The Week That Was, june 3, 2018

     Garzón Tajamares Golf, a new golf venue in Uruguay, has become the world’s first “PGA Tour Preferred Golf Course.” The developers are thrilled to receive this “great honor” and the tour blandly claims that the designation reflects its “commitment to golf in Latin America,” but don’t let them pull the wool over your eyes. “Preferred” is a meaningless marketing concept that will appeal only to the most uninformed home buyers, and it suggests that Garzón Tajamares tried but failed to become a member of the TPC Network. The tour now has “A” clubs and “B” clubs, and who really wants to be part of the latter?

     Mike Strantz’s 18-hole track at the defunct Royal New Kent Golf Club is about to enjoy a second life. Wingfield Golf, a firm founded by the officially retired but obviously still active Barton Tuck, has agreed to buy Royal New Kent, a venue in greater Richmond, Virginia that closed in late 2017. If all goes as scheduled, Wingfield will re-open the club next spring, after a $2 million upgrade. Neither the buyer nor the seller, Traditional Golf Properties, has so far announced the sale price. Royal New Kent’s planned revitalization is welcome news for fans of Strantz, who died young but whose small body of work showed great promise. Unfortunately, Wingfield reportedly has no interest in buying the Strantz-designed, Traditional Golf-owned layout at the nearby Tradition Club at Stonehouse.

     Surplus Transactions – The owner of a roofing business has acquired, for an undisclosed price, Ricci Meadows Golf Course, an venue in greater Rochester, New York that’s operated since the 1950s. Andrew Young isn’t a golfer, but he believes that “it’s easy to think about running a golf course if you think of it as a business.” The 18-hole track is now known as Carlton Meadows Golf Course. . . . The Little River Band of Ottawa Indians has acquired what’s been described as “one of the most scenic courses in Northern Michigan.” Bear Lake Highlands Golf Course, an 18-hole track in the town of Bear Lake, has been in business since 1964. . . . For an undisclosed price, and just days before a scheduled auction, Scott Simmons and Kent Kletscher have purchased Poplar Golf Course, an 18-hole layout in extreme northwestern Wisconsin. A local bank had foreclosed on the 58-year-old course last fall.

     Dan Pedrotti, the president of Foresight Golf, has secured a rezoning for a tract in San Antonio, Texas that he hopes will become Valor Club, a community tailored to the needs of transitioning military veterans. The community has been master-planned to include houses, a shopping area, sports facilities, an entertainment complex, and a nine-hole, par-3 course that the Rivard Report says will be playable by people “with limited mobility.” Valor Club will take shape on 215 acres formerly occupied by Foresight’s Pecan Valley Golf Club, a venue that hosted the PGA Championship in 1968.

     Pipeline Overflow – A well-known charitable group in Arizona has floated a proposal to transform Randolph Golf Course, a 36-hole municipal complex, into “the crown jewel of golf in Tucson.” The Tucson Conquistadores believe that a refreshed Randolph could lure a PGA Tour event to the city. . . . Pending approval by local and national authorities, investors from Vietnam and Malaysia aim to create a man-made island on a 3,500-acre expanse of water in Đà Nẵng Bay. Lotus Island, which will be connected to the mainland via a bridge, will feature houses, office and retail space, at least one casino, a Formula One race track, and what a Vietnamese news service calls “golf courses.” . . . Art Schaupeter’s 18-hole layout at TPC of Colorado, the centerpiece of a community outside Fort Collins, is said to be “the first new course to be built in Colorado since 2009.” The community’s developer, Jon Turner, is hoping to capitalize on what he’s called “an emptiness for high-end golf in Northern Colorado,” not to mention “a really good real estate market and a good economy.”

     Duly Noted – The off-shore wind farm that Donald Trump complained so bitterly about – the one he claimed would ruin the views from his golf course in Aberdeenshire and destroy tourism in Scotland – has been built. It’s expected to begin producing electricity later this year. So far, no complaints from golfers. . . . The golf business in the Twin Cities of Minnesota is doing “better than average,” reports the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. Here’s part of the reason why: Between 2006 and 2015, while the total number of golf courses in the United States fell by 3 percent, the number of courses in and around the capital city remained flat. . . . Talk about an embarrassment of riches: Golf Digest set out to identify the top 10 courses created by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, and it ended up naming 20.

     Are you wondering how much of a week’s golf news I cover in this blog? The answer, unfortunately, is just a fraction of what passes my way. The golf business, particularly the development side of the golf business, has unquestionably perked up over the past year or two, and there’s no way for me to address all of it. So if your business requires a more comprehensive news digest, contact me via e-mail at golfcoursereport@aol.com. I’ll send you a sample issue of either U.S. or International Construction Clips, depending on your needs.