The Week That Was, october 14, 2018

     Gil Hanse will design the second 18-hole course at Les Bordes International Golf Club, a task that was originally to have been done by the late Robert von Hagge. The course will be Hanse’s first in Continental Europe, and he expects to break ground on it in early 2019.
     Les Bordes, a 32-year-old venue outside Orleans, in the Loire Valley of central France, was established by Baron Marcel Bich, the founder of the company that makes Bic pens, in the hope of creating “the Augusta National of Europe.” Bich hired von Hagge to design the club’s first course, a layout that’s widely viewed as von Hagge’s “piece de resistance” and that Darius Oliver of Planet Golf ranks as the third-best in the nation. Oliver, a tough critic, notes that the track has a “punishing penal design” and questions some of von Hagge’s design decisions, but he nonetheless concludes that the final product is “attractive, well-constructed, and very enjoyable to play.”
     Von Hagge produced a design for Les Bordes’ second course as well, a layout that was envisioned to be more forgiving than the first, with wider fairways and less treacherous bunkers. But Bich died in 1994 and von Hagge died in 2010, the Great Recession paralyzed the world, and the venture lost momentum. Although the club’s current owners laid plans to begin construction in 2011 (Rick Baril, one of the partners in Von Hagge’s Texas-based firm, was to oversee the construction), they didn’t follow through.
     Hanse is expected to deliver a “classic heathland course,” and he told Golf Course Architecture that he’s “excited that the standard of quality is already so high at Les Bordes, so it gives us something to aspire to.” His clients are no doubt excited to use his growing international reputation in their marketing, as they intend to build houses (starting price: $810,000) and a “five-star branded hotel” with “a multitude of amenities for the whole family.”
     If all goes as planned, and if the weather cooperates, Hanse’s course might open in early 2020.

     Pipeline Overflow – Tower Holdings’ dream of financing its long-overdue golf resort in Australia with cryptocurrency has gone nowhere, so it’s agreed to sell the lease on its property on Great Keppel Island to a Singapore-based investment group, Wei Chao Pty. Ltd. The prospective owners are said to “share the passion for the project” and, more importantly, they have “the financial means and desire to take the project to the next level.” . . . Government officials in Madhya Pradesh, India aim to build a “world-class” golf course on part of a cattle ranch outside Bhopal. For those who are too young to remember, in 1984 a pesticide factory in Bhopal was the site of what’s generally acknowledged to be “the world’s worst industrial disaster.” Several thousand people died, and something like 500,000 were injured. . . . Plans to create a nine-hole, child-friendly track on the site of the former Shallow Creek Golf Course, outside Putnam Valley, New York, appear to have been revived. Rocco Cambareri had hoped to build the course and had secured a $250,000 grant from the Wadsworth Golf Charities Foundation to help do it, but he died last year. According to the News Journal, Larry Nussbaum is stepping up to finish the job his former partner started.

     The members of Wimbledon Park Golf Club appear set to sell the lease on their property to their next-door neighbor, the All England Club, the group that hosts the annual Wimbledon professional tennis tournament in London. The All England Club owns the lease on Wimbledon Park’s 73 acres and will assume control of the site in 2041, but it wants to build new facilities sooner rather than later and is willing to pay dearly – £63.75 million (more than $83.8 million) – for the privilege. Assuming the sale is completed (a vote is expected before the end of the year), and assuming my math is accurate, each of Wimbledon Park’s 750 members will pocket almost $112,000 as a result of the sale. The downside is that they’ll lose their Willie Park, Jr.-designed golf course, an 18-hole track that’s been around since 1898. The upside, however, should be obvious.

     Surplus Transactions – Club at Fairvue Plantation, a 1,000-acre spread on Old Hickory Lake in Gallatin, Tennessee, has acquired Foxland Harbor Golf & Country Club, and the freshly created 36-hole facility now calls itself Tennessee Grasslands Golf & Country Club. Both golf courses were designed by Bill Bergin, one in 2004 and the other in 2007. . . . Club at Runaway Bay, struggling, a half-century-old facility located roughly 60 miles northwest of Fort Worth, Texas, has been acquired by a family-based group without any golf experience. “We’re just feeling our way along, but it’s not rocket science,” one of the new owners told the Wise County Messenger. The club, which features an 18-hole, Leon Howard-designed golf course, now operates as RB Golf Club & Resort. . . . Andrew Sigler has sold Montcalm Golf Club, a financially challenged, 15-year-old venue in Enfield, New Hampshire, to a pair of club members. Art and Suzanne Langlais paid an undisclosed price for Montcalm, which features an 18-hole course that was co-designed by Phil Wogan and George Sargent.

     Duly Noted – In what amounts to a significant vote of confidence, Hyatt Hotels Corporation has announced plans to open nine new hotels in Africa in 2019 and 2020. To explain its decision, the big Chicago-based hotelier cited the continent’s “increasingly favorable business climate,” “heightened tourism spend,” and “growing middle class” – all factors that also lay a strong foundation for golf development. . . . China, which is quickly amassing economic and political influence all over the world, has found a new target: The golf business in Ghana. The Chinese ambassador to the West African nation, attending a tournament that he described as “another demonstration of the China-Ghana friendship,” promised to “support the development of the game to an international standard” and “do its best to support professional golfers and to get the youth interested and involved in the game.” . . . More than 50,000 objections have been submitted in protest of expansion plans, including a second golf course, by Trump Aberdeen Scotland. A local elected official called the resort’s recently filed development proposal “the most unpopular set of planning applications ever lodged.”

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