The Week That Was, march 10, 2019

     A 300-acre tract in Smith River, California, a town just south of the Oregon state line, may be developed as a resort with “a luxury retirement community” built around an 18-hole, par-3 golf course. Jason Roe and his wife, Julie Yim, expect their Resort & Residences at Pelican Heights to include 80 “private residences,” 30 condo/hotel suites, villas and bungalows for seniors, a 120-room hotel, an amphitheater, and other amenities. Smith River is way off the beaten track, but to attract home buyers Roe and Yim plan to run a shuttle bus to and from the nearby Lucky 7 Casino and offer transportation via a Porsche SUV to restaurants and other attractions in the area.

     Pipeline Overflow – An 18-hole, Tom Lehman-designed golf course will be the centerpiece of Chambers Creek Ranch, a 1,200-acre, seniors-only community in metropolitan Houston, Texas that’s scheduled to debut next year. Lehman’s track will be surrounded by 3,000 houses whose residents, the developers say, will enjoy “an unprecedented lifestyle.” . . . An update on the commission that Greg “the Living Brand” Norman has won from Novaland in Vietnam: The first course will take shape outside Phan Thiết, the capital of Bình Thuận Province, with construction expected to begin any day now. . . . Tony Cobb, one of Coore & Crenshaw’s longtime associates, is overseeing the construction of his first solo design venture. Golf Course Architecture reports that the 18-hole track is taking shape in greater Bangkok, Thailand, on property owned by Phornthep Phornprapha of Siam Country Club, and will take two years to build due to “the long rainy season and difficult soils.”

     Less than six months after it went looking for an investment partner, Loch Lomond Golf Club has found a buyer for its Dundonald Links. Darwin Leisure has reportedly paid £4.5 million (roughly $5.86 million) for Dundonald, a Kyle Phillips-designed layout that’s hosted several events on the European Tour, among them both the men’s and women’s Scottish Open championships. The track, a manufactured modern links, has an attractive location in Ayrshire, Scotland, as its neighbors include Royal Troon Golf Club, Prestwick Golf Club, and Western Gailes Golf Club. Perhaps more importantly, it’s said to operate in the black. Darwin Leisure aims to capitalize on the location by building overnight accommodations, a spa, a permanent clubhouse, and probably some houses on Dundonald’s 200-acre property. The company owns two golf properties in England, Springs Golf Club in Oxfordshire and KP Golf Club in Yorkshire, and it claims to be on the prowl for other golf-related acquisitions in Scotland.

     Surplus Transactions – For $12.5 million, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has purchased a 315-acre tract that includes General Old Golf Course, an 18-hole track that opened in 1955. The property is located on March Air Reserve Base, outside Moreno Valley, California, and at some point in the distant future – probably 10 years or more – the VA expects to extend its Riverside National Cemetery onto the golf course. . . . For $740,000, Jessica Blaska-Grady has acquired Kestrel Ridge Golf Course, a 17-year-old venue in suburban Madison, Wisconsin that she believes is “the perfect example of a destination course that can be a true community asset.” Kestrel Ridge, which features an 18-hole track that was co-designed by Dan Feick and Chad Eberhardt, will complement Blaska-Grady’s other golf property, Oaks Golf Course in nearby Cottage Grove. . . . Sometime this spring, Jim Kimball plans to flip his struggling, 80-year-old Osceola Country Club to the city of Osceola, Iowa. Kimball bought the club and its nine-hole golf course in January, confident that the city will clear its debt, make improvements, and continue its operation.

     Duly Noted – The final word has been rendered in Keith Foster’s federal court case. The painstakingly hands-on restorer of Golden Age courses has been sentenced to a 30-day jail term (plus one year of “supervised release”) for smuggling illegal goods into our country and selling them out of his antiques store in Middleburg, Virginia. Though Foster’s future in the golf industry is uncertain, Americans have a habit of quickly forgiving white-collar criminality. . . . Individual #1’s golf venue in Virginia, operating as Trump National Golf Club, Washington, DC, has been slapped with a trio of citations for clear-cutting a grove of trees along the Potomac River without permission. The property’s owner committed a similar breach of the public trust in 2009, shortly after he reportedly paid $13 million for what was then known as Lowes Island Club. . . . As told to Golf Digest: A guy came up to me in a hotel bar, some over-served sponsor. He squinted at me and said, “Aren’t you Dan Jenkins?” I nodded. He said, “I’ve read some of your stuff. Man, you’ve got a problem.” I said, “No, you’ve got the problem. I’ve got the typewriter.”

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