vietnam World Enough & Time
Bless their greedy little hearts, government officials in Hanoi have approved the construction of five new golf courses. If all five are built, says Thanh Nien News, the city’s stock of courses will grow to eight.
Right now you may be wondering, Does Hanoi need eight golf courses? For years, I’ve been asking the same question. The metropolitan area may be home to a lot of people -- the Vancouver Sun says that the area has a population of 6.5 million -- but hardly any of them play golf. As best I can determine, in all of Vietnam there are still only about 5,000 golfers, about the number you'll find in a seniors-only community in suburban Phoenix.
Of course, what I think really doesn’t matter. All that really matters is what the city’s tourism officials think, because they aim to attract 30 million travelers by 2030, including 4.5 million international travelers. They’re on a mission, and they believe they need eight golf courses to complete it.
Building golf courses for tourists is all well and good, presuming you’re comfortable when a nation builds its golf industry on what amounts to the kindness of strangers. Such an approach is made-to-order for celebrity architects such as Greg Norman, who recently bragged that he’s picked up five commissions in Vietnam. Unfortunately, “signature” architecture is a build-them-and-they-will-come strategy, one created primarily to sell houses and attract vacationers. It doesn’t build an enduring golf industry.
Me, I’d rather see Vietnam develop an industry that can sustain itself by selling tee times to local residents. But that takes time, and as we all know, time is money.
india Get Your Motors Running
While Vietnam’s nascent golf industry places its bets on travelers, India’s well-established industry is hoping to cash in on upwardly mobile suburbanites.
A case in point: The city of Chennai, India’s version of Detroit, is about to witness the opening of its first golf community. The 369-acre spread, called Palace Gardens, will feature a nine-hole golf course that’s been designed by David Hemstock.
“The people who buy our homes have ‘arrived,’ ” the community’s developer, Manzer Hussain, told the Hindu. “We asked ourselves how best we could meet their aspirations, and since golf is still regarded as an aristocrat’s game, we decided to create a facility to add to our residents’ experience.”
Like some of the more aspirational golf communities in the United States, Palace Gardens appears to be a monument to conspicuous consumption. The Hindu describes it as having “a set of über-luxurious homes,” an Olympic-sized pool, and enough “marble, columns, and cupolas to put a Roman to shame.”
The golf course is expected to open next year. Hemstock, who’s based in Derbyshire, England, says it’s being built “in record time,” but the social momentum for its emergence has been building for years. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day.
talking points Following the Money in North Dakota
For the past four years, the operative word at many U.S. golf courses has been discount. It’s as if the nation’s golf-course owners have taken a page from Mervis Diamonds’ playbook: Nobody pay full price anymore. Why should you?
Once a course cuts its rates, its competitors are practically obliged to follow suit, and the inevitable downward spiral begins. Prices drop lower and lower until it’s impossible for any course to make a profit.
The mayor of Fargo, North Dakota, like other city officials in municipalities from coast to coast, has been thinking about reducing greens fees at his city’s Pebble Creek Golf Course. But Jim Keegan of Golf Convergence, who was hired to evaluate the course’s financial operations, doesn’t think price-cutting is a wise strategy. Here’s how he addressed the issue at a recent city council meeting, as recounted by the Sherburne County Citizen:
Keegan’s assessment: Contrary to what most people think, lowering prices to create more rounds of golf does not work. He said in order for the golf course to lower their rates from $55 to $40 (as proposed by a local group) and generate the same revenue as today, they’d have to bring in nearly 9,400 additional rounds of play -- or 38 percent -- which Keegan says is unlikely.
Keegan said, however, if the course raised their rates -- say, for example, 25 percent -- they could lose 20 percent of rounds currently played, have better course conditions from decreased use, and possibly lower maintenance costs with the same revenue.
“This is about revenue, not rounds of golf,” Keegan said.
Keep that in mind when you set your greens fees for 2013.
wild card click Up and down the East Coast this weekend, people are hunkering down for what could be a long siege. Caution: Things are always slippery when they’re wet.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Friday, October 26, 2012
The Pulse, october 26, 2012
Because we’ve seen the words shark and golf course in the same sentence so many times, we’ve been conditioned to wait for the inevitable mention of Greg Norman. We’re like Pavlov’s dogs. We wait and we salivate. But in San Juan Capistrano, California this week, an actual swim-in-the-water shark -- a 24-inch leopard shark, according to an eyewitness -- was found wiggling and writhing on the 12th tee at San Juan Hills Golf Club. “Shark falling from the sky -- kind of odd,” concluded a club official. Odd? More like eerie, I think. What
kind of sinister message was this, and who sent it? Who sleeps with the fishes? . . . It’s not just sharks that are turning up on golf courses. In Sidney, Nebraska, a mountain lion was recently spotted near Hillside Golf Course. And in two golf communities in California -- in Palm Desert and Rancho Mirage -- coyotes have bitten women and attacked a dog. “I want people to know, and I want them to be very, very careful of their young toddlers in the yard, because I do believe that there’s going to be something horrific happening,” said a terrified resident. Just to note: Horrific is a word not often heard in gated communities. . . . Mountain lions and coyotes may prowl golf communities, but they don’t design golf courses. For architectural animals, many in our business place their trust in the legendary Golden Bear and a newcomer to the business named Tiger Woods. As has been well-chronicled, the newcomer has signed three contracts for new courses but not yet built even one. So today he growls happily, because last month construction finally began on a Woods-designed layout. It’s in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, at the Diamante resort community. With luck, by 2014 we’ll know how the eye of Tiger transforms a landscape into a golfscape. . . . Still waiting for that Greg Norman reference? Quit carping. It’s on the way. . . . Coyotes aren’t the only animals making trouble in California’s Coachella Valley. Flocks of American Coots -- I refer to the bird species, not to the collection of old geezers playing poker in the card room -- have become such nuisances that some clubs in the valley have requested permission to shoot them, or at least shoot at them. “Coots are a problem at every golf course in the valley,” reports a superintendent at Indian Wells Golf Resort. “The only way to really deal with them is through harassment.” Harassment? Okay, as long as the club screens The Birds before it loads its shotguns. . . . You may be thinking that the last course you played on is “a dog track” or “a cow pasture.” But don’t say it out loud. Because Golf Club at Vistoso, in Oro Valley, Arizona, has suspended one of its members for describing its golf course as “a goat ranch.” The criticism was apparently too much for the club to bear. . . . You can stop salivating. Greg Norman, the Great White himself, has begun shaping a course on the coast of southeastern Vietnam. The track, part of a casino-focused resort, is being built atop seaside dunes, and its developers say it’ll be “one of the best, if not the best, course in Asia” when it opens roughly a year from now. As for Norman, he says his goal is “to deliver a timeless and memorable golf experience.” As for me, I’m waiting for the day when a bird drops a two-foot shark on the 12th tee.
kind of sinister message was this, and who sent it? Who sleeps with the fishes? . . . It’s not just sharks that are turning up on golf courses. In Sidney, Nebraska, a mountain lion was recently spotted near Hillside Golf Course. And in two golf communities in California -- in Palm Desert and Rancho Mirage -- coyotes have bitten women and attacked a dog. “I want people to know, and I want them to be very, very careful of their young toddlers in the yard, because I do believe that there’s going to be something horrific happening,” said a terrified resident. Just to note: Horrific is a word not often heard in gated communities. . . . Mountain lions and coyotes may prowl golf communities, but they don’t design golf courses. For architectural animals, many in our business place their trust in the legendary Golden Bear and a newcomer to the business named Tiger Woods. As has been well-chronicled, the newcomer has signed three contracts for new courses but not yet built even one. So today he growls happily, because last month construction finally began on a Woods-designed layout. It’s in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, at the Diamante resort community. With luck, by 2014 we’ll know how the eye of Tiger transforms a landscape into a golfscape. . . . Still waiting for that Greg Norman reference? Quit carping. It’s on the way. . . . Coyotes aren’t the only animals making trouble in California’s Coachella Valley. Flocks of American Coots -- I refer to the bird species, not to the collection of old geezers playing poker in the card room -- have become such nuisances that some clubs in the valley have requested permission to shoot them, or at least shoot at them. “Coots are a problem at every golf course in the valley,” reports a superintendent at Indian Wells Golf Resort. “The only way to really deal with them is through harassment.” Harassment? Okay, as long as the club screens The Birds before it loads its shotguns. . . . You may be thinking that the last course you played on is “a dog track” or “a cow pasture.” But don’t say it out loud. Because Golf Club at Vistoso, in Oro Valley, Arizona, has suspended one of its members for describing its golf course as “a goat ranch.” The criticism was apparently too much for the club to bear. . . . You can stop salivating. Greg Norman, the Great White himself, has begun shaping a course on the coast of southeastern Vietnam. The track, part of a casino-focused resort, is being built atop seaside dunes, and its developers say it’ll be “one of the best, if not the best, course in Asia” when it opens roughly a year from now. As for Norman, he says his goal is “to deliver a timeless and memorable golf experience.” As for me, I’m waiting for the day when a bird drops a two-foot shark on the 12th tee.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
The Week That Was, october 21, 2012
united states In Texas, a Bellwether Debuts
It’s fair to say that golfers in Laredo, Texas can now take their game to the Max.
I refer to the Max. A. Mandel Municipal Golf Course, which made its debut this week. The 7,200-yard track is the first to be owned by the city and one of the precious few that will open in the United States this year.
A decade ago, when U.S. golf construction was still going strong, I almost certainly wouldn’t have reported on the opening of a municipal golf course. Laredo’s course, however, has special significance for me. It’s served as one of my personal touchstones, as the golf project that for me exemplifies exactly how much the design industry has changed as a result of the Great Recession.
Once upon a time, municipal courses were designed by regional architects – by people most golfers have never heard of. But when Laredo opened its design competition, it was contacted not just by unknowns but by virtually every brand-name architect in the business. If I remember correctly, the city collected something like 30 submissions. The city had its pick of the litter.
The contract went to Robert Trent Jones, Jr., who most certainly didn’t achieve international fame by designing municipal tracks. Jones typically rubs shoulders with kings and presidents, not with city councilmen. To me, the fact that he was willing to throw his hat into the municipal ring told me everything I needed to know about how hard things had become for course designers.
Yes, indeed, times have certainly changed for golf course architects. Their world has gone all topsy-turvy. Down is up, and up is down.
Welcome to the brave new world.
australia For Horton Park, the End Is Near
The internal bickering has quieted, more than $43 million (U.S.) has been deposited, and the ordeal of relocation is drawing to a close for Horton Park Golf Club. Any day now, construction is scheduled to begin on the club’s new centerpiece, an 18-hole, Graham Marsh-designed golf course that may eventually be joined by a third nine.
It’s been a long haul. Developers have been beating on Horton Park’s doors since the early 2000s, when they concluded that the club’s 132 acres in Maroochydore, Queensland (the town is 60 miles north of Brisbane) were just begging to be converted into houses and stores. The club took the bait and tried to relocate in partnership with two development groups, but in the end, after being stymied by the Great Recession, it accepted an offer from the government, in the form of Sunshine Coast Council.
Horton Park has operated in Maroochydore for nearly a half-century. Its new home will be less than 10 miles away, on a 300-acre parcel in Bli Bli.
Marsh, a former professional golfer who’s based in Robina, Queensland, has designed golf courses on four continents, including two well-regarded tracks in the United States: Sutton Bay Golf Course in Agar, South Dakota and the Pines course at the Prairie Club in Valentine, Nebraska. The track he’s designed for Horton Park will reportedly be dotted with more than 25 acres’ worth of lakes, to address drainage issues. The course construction will entail moving more than 340,000 cubic yards of soil.
If all goes as planned, the club’s members will move into their new digs in the summer of 2014.
Some information in the preceding post originally appeared in the August 2009 and the April, May, and June 2011 issues of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
canada Notes on the State of the Game
A few notes on golf in Canada, from a study commissioned by the National Allied Golf Associations:
-- The nation has 2,400 golf courses and 5.7 million golfers.
-- Over the past year, just over 1 million new players took up the game in Canada. Unfortunately, roughly the same number quit playing.
-- By and large, Canadians aren’t frequent golfers. Nearly 2.2 million of the nation’s golfers play only once or twice a year, and more than 4.2 million play no more than eight rounds a year.
-- In Canada, as in most nations, it’s tough to sell women on the merits of the game. Canadian women often feel that golf is “not worth the cost.”
-- Golf development in Canada isn’t likely to perk up anytime soon. “In almost every market across Canada, the feeling is that there is a slight oversupply,” Jeff Calderwood, the executive director of the National Golf Course Owners’ Association, told the researchers. “It’s not drastic, although a lot of golf course owners, in their own back yards, will say it is.”
-- Anyone who feels compelled to build a golf course in Canada should probably do it in Calgary. It’s the nation’s only major market that still has a little room for growth.
The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the October 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
wild card click Of all the ways to measure the degrees of separation between St. Andrews and Bandon Dunes, this one involves an architect with an accent.
It’s fair to say that golfers in Laredo, Texas can now take their game to the Max.
I refer to the Max. A. Mandel Municipal Golf Course, which made its debut this week. The 7,200-yard track is the first to be owned by the city and one of the precious few that will open in the United States this year.
A decade ago, when U.S. golf construction was still going strong, I almost certainly wouldn’t have reported on the opening of a municipal golf course. Laredo’s course, however, has special significance for me. It’s served as one of my personal touchstones, as the golf project that for me exemplifies exactly how much the design industry has changed as a result of the Great Recession.
Once upon a time, municipal courses were designed by regional architects – by people most golfers have never heard of. But when Laredo opened its design competition, it was contacted not just by unknowns but by virtually every brand-name architect in the business. If I remember correctly, the city collected something like 30 submissions. The city had its pick of the litter.
The contract went to Robert Trent Jones, Jr., who most certainly didn’t achieve international fame by designing municipal tracks. Jones typically rubs shoulders with kings and presidents, not with city councilmen. To me, the fact that he was willing to throw his hat into the municipal ring told me everything I needed to know about how hard things had become for course designers.
Yes, indeed, times have certainly changed for golf course architects. Their world has gone all topsy-turvy. Down is up, and up is down.
Welcome to the brave new world.
australia For Horton Park, the End Is Near
The internal bickering has quieted, more than $43 million (U.S.) has been deposited, and the ordeal of relocation is drawing to a close for Horton Park Golf Club. Any day now, construction is scheduled to begin on the club’s new centerpiece, an 18-hole, Graham Marsh-designed golf course that may eventually be joined by a third nine.
It’s been a long haul. Developers have been beating on Horton Park’s doors since the early 2000s, when they concluded that the club’s 132 acres in Maroochydore, Queensland (the town is 60 miles north of Brisbane) were just begging to be converted into houses and stores. The club took the bait and tried to relocate in partnership with two development groups, but in the end, after being stymied by the Great Recession, it accepted an offer from the government, in the form of Sunshine Coast Council.
Horton Park has operated in Maroochydore for nearly a half-century. Its new home will be less than 10 miles away, on a 300-acre parcel in Bli Bli.
Marsh, a former professional golfer who’s based in Robina, Queensland, has designed golf courses on four continents, including two well-regarded tracks in the United States: Sutton Bay Golf Course in Agar, South Dakota and the Pines course at the Prairie Club in Valentine, Nebraska. The track he’s designed for Horton Park will reportedly be dotted with more than 25 acres’ worth of lakes, to address drainage issues. The course construction will entail moving more than 340,000 cubic yards of soil.
If all goes as planned, the club’s members will move into their new digs in the summer of 2014.
Some information in the preceding post originally appeared in the August 2009 and the April, May, and June 2011 issues of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
canada Notes on the State of the Game
A few notes on golf in Canada, from a study commissioned by the National Allied Golf Associations:
-- The nation has 2,400 golf courses and 5.7 million golfers.
-- Over the past year, just over 1 million new players took up the game in Canada. Unfortunately, roughly the same number quit playing.
-- By and large, Canadians aren’t frequent golfers. Nearly 2.2 million of the nation’s golfers play only once or twice a year, and more than 4.2 million play no more than eight rounds a year.
-- In Canada, as in most nations, it’s tough to sell women on the merits of the game. Canadian women often feel that golf is “not worth the cost.”
-- Golf development in Canada isn’t likely to perk up anytime soon. “In almost every market across Canada, the feeling is that there is a slight oversupply,” Jeff Calderwood, the executive director of the National Golf Course Owners’ Association, told the researchers. “It’s not drastic, although a lot of golf course owners, in their own back yards, will say it is.”
-- Anyone who feels compelled to build a golf course in Canada should probably do it in Calgary. It’s the nation’s only major market that still has a little room for growth.
The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the October 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
wild card click Of all the ways to measure the degrees of separation between St. Andrews and Bandon Dunes, this one involves an architect with an accent.
Friday, October 19, 2012
Short Notice, october 19, 2012
Oakhurst Links has found its white knight. He’s Jim Justice, the billionaire farmer and coal mogul who’s been on a golf spending spree since May 2009, when he bought the historic Greenbrier Resort & Spa. Justice’s latest acquisition, one of the nation’s oldest courses (it was built in 1884), was facing foreclosure, and its aging owner was desperate to find a buyer who’d preserve it. In the end, Lewis Keller didn’t have to look very far, because Oakhurst Links is located just a few miles from the Greenbrier, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. “To be perfectly honest,” Justice told a newspaper, “I don’t know that it’s going to be a great thing for the Greenbrier. But I know it’s a great thing to do.” Since his purchase of the Greenbrier and its four 18-hole courses, Justice has also acquired the Resort at Glade Springs in Daniels, West Virginia (it has three 18-hole courses) and Wintergreen Resort near Charlottesville, Virginia (45 holes).
Oil-rich Azerbaijan may not have a golf market to speak of, but it’ll soon have Quba Golf Club, which is set to open in Baku, the nation’s capital city, in two nine-hole waves, in the fall of 2012 and in the spring of 2013. The debut is a watershed moment in the nation’s golf history, for Quba will be its first course. The championship-length track was designed by International Design Group (formerly PGA Design Consulting) of Bristol, England and built by Total Golf Construction of Vero Beach, Florida. Accompanying the course will be practice facilities for beginners and a 200-room hotel for tourists. Bruce Glasco of Troon Golf, Quba’s management company, has called the facility “an intriguing and ground-breaking development for the people of Azerbaijan and its international guests.”
The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the September 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
As the golf season draws to a close across much of the United States, news about the financial performance of the nation’s golf courses is starting to trickle across the World Wide Web. This week, a dispatch arrived from the village of Buffalo Grove, Illinois, which recorded profits at both of its 18-hole golf courses through the first eight months of this year. Buffalo Grove Golf Club rang up $892,000 in revenues against $695,000 in expenses, while Arboretum Club rang up $878,000 in revenues against $809,999 in expenses. Both courses showed slight increases in the number of rounds played from last year, and the Buffalo Grove layout recovered from a money-losing season in 2011. Neither course has yet reported results from September and October, but the village manager has said that he’s “pleased with the improved performance.”
Alan Blalock, a golf course architect from Birmingham, Alabama, died last month. I didn’t know him and had spoken with him just once, many years ago, when he was hoping to design a course
for a Tournament Players Club in the Birmingham area. I bring up this sad news because Blalock’s passing hasn’t been mentioned by any golf media, and that’s a disservice to his memory. So let me say this: It should be remembered that Blalock produced two new courses in Alabama -- Moore’s Mill Golf Club in Auburn and Tartan Pines Golf Club in Enterprise -- both of which he co-designed with former PGA pro Glen Day. It should also be remembered that he designed a First Tee facility in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and that he collaborated with another former PGA pro, Hubert Green, on a few renovations in Southern states. And finally, it should be remembered that he was just 64 when he died.
Oil-rich Azerbaijan may not have a golf market to speak of, but it’ll soon have Quba Golf Club, which is set to open in Baku, the nation’s capital city, in two nine-hole waves, in the fall of 2012 and in the spring of 2013. The debut is a watershed moment in the nation’s golf history, for Quba will be its first course. The championship-length track was designed by International Design Group (formerly PGA Design Consulting) of Bristol, England and built by Total Golf Construction of Vero Beach, Florida. Accompanying the course will be practice facilities for beginners and a 200-room hotel for tourists. Bruce Glasco of Troon Golf, Quba’s management company, has called the facility “an intriguing and ground-breaking development for the people of Azerbaijan and its international guests.”
The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the September 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
As the golf season draws to a close across much of the United States, news about the financial performance of the nation’s golf courses is starting to trickle across the World Wide Web. This week, a dispatch arrived from the village of Buffalo Grove, Illinois, which recorded profits at both of its 18-hole golf courses through the first eight months of this year. Buffalo Grove Golf Club rang up $892,000 in revenues against $695,000 in expenses, while Arboretum Club rang up $878,000 in revenues against $809,999 in expenses. Both courses showed slight increases in the number of rounds played from last year, and the Buffalo Grove layout recovered from a money-losing season in 2011. Neither course has yet reported results from September and October, but the village manager has said that he’s “pleased with the improved performance.”
Alan Blalock, a golf course architect from Birmingham, Alabama, died last month. I didn’t know him and had spoken with him just once, many years ago, when he was hoping to design a course
for a Tournament Players Club in the Birmingham area. I bring up this sad news because Blalock’s passing hasn’t been mentioned by any golf media, and that’s a disservice to his memory. So let me say this: It should be remembered that Blalock produced two new courses in Alabama -- Moore’s Mill Golf Club in Auburn and Tartan Pines Golf Club in Enterprise -- both of which he co-designed with former PGA pro Glen Day. It should also be remembered that he designed a First Tee facility in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and that he collaborated with another former PGA pro, Hubert Green, on a few renovations in Southern states. And finally, it should be remembered that he was just 64 when he died.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
australia Getting into the Swim of Things
Would it be too corny to build a shark-shaped golf course in “the fresh seafood capital of Australia”?
Dean Lukin, Jr. doesn’t think so. He wants to build an 18-hole course on part of a 375-acre coastal parcel in Port Lincoln, a town that’s known for the great white sharks that live in its waters. Heck, parts of Jaws were filmed not far way.
“It will be the biggest tourist attraction,” Lukin told the Adelaide Advertiser earlier this year. “And because it has never been done in the world, it should help draw a lot of international visitors to Port Lincoln.”
I’ll leave the debate on that topic for another day. For now, I’m happy that a golf course, no matter what shape it comes in, is floating Lukin’s boat.
Lukin is well-known in Port Lincoln, a town located about 150 miles (as the crow flies) west of Adelaide, in South Australia. His father, one of the local tuna fishermen, became a champion weightlifter, a gold medal winner at the 1984 Olympics. After the games, despite his fame, he returned home and has been running the family’s fishing business ever since.
Besides the golf course, Lukin aims to build 500 or more houses, a hotel, a shopping center, and a new wharf for local fishermen. His s proposal is supported by the area’s economic-development groups as well as Port Lincoln Golf Club, which is thinking about relocating to the new course. The club’s existing 6,348-yard track, which dates from 1968, suffers, somewhat ironically, from a lack of water. Despite its location, Port Lincoln gets only 19 inches of rain annually, and over the years the club has drained all the quality water out of its wells.
“Without doubt,” the club remarks on its website, “the cost, supply, and management of water is the single biggest issue facing the Port Lincoln Golf Club over the next decade and beyond.”
Lukin hasn’t yet selected an architect for his course, but the Port Lincoln Times says that he aims “to get a big player on board” to create a destination-worthy track. Of course, if he really wants to build a shark-shaped layout, there seems to be an obvious choice.
The original version of this story first appeared in the August 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Dean Lukin, Jr. doesn’t think so. He wants to build an 18-hole course on part of a 375-acre coastal parcel in Port Lincoln, a town that’s known for the great white sharks that live in its waters. Heck, parts of Jaws were filmed not far way.
“It will be the biggest tourist attraction,” Lukin told the Adelaide Advertiser earlier this year. “And because it has never been done in the world, it should help draw a lot of international visitors to Port Lincoln.”
I’ll leave the debate on that topic for another day. For now, I’m happy that a golf course, no matter what shape it comes in, is floating Lukin’s boat.
Lukin is well-known in Port Lincoln, a town located about 150 miles (as the crow flies) west of Adelaide, in South Australia. His father, one of the local tuna fishermen, became a champion weightlifter, a gold medal winner at the 1984 Olympics. After the games, despite his fame, he returned home and has been running the family’s fishing business ever since.
Besides the golf course, Lukin aims to build 500 or more houses, a hotel, a shopping center, and a new wharf for local fishermen. His s proposal is supported by the area’s economic-development groups as well as Port Lincoln Golf Club, which is thinking about relocating to the new course. The club’s existing 6,348-yard track, which dates from 1968, suffers, somewhat ironically, from a lack of water. Despite its location, Port Lincoln gets only 19 inches of rain annually, and over the years the club has drained all the quality water out of its wells.
“Without doubt,” the club remarks on its website, “the cost, supply, and management of water is the single biggest issue facing the Port Lincoln Golf Club over the next decade and beyond.”
Lukin hasn’t yet selected an architect for his course, but the Port Lincoln Times says that he aims “to get a big player on board” to create a destination-worthy track. Of course, if he really wants to build a shark-shaped layout, there seems to be an obvious choice.
The original version of this story first appeared in the August 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
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