The Week That Was, october 21, 2018

     In what’s been characterized as “a milestone moment,” a seaside golf destination in Messinia, Greece has commissioned José María Olazábal to design its third and fourth golf courses. The 18-hole tracks will be among the featured attractions at Costa Navarino, a well-financed, 2,500-acre spread that already boasts signature layouts by Bernhard Langer and Robert Trent Jones, Jr. In a press release, Olazábal describes the site he’s been given as “spectacular,” with views that “are simply breathtaking,” and he’s promised to deliver “a golfing experience you will want to return to over and over.” The San Sebastián, Spain-based architect’s courses are under construction, and they’re expected to open in 2021. They’re being built to what a press release calls “the highest international standards,” but Darius Oliver of Planet Golf believes that there’s “a long way to go before [Olazábal} can be considered a genuine architect of ability.”  

     Pipeline Overflow – Lennar Corporation will build the first of two or three golf courses that will eventually emerge at Babcock Ranch, Kitson & Partners’ slowly emerging mini-city in Charlotte and Lee counties in Florida. The course, part of a community called Babcock National, will be “similar to many of the country clubs Lennar has done in Southwest Florida,” which means that it’ll feature roughly 1,000 houses and an 18-hole, Gordy Lewis-designed golf course. . . . The billionaire who serves as the deputy prime minister of Kosovo hopes to build a resort community that Sputnik News calls “Albania’s first entry into the high-end tourism market.” Behgjet Pacolli has set out to build the to-be-named community outside Tirana, the nation’s capital city, and he’s master-planned it to include houses, a hotel, a shopping mall, a water park, and an 18-hole golf course. . . . David Shipley and some golf-minded associates in Salt Lake City, Utah are looking to resurrect the defunct Wingpointe Golf Course. Shipley told the Salt Lake Tribune that Wingpointe’s 18-hole, Arthur Hills-designed layout, lifeless since 2005, “had a reputation of being one of the great courses in the country” and could, if redesigned and revialized, become “one more reason for people to visit Salt Lake City.”

     Sunrise Company, one of the best-known development crews in California’s Coachella Valley, has acquired Andalusia Country Club, a faux-Spanish golf community in La Quinta. The seller was an affiliate of Drummond Company, a coal-mining concern that developed the nearby Rancho La Quinta Country Club and similar golf communities in Alabama (Liberty Park in suburban Birmingham) and Florida (Grasslands Golf & Country Club in Lakeland). Andalusia, which opened in 2005, features an 18-hole, Rees Jones-designed golf course, and Sunrise’s CEO, Randall Bone, believes it’s “one of the finest country club communities in the desert.” It’ll complement Sunrise’s other golf properties, a group that includes two in Rancho Mirage (Sunrise Country Club and Rancho Las Palmas Country Club), four in Palm Desert (among them Indian Ridge Country Club and Palm Valley Country Club), and Toscana Country Club in Indian Wells.

     Surplus Transactions – Richard Childress, a famous former NASCAR racer, has accepted $1.2 million for his struggling Sapona Ridge Country Club, a 50-year-old venue in Lexington, North Carolina. The club’s new owner is Mark Moore, who works for Uber. . . . Joseph Lewis, a real-estate broker and a “self-described optimist,” has paid an undisclosed amount for Turquoise Valley Golf Course, an 18-hole track that’s operated since 1908 in remote Naco, Arizona. The Herald/Review reports that Lewis and his partners are Turquoise Valley’s fourth owners “in the past few years.” . . . Regarding American Golf Corporation’s expected sale of Plantation Country Club, in Boise, Idaho: The prospective new owner is Will Gustafson, a California-based developer who’s said to be assessing “the viability of the 18-hole golf course” and “its future potential.” American Golf told KTVB-TV that it’ll continue to manage the club, but it didn’t say for how long.

     Duly Noted – It’s smart business when golf courses become more welcoming to women, and the Herald Tribune has provided a fresh reason for owners and operators in Florida to do so: The number of retirement-age women moving into the state these days far exceeds the number of retirement-age men. It’s a demographic shift that has important implications for the future of golf in the Sunshine State. . . . The International Association of Golf Tour Operators has announced its five regional destinations of the year, and they are Scottsdale, Arizona; the Dominican Republic; Spain’s Costa del Sol; Mauritius; and Hua Hin, Thailand. As always, the IAGTO also announced an Undiscovered Golf Destination of the Year: Logroño, a city in the Rioja wine region in in northern Spain. . . . The number-one golf course in China, according to the South China Morning Post, is an 18-hole, Nelson & Haworth-designed track at Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai. Coore & Crenshaw’s layout at CITIC Shanqin Bay Golf Club, the top-rated venue on Golf Digest’s China rankings, checks in at number three, behind the crazy salad of 27 holes designed by 27 architects at the 27 Club in Tianjin.

     I’ve asked this question before, and I’ll ask it again: Are you wondering how much of a week’s golf news I cover in this blog? The answer is this: Only a fraction of what passes my way. The golf business, particularly the development side of the golf business, has unquestionably perked up in recent years, 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.