The Week That Was, december 15, 2019

     It won’t be operated by Universal Studios, but a long-overdue theme park in South Korea “looks set to go ahead,” according to a British news group. So while residents of suburban Seoul won’t be able to mingle with the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park or the great white shark from Jaws, they’ll get to enjoy what CladNews believes will be “a theme park unlike anything else in the world.” That’s a high bar, and few details are available, but the 1,050-acre Hwaseong International Theme Park figures to be the second-largest in Asia (after Shanghai Disney Resort), and it’ll include thrill rides, hotels, houses, stages for K-Poppers and other musical acts, shopping malls, lots of places to eat and drink, and an 18-hole golf course. The venue was originally proposed by Universal in 2007 but flattened by the Great Recession. The new version is being developed by Shinsegae Property Consortium, which consists of companies tied to Lee Myung-hee, the daughter of the fellow who founded Samsung and one of South Korea’s richest people. She owns a pair of golf properties in greater Seoul, Jayu Country Club and Trinity Country Club. If all goes as expected, Shinsegae will break ground on the theme park in 2021 and begin welcoming guests in 2026.

     Pipeline Overflow – A groundbreaking hasn’t been announced, but David McLay Kidd will design a golf course in Saudi Arabia, at the Red Sea giga-project that’s expected to take shape along – you guessed it – the kingdom’s Red Sea coast. I mentioned the project many months ago in a story for Golf Inc., but Kidd couldn’t talk about it then and still won’t now, due to a non-disclosure agreement that he’s signed. For more on the future of golf in the kingdom, look for my story in an upcoming issue of Golf Inc. . . . The People’s Committee in DaNang, Vietnam hopes to secure permission to build a 36-hole golf complex on a 1,240-acre parcel southwest of the city’s international airport. The courses will be accompanied by 2,000 hotel rooms and a variety of tourist-friendly attractions, and a news service in the socialist republic says that construction is supposed to begin “this year.” . . . Fingers crossed, but elected officials in Brisbane, Australia expect a residential developer to break ground on Cannon Hill Community Links early next year. The 18-hole, Phil Ryan-designed track was supposed to be open by now, as its construction was tied to home-building that’s already taking place.

     Bob Richards, the famous former Olympic pole-vaulter, has unloaded Twin Rivers Golf Club, a venue in Waco, Texas that he paid $1.1 million for in 2013. Twin Rivers, which opened in 2001 as Bear Ridge Golf Club, features an 18-hole, Peter Jacobson/Jim Hardy course that’s been a financial drain and is said to be in lousy shape. “I would sell in a heartbeat if we got the right price,” Richards told the Waco Tribune last year, his price guesstimated to be $3 million. The club’s new owner, Tommy Tompkins, hasn’t revealed what he paid for Twin Rivers, but he’s previously said that it isn’t worth $3 million. “Mr. Richards really wanted to do the right thing,” he told the Tribune upon closing the transaction, “but he didn’t have the means to do it.” Tompkins has restored the club’s original name, and he’s promised to restore its reputation.

     Surplus Transactions – Luna Golf LLC, an entity led by Mark White, has purchased Pointe West Country Club, a 20-year-old venue in Vero Beach, Florida. Pointe West’s 18-hole course was designed by John Sanford, who reportedly “moved tons of earth to create a unique mix of elevation changes on an otherwise level piece of land.” . . . At a public auction in October, a pair of hoteliers agreed to buy Cave Valley Golf Club, one of the featured attractions of the Park Mammoth Resort outside Bowling Green, Kentucky. The Bowling Green Daily News reports that the resort is “financially ailing” but notes that David Chandler and Mike Simpson “have a history of finding opportunities.” . . . Speaking of hoteliers, Sameer Ailawadi has placed the winning bid for Lakeview Golf Resort, a 412-acre venue in Morgantown, West Virginia. Ailawadi, who owns at least a half-dozen hotels in the Washington, DC area, offered $2.25 million for Lakeview, which features a 187-room hotel, meeting space, restaurants, and a variety of recreational amenities, including a pair (one by James Harrison, one by Brian Ault) of 18-hole golf courses.

     Duly Noted – The Telegraph, a British newspaper, says that Bali, the most popular vacation spot in Indonesia, is “on the brink of ecological collapse” due to drought. Conservationists put the blame on waves of water-guzzling tourists, but the government is nonetheless committed to increasing its visitor numbers. . . . This one falls into the category of credits we might have anticipated, but Roger Rulewich wants to set the record straight about who designed the golf venues on the Alabama’s Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. “I really have to let people know how that worked,” Jones’s former top assistant told the Morning Read. “Jones frankly had little to do with it, other than PR.” . . . In its latest newsletter, Golfasian reported that 40 courses are currently open for play in Vietnam, an unofficial and probably inaccurate count. Sadly, no official numbers are available – I found “somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 courses” in 2016 and published a claim of 58 by the socialist republic’s Ministry of Natural Resources & Environment in 2017 – but one fact seems clear: Vietnam isn’t going to meet its goal of having 96 courses by 2020. Nice try, though, and, as always, it’s the thought that counts.

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