopes to redevelop Carolina Club in metropolitan Miami – will build 525 houses on Woodlands’ 36-hole, Devlin/Von Hagge-designed golf complex. Canadian snowbirds will have fewer choices to play upon if the transaction is completed, but ClubLink will still own six golf venues in the Sunshine State, among them Heron Bay Golf Club in Coral Springs and Palm Aire Country Club in Pompano Beach.

     Desolation Row Extended – A marijuana producer has ensured that there will be no future sightings of Bigfoot Golf & Country Club. Patrick Murphy closed the nine-hole layout outside Eureka, California earlier this year, citing financial difficulties, but he doesn’t plan to weed-farm it. Instead, he’s going to open a disc golf course on the property, and then maybe a restaurant and some cabins. . . . Sixty years after it opened, Larkhaven Golf Course is on its way to becoming Charlotte, North Carolina’s next subdivision. A home builder believes that Larkhaven’s 140 acres can comfortably accommodate 350 houses. . . . The final rounds at Glenbrook Golf Course, an 18-hole municipal track in Houston, Texas, will be played on April Fools’ Day. Glenbrook, which has operated since 1935, will become a “marquee” botanical garden.