. . . The Windy City beckons: Tom Doak has been tapped to oversee a complete makeover of the #1 course at Medinah Country Club in suburban Chicago. The 6,713-yard layout was designed by Tom Bendelow and opened in 1925. Subsequent renovations were reportedly overseen by Roger Packard and Roger Rulewich, but a club official admits that “very little work has been done” to the course in recent years. As of mid April, the club and Doak hadn’t officially signed a contract, but Barry Garrett, the club’s general manager, told me that it’s “our wish to do a deal.” The work could begin as early as 2011, though it’s more likely that it'll begin after Medinah's #3, recently overhauled by Rees Jones, course hosts the Ryder Cup in 2012.
. . . Once upon a time, the biggest names in golf design wouldn't be caught dead bidding on a municipal golf project, especially one with a budget ceiling of just $6.6 million, clubhouse and all. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and most every architect in the United States submitted a bid to design the city of Laredo's new course, which is under construction and scheduled to open roughly a year from now. Robert Trent Jones, Jr., he of the prodigious ego and the immortal pedigree, won the competition. At a recent press preview, Jones humbly announced that his 7,297-yard track “is destined to be regarded as one of the best public golf courses in Texas.”
. . . Does anybody out there know when National Golf Day is? Correct answer: April 13. I know because I got a press release telling me that, as part of the fourth annual National Golf Day festivities, members of We Are Golf took to Capitol Hill to “share stories and data that illustrate golf's diverse businesses and employees, the tax revenue it creates, the tourism it spawns, the charity it generates, and the environmental leadership it provides.” In other words, in the grand Washington tradition, they lobbied their elected officials to get their slice of the government pie. Here's Golf Digest's take on the challenge We Are Golf faces in changing hearts and minds, in Congress and in towns and cities from coast to coast:
There’s a lot of talk these days about whether we can raise enough money to promote our game sufficiently in Washington and elsewhere. But golf’s problem isn’t insufficient funds. It’s insufficient fun.
Our game is run by good players . . . and they focus on the sport as competition. (Include Golf Digest here). What do they spend most of their time on? Scores, handicaps, rules, stats. They have created an avid golfer often obsessed with score, frequently intolerant of beginners, and, because they live to break some personal best, study every shot and play as if they have all the time in the world. Our competitions take five and six hours, and we talk until our audiences are nodding off about golf’s sacred integrity. . . .
But the game’s growth, its sense of inclusion, its “We Are Golf” soul, depends upon making way for new players who just want to have fun -- the hitters and gigglers who don’t know Jack Nicklaus from Jack Nicholson, couldn’t identify a square groove if you comped their green fee, and live to hit a drive into the range picker’s cart. Their bible is not Mark Frost’s The Match but Happy Gilmore, if they know that much, and golf may be just an excuse to meet a neighbor, play a few holes, spend time with their spouse, walk for a couple of hours, or drink a Corona.
I sure hope the people behind We Are Golf are successful in getting their points across. Because if they aren't, we'll have to change their name to We Were Golf.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
netherlands Channeling Harry Colt
An 80-year-old golf course designed by Harry S. Colt will serve as the inspiration for a heathland-style layout that’s to be built just east of Eindhoven, in southern Holland.
De Swinkelsche will take shape on 240 acres in Someren. Its developers, Harry and Hendrik Swinkels, hope it reminds people of Eindhovensche Golf Course, a nearby Colt-designed track that opened in 1930 and is, according to Golf Course Architecture, “generally considered the best course of the southern Netherlands.”
The brothers were hoping to break ground on the course in early 2011. It’ll be joined by an aqua range and, eventually, a nine-hole “practice” course.
De Swinkelsche has been designed by Frank Pont, a Den Dolder-based architect whose work emulates that of “classic” designers, particularly Colt and Tom Simpson. Pont may be biased, but he told me via e-mail that De Swinkelsche will be “one of the Netherlands’ best new courses built in the last 30 years.”
Pont, the principal of Infinite Variety Golf Design, earned an MBA at the University of Chicago and, after a stint as an investment banker in England, studied golf design in Edinburgh and did an apprenticeship with David McLay Kidd. His 18-hole course at Turfvaert Golfpark in Breda opened last year, and he’s renovated or is currently renovating nearly two dozen courses designed by Colt, Simpson, Henry Cotton, and Frank Pennink.
Pont is also waiting to begin work on two other projects in the Netherlands. In late 2011 or early 2012, he expects to break ground on a 36-hole complex for the 1,350-acre Landgoed Princepeel estate near Nijmegen, and in 2012 he hopes to start work on an 18-hole course for the Rolduc seminary and conference center in Kerkrade.
De Swinkelsche will take shape on 240 acres in Someren. Its developers, Harry and Hendrik Swinkels, hope it reminds people of Eindhovensche Golf Course, a nearby Colt-designed track that opened in 1930 and is, according to Golf Course Architecture, “generally considered the best course of the southern Netherlands.”
The brothers were hoping to break ground on the course in early 2011. It’ll be joined by an aqua range and, eventually, a nine-hole “practice” course.
De Swinkelsche has been designed by Frank Pont, a Den Dolder-based architect whose work emulates that of “classic” designers, particularly Colt and Tom Simpson. Pont may be biased, but he told me via e-mail that De Swinkelsche will be “one of the Netherlands’ best new courses built in the last 30 years.”
Pont, the principal of Infinite Variety Golf Design, earned an MBA at the University of Chicago and, after a stint as an investment banker in England, studied golf design in Edinburgh and did an apprenticeship with David McLay Kidd. His 18-hole course at Turfvaert Golfpark in Breda opened last year, and he’s renovated or is currently renovating nearly two dozen courses designed by Colt, Simpson, Henry Cotton, and Frank Pennink.
Pont is also waiting to begin work on two other projects in the Netherlands. In late 2011 or early 2012, he expects to break ground on a 36-hole complex for the 1,350-acre Landgoed Princepeel estate near Nijmegen, and in 2012 he hopes to start work on an 18-hole course for the Rolduc seminary and conference center in Kerkrade.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
The Week That Was: April 24, 2011
brazil Olympics Course Finds Its Home
The people in charge of the golf event at the 2016 Olympics haven't yet settled on a course designer, but they've apparently settled on a site.
“A site has been earmarked,” reports Peter Dawson, the president of the International Golf Federation, which is overseeing the search.
The property is in “a tremendous location,” Dawson said in a story reported by SportingLife.com, “very close to the beach and only three or four kilometers from the Olympic village.”
Dawson also told the website that Rio de Janeiro's Olympic organizing committee is currently negotiating to acquire the property. “We hope to have more news on that in the next two or three weeks,” he said.
Next up for the Powers That Be: selecting the course's designer.
According to Dawson, “about 15 companies” have asked to be considered, and the winner will be selected sooner rather than later. The list includes both share-the-limelight teams (Jack Nicklaus and Annika Sorenstam, Greg Norman and Lorena Ochoa) and noteworthy sole practitioners (Arnold Palmer, Gary Player).
“It's a part of the world where the grass grows very quickly,” Dawson says, “but we need to determine the architect and get going on it this year, otherwise it's going to be a rush.”
maldives Troon Rides the Wave
The world's least likely golf venture appears to be picking up steam.
Troon Golf, a blue-ribbon management company, has signed on as a “technical advisor” to the developers who aim to build a “floating” resort near Male, the capital of the Maldives. According to a press release issued by Scottsdale, Arizona-based Troon, the to-be-named resort now has a construction schedule -- the opening date is set for 2015 -- and will include “state-of-the-art golf courses.”
And you thought I was nuts when I blogged about the project last September. Heck, pictures of the concept are now available!
The Maldives is an island nation in the Indian Ocean, roughly 600 miles off the southern coast of India. It's the lowest country on the planet -– the vast majority of it is only about three feet above sea level -– and, if the tides of global climate change continue on their current path, it’s in danger of being flooded into extinction.
Last year, the Maldives' government hired Dutch Docklands to explore the idea of building a resort on man-made islands that would both attract tourists and draw attention to its predicament. I'll confess that I never really believed the resort would get off the drawing board. Now I'm not so sure.
Besides its “world-class golf facility,” the resort will include houses and a hotel. Troon's press release says that it'll take shape on a “picturesque site” (in the world of press releases, there's really no other kind) just a short drive from the island's airport.
china The Price of Privilege
Does golf cost too much on Hainan Island in China?
China Radio International, a state-owned media company, reports that the number of golf-obsessed travelers visiting Hainan Island from Japan and Korea is declining, in part because rounds of golf have become too expensive. With fewer deep-pocketed vacationers to fill time sheets, says CRI, “calls for more affordable golf or making golf a mass sport have grown loud.”
Affordable golf in China, one of the most expensive golf markets on earth? A mass sport in a nation that habitually divides itself into haves and have-nots?
Not anytime soon, I don't think. A nation doesn't begin to deliver “affordable golf” -- that is, golf priced to suit its people and the amount of money in their wallets -- until it develops its own unique, up-from-the-masses golf culture. In China, a johnny-come-lately to golf, the process will likely take decades, no matter how much money the government decides to throw at it.
Through its short history, China's golf business has mostly followed the money, tailoring its products for upwardly mobile families who long to live in houses overlooking golf courses and on free-spending travelers eager to fill hotels, restaurants, and spas in places like Hainan Island. CRI says as much when it notes that golf in the People's Republic “is considered an exclusive pastime for the rich and privileged.”
Such a culture doesn't change overnight. It needs to evolve.
Still, it seems that at least one of Hainan Island's resorts might be willing to down-scale its operations.
“Making golf available and more affordable to the public,” said a top official of Yalong Bay Golf Club in Sanya, “may mean a reduction of our overall revenue, but it will bring us more profit because we are no longer targeting high-end customers, [which] means we may simplify luxury services, thus reducing costs.”
I'm thinking that Yalong Bay might want to run that idea past its accountants before acting on it.
The people in charge of the golf event at the 2016 Olympics haven't yet settled on a course designer, but they've apparently settled on a site.
“A site has been earmarked,” reports Peter Dawson, the president of the International Golf Federation, which is overseeing the search.
The property is in “a tremendous location,” Dawson said in a story reported by SportingLife.com, “very close to the beach and only three or four kilometers from the Olympic village.”
Dawson also told the website that Rio de Janeiro's Olympic organizing committee is currently negotiating to acquire the property. “We hope to have more news on that in the next two or three weeks,” he said.
Next up for the Powers That Be: selecting the course's designer.
According to Dawson, “about 15 companies” have asked to be considered, and the winner will be selected sooner rather than later. The list includes both share-the-limelight teams (Jack Nicklaus and Annika Sorenstam, Greg Norman and Lorena Ochoa) and noteworthy sole practitioners (Arnold Palmer, Gary Player).
“It's a part of the world where the grass grows very quickly,” Dawson says, “but we need to determine the architect and get going on it this year, otherwise it's going to be a rush.”
maldives Troon Rides the Wave
The world's least likely golf venture appears to be picking up steam.
Troon Golf, a blue-ribbon management company, has signed on as a “technical advisor” to the developers who aim to build a “floating” resort near Male, the capital of the Maldives. According to a press release issued by Scottsdale, Arizona-based Troon, the to-be-named resort now has a construction schedule -- the opening date is set for 2015 -- and will include “state-of-the-art golf courses.”
And you thought I was nuts when I blogged about the project last September. Heck, pictures of the concept are now available!
The Maldives is an island nation in the Indian Ocean, roughly 600 miles off the southern coast of India. It's the lowest country on the planet -– the vast majority of it is only about three feet above sea level -– and, if the tides of global climate change continue on their current path, it’s in danger of being flooded into extinction.
Last year, the Maldives' government hired Dutch Docklands to explore the idea of building a resort on man-made islands that would both attract tourists and draw attention to its predicament. I'll confess that I never really believed the resort would get off the drawing board. Now I'm not so sure.
Besides its “world-class golf facility,” the resort will include houses and a hotel. Troon's press release says that it'll take shape on a “picturesque site” (in the world of press releases, there's really no other kind) just a short drive from the island's airport.
china The Price of Privilege
Does golf cost too much on Hainan Island in China?
China Radio International, a state-owned media company, reports that the number of golf-obsessed travelers visiting Hainan Island from Japan and Korea is declining, in part because rounds of golf have become too expensive. With fewer deep-pocketed vacationers to fill time sheets, says CRI, “calls for more affordable golf or making golf a mass sport have grown loud.”
Affordable golf in China, one of the most expensive golf markets on earth? A mass sport in a nation that habitually divides itself into haves and have-nots?
Not anytime soon, I don't think. A nation doesn't begin to deliver “affordable golf” -- that is, golf priced to suit its people and the amount of money in their wallets -- until it develops its own unique, up-from-the-masses golf culture. In China, a johnny-come-lately to golf, the process will likely take decades, no matter how much money the government decides to throw at it.
Through its short history, China's golf business has mostly followed the money, tailoring its products for upwardly mobile families who long to live in houses overlooking golf courses and on free-spending travelers eager to fill hotels, restaurants, and spas in places like Hainan Island. CRI says as much when it notes that golf in the People's Republic “is considered an exclusive pastime for the rich and privileged.”
Such a culture doesn't change overnight. It needs to evolve.
Still, it seems that at least one of Hainan Island's resorts might be willing to down-scale its operations.
“Making golf available and more affordable to the public,” said a top official of Yalong Bay Golf Club in Sanya, “may mean a reduction of our overall revenue, but it will bring us more profit because we are no longer targeting high-end customers, [which] means we may simplify luxury services, thus reducing costs.”
I'm thinking that Yalong Bay might want to run that idea past its accountants before acting on it.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Shameless Self-Promotion, april 2011
Will golfers in the Land O'Lakes region of southern Ontario soon be singing “Hooray for Hollywood”? Can a golf community and a former munitions depot in northern England co-exist peacefully? And what do India's largest convention center and a company in North Carolina have in common?
Those are among the questions we answer in this month's World Edition of the Golf Course Report, still the first and only publication dedicated exclusively to reporting on golf development and construction all over the planet.
April's issue is really jam-packed with stories. We report on the upcoming relocation of Horton Park Golf Club in Queensland, Australia, the remaking of Schloss Moyland Golf Resort in Germany, and the Spanish developer that aims to build a pair of golf communities in Andalusia. We unveil new courses in Holland, in suburban Vancouver, in Sri Lanka, and in suburban Manila, and we've got the scoop on Rees Jones' second golf project in China.
Speaking of China, we've also got an update on Tom Doak's twin projects on Hainan Island, along with news of a 36-hole complex recently announced by China Golf Group.
And we profile two new golf courses in Romania: one that will be part of a four-season resort community planned to grow around a historic castle, the other being developed by the owner of the nation's largest chain of do-it-yourself stores.
There's more, but I'm sure you get the idea: We cover it all.
If you'd like to see this month's World Edition, give me a call at 301/680-9460 or send an e-mail to me at WorldEdition@aol.com.
Those are among the questions we answer in this month's World Edition of the Golf Course Report, still the first and only publication dedicated exclusively to reporting on golf development and construction all over the planet.
April's issue is really jam-packed with stories. We report on the upcoming relocation of Horton Park Golf Club in Queensland, Australia, the remaking of Schloss Moyland Golf Resort in Germany, and the Spanish developer that aims to build a pair of golf communities in Andalusia. We unveil new courses in Holland, in suburban Vancouver, in Sri Lanka, and in suburban Manila, and we've got the scoop on Rees Jones' second golf project in China.
Speaking of China, we've also got an update on Tom Doak's twin projects on Hainan Island, along with news of a 36-hole complex recently announced by China Golf Group.
And we profile two new golf courses in Romania: one that will be part of a four-season resort community planned to grow around a historic castle, the other being developed by the owner of the nation's largest chain of do-it-yourself stores.
There's more, but I'm sure you get the idea: We cover it all.
If you'd like to see this month's World Edition, give me a call at 301/680-9460 or send an e-mail to me at WorldEdition@aol.com.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
russia Forrest Service
Earlier this year Steve Forrest was in Morocco, checking on the progress of the 18-hole golf course he’s designed for the Chrifia resort community in Marrakesh. He's also planning a trip to Russia, as he has an 18-hole course in St. Petersburg that could break ground this spring.
Forrest isn't willing to discuss new the course, but he did mention that this summer he expects to resume construction on Forest Hills Golf & Country Club in suburban Moscow. Work on the club’s 7,300-yard course began several years ago (12 holes were completed) but was suspended when its developer, Oleg Kustikov of Protcion Company, got into a financial pinch.
Forrest, a principal of Toledo, Ohio-based Arthur Hills & Associates, reports that “a new investor with money” has given the project life. We don’t know exactly what the new investor has in mind, but Kustikov, who owned 550 acres, had planned to build vacation houses and a five-star hotel adjacent to the course.
Forrest hopes to open his 7,000-yard course at Chrifia in the spring of 2012, but he doesn’t foresee picking up any additional business in Morocco anytime soon.
“We’re putting our eggs in China and Russia,” he says.
Forrest isn't willing to discuss new the course, but he did mention that this summer he expects to resume construction on Forest Hills Golf & Country Club in suburban Moscow. Work on the club’s 7,300-yard course began several years ago (12 holes were completed) but was suspended when its developer, Oleg Kustikov of Protcion Company, got into a financial pinch.
Forrest, a principal of Toledo, Ohio-based Arthur Hills & Associates, reports that “a new investor with money” has given the project life. We don’t know exactly what the new investor has in mind, but Kustikov, who owned 550 acres, had planned to build vacation houses and a five-star hotel adjacent to the course.
Forrest hopes to open his 7,000-yard course at Chrifia in the spring of 2012, but he doesn’t foresee picking up any additional business in Morocco anytime soon.
“We’re putting our eggs in China and Russia,” he says.
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