The Week That Was, july 22, 2018

     Through the first six months of this year, golf-course owners and operators in Myrtle Beach are ringing up fewer rounds than they did in 2017. According to data compiled by the Myrtle Beach Area Golf Course Owners Association and Golf Tourism Solutions, the number of rounds played in the vacation spot in South Carolina, long a bellwether of the golf economy, is down by 2.5 percent. Tracy Conner, the executive director of the owners’ association, acknowledged the decline, blaming it on “a much more difficult year in terms of weather,” but he’s optimistic about the future, for he’s concluded that on weekends with favorable weather, “our rounds will out-perform last year’s pace.” That being said, the Myrtle Beach area has recorded declines in play in 13 of the past 14 years.

     Discovery Land Company has laid plans to build a high-end golf community in suburban Austin, Texas. The Scottsdale, Arizona-based company owns at least 16 golf properties in the United States, Mexico, and the Bahamas, and the to-be-named venue in Driftwood will be its second in Texas, joining Vaquero Club in greater Dallas/Fort Worth. DLC hasn’t said when construction would begin, but the 500-acre spread in Austin is expected to include houses, a retail/commercial area, and an 18-hole golf course. It’s no stretch to assume that the course will be designed by Tom Fazio, who’s created probably a dozen for DLC, among them Estancia Club in Scottsdale, Arizona; Gozzer Ranch in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Iron Horse in Whitefish, Montana; the Madison Club in La Quinta, California; and Summit Club outside Las Vegas, Nevada.

     Pipeline Overflow – The Nicklaus empire has proposed to build its first golf course in Northern Ireland. If elected officials in Belfast approve the idea, the track will take shape on a 200-acre tract called Giant’s Park. Jack Nicklaus has so far opened two “signature” layout in Ireland, in Dublin and County Kilkenny. . . . A “world-class” 18-hole golf course is expected to take shape in Bodh Gaya, a village in Bihar, India that draws Buddhist pilgrims from Japan, Thailand, and other nations. In addition to the golf course, the Hindustan Times says the state also wants to develop hotels, “a musical park,” and “an ultra-modern gymnasium.” . . . Jeff Brauer’s redesign of the 18-hole course at the Southern Hills Golf Club, in Liberty City, Texas, is scheduled to be officially unveiled next month. The venue is now known as Tempest Golf Club, and Brauer expects it to have “the best course in East Texas.”

     Saticoy Partners has set out to restore a William F. Bell-designed layout in metropolitan Los Angeles “to its rightful place as one of the great golf courses in California and all of the United States.” The new ownership group paid an undisclosed price for Saticoy Club, whose 18-hole course has over the years been refreshed by Robert Muir Graves and, in what appears to be a collaboration, John Harbottle and Tom Doak. Saticoy Partners has hired Arnold Palmer Design Company to oversee the next wave of renovations.

     Surplus Transactions – Toll Brothers has agreed to sell Snowmass Club, a 200-acre venue outside Aspen, Colorado with a Jim Engh-designed golf course, for “around $20 million.” Assuming the sale is completed, ABA Hospitality intends to restore the club, which is currently open to the public, to its “private roots.” . . . A minor golf landmark, Indian Lake Golf Club in Central City, Pennsylvania, has changed hands again. Indian Lake Borough reportedly paid $600,000 for the 18-hole track that markets itself as Arnold Palmer’s first design, though the King designed only nine holes. The property last turned over only about a year ago, to a group that had hoped to preserve a “little piece of Arnie.” . . . For an undisclosed price, Greg McKush has acquired Montgomery National Golf Course, an 18-hole track in greater Minneapolis, Minnesota. The course, which made its debut in 1970, was designed by Joel Goldstrand.

     City officials in Wichita, Kansas have voted to pull the plug on L. W. Clapp Golf Course, an 18-hole track that’s operated since 1923. Clapp lost $235,000 in 2017, and the Wichita Eagle reports that all five properties in the city’s portfolio have been “bleeding money” in recent years. “I think we have too many golf holes and not enough golfers,” the director of parks and recreation told the newspaper. “We don’t even have money to pay our bills to make it to the end of this year.” Part of Clapp’s problem is that it uses potable water, which costs more than $100,000 a year.

     Desolation Row Extended – Cavaliers Country Club, a 146-acre venue in Newark, Delaware that’s said to be experiencing “sagging business,” will soon bite the dust. Cavaliers, which dates from about 1960, will be replaced with more than 700 houses. . . . The curtains have been drawn on Quail Walk Country Club, a 44-year-old facility in Wetumpka, Alabama. “If I’m ever going to retire, now is the time,” the club’s owner, 78-year-old Earl Singleton, told WSFA-TV. Singleton, who’s owned Quail Walk for a decade, isn’t a golfer and likely won’t become one. . . . Come the end of the current golf season, golfers who live in and around Worcester, Massachusetts will say goodbye to Dunroamin Country Club. The club, which features a nine-hole course, has been around since the mid 1960s. The Republican says that it once had 200 members but today has just 28.

     Duly Noted – Marcia Chambers, recently remembered as “the voice of reason on all golf’s really serious issues of the law and discrimination,” died last week, at the age of 78. Chambers did valuable service to golf by writing about racism and sexism at private clubs, subjects that reporters these days do their best to ignore. . . . The K Club, once described as “probably the most opulent golf resort in Ireland,” is for sale. The owner, Michael Smurfit, hopes to get €80 million (more than $93.8 million) for the 550-acre spread in County Kildare that hosted the Ryder Cup matches of 2006.