The Year That Was, december 30, 2012

Stories of the Year  

Good as Gold. Fending off competition from a parade of household names, Gil Hanse won the year’s most coveted design commission: the $300,000 contract to design the golf course for the 2016 Olympics in Brazil. His selection wasn’t merely a blow to the egos of the high-priced celebrity and “signature” architects who were left empty-handed -- the group included Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Robert Trent Jones, Jr., and Greg Norman -- but arguably a watershed moment in the history of golf design, for it signaled the official changing of the guard. The Olympics’ message was clear: The future of golf design has been turned over to a new generation.

The Great Scot. Even if it’s not “the world’s greatest golf course,” as it was so often promised to be, by all accounts Donald Trump’s long-awaited layout on Scotland’s fabulously wrinkled northeastern coast is destination worthy. Trump may be a blowhard and a publicity hound, but let’s call his success in Scotland what it is: A personal and professional triumph that cements his golf bona fides. Kisses should also be blown to architect Martin Hawtree, who stood up to Trump’s world-class pressure and produced a track worthy of hosting golf’s grandest professional tournaments. My question: Will Trump be awarded a big-time event in Scotland before he gets one in the United States?

What Becomes a Legend Most? Without question, the hottest controversy of 2012 was sparked by proposed “alterations” to the revered Old Course at St. Andrews. The design changes, which have been sanctioned by the Royal & Ancient to protect par at the Open Championship in 2015, elicited loud protests from Tom Doak, Ian Andrew, and other admirers of classic golf architecture, who claimed an injustice was being committed. Unfortunately, the protesters found few supporters among their peers. The R&A stood its ground, groups representing architects on both sides of the Atlantic boldly refused to voice an opinion, and the storm blew over in less than two weeks. In the end, the debate proved to be exactly what golf’s most powerful interests hoped it would be: Much ado about nothing.

Reason To Believe. This year, all the needles and gauges that measure the temperature of the U.S. golf business pointed up. Bloomberg concluded that our industry is “growing for the first time in five years,” the president of Nike’s golf division stated that 2012 “will probably be the strongest year since the recession,” and the National Golf Foundation predicted that we’ll end the year with “the largest single-year jump” in rounds played “since the turn of the century.” No doubt, many dark clouds continue to loom over golf’s horizons. Still, tomorrow night I’m popping a cork.

Ladies' Day. Golf will forever be a man’s world, but as time goes by, binders full of women may very well remember 2012 as the year when Augusta National Golf Club finally admitted female members. Yes, the club’s decision to welcome Condoleezza Rice and Darla Moore was long overdue, and no, I don’t expect other men-only clubs to change their policies as a result of it. But barrels of ink were spilled covering this happy occasion, and that’s good for golf. In our business, progress is measured incrementally.

People of the Year

It was a busy and very productive year for Donald Trump. When he wasn’t pretending to run for president, the golf mogul and reality TV star opened his celebrated links in Scotland and gave the proverbial green light to the property’s second Martin Hawtree-designed track. In addition, Trump added (or agreed to add) three U.S. golf properties to his ever-growing portfolio: the world-famous Doral resort in Miami, Florida, the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club & Spa in Jupiter, Florida, and Point Lake & Golf Club in Mooresville, North Carolina. Finally, Trump agreed to operate New York City’s forthcoming Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course at Ferry Point Park in the Bronx. If he didn’t so often succumb to his buffoonish inclinations, Trump’s reputation in the golf business would be golden. That being said, people who don’t take him seriously do so at their own peril. He’s arguably the major player in our business.

If you’ve ever considered taking a golf vacation in Tasmania, the credit should probably go to Greg Ramsay. The island’s busiest, youngest, and most dedicated golf developer conceived and helped to build Barnbougle Dunes and has since then evangelized tirelessly for uncompromising seaside courses that exemplify Golden Age values. This year Ramsay unveiled a plan to build another destination-worthy course, this one along the island’s southern coast, and got involved in a venture to revive Solis, a dormant golf community on the island’s eastern coast. He’s also working with Bicheno Golf Club to add nine holes to its existing nine, and he’s signed on as a consultant to Claremont Golf Club, which will soon undergo a massive redesign. If he keeps up like this, it’s going to be impossible for devotees of links golf to keep Tasmania off their bucket lists.

Gary Player likes to brag that he’s the world’s most traveled athlete -- 15 million air miles and counting -- and these days, at the age of 77, he doesn’t appear to be cutting back on his travels. He has courses under construction in South Carolina, in India, and in Honduras, and he expects to soon break ground on others in India, Italy, Morocco, Montenegro, and Gabon. Such work loads are, of course, typical for “signature” designers, at least in good times. What makes Player unique -- and increasingly relevant to our age -- is his advocacy for environmentally sensible design and his outspoken commitment to responsible development practices. Few other architects have a corporate philosophy that goes like this: “We will not knowingly accept projects that are environmentally irresponsible, damage ecosystems without remediation, illegally displace people from their homes, follow unethical methods to gain project approvals, exercise unfair, unsafe, or discriminatory labor practices, or generally infringe on basic human rights.” If you’ve ever wondered why Player doesn’t win more commissions, maybe now you know why.

The Debuts: Minimalist Maximus

This was a year minimalists have been dreaming about, because three of 2012’s most anticipated new golf venues -- I’m not including Trump’s aforementioned track in Scotland -- were designed by people with dirt on their hands and mud on their boots. In fact, you could call 2012 an all-star year for the Golf Club Atlas all-stars, in particular the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. The Texas-based duo produced one of the two 18-hole, links-like layouts at the Streamsong resort in Florida (Tom Doak designed the other) and one called Shanqin Bay on Hainan Island that Darius Oliver of Australian Golf Digest says is “the best golf course in China right now.” Rod Whitman got a major career boost when Cabot Links, along the coast of Nova Scotia, was acclaimed as Canada’s course of the year, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind you that Coore & Crenshaw have been tapped to design the second course at Cabot Links.

Good Deed of the Year

When Oakhurst Links was desperately searching for a white knight, Jim Justice drew his sword. The billionaire farmer and coal mogul wrote a check that saved the 128-year-old course in West Virginia from almost certain extinction, preserving an important piece golf’s history when others would not. Not to be trite about it, but Justice was done. The purchase was further proof that, sartorially speaking, nothing wears as well as a financial suit of armor.

May They Rest in Peace

The design wing of our business lost five members in 2012. The grand old men of the group were Geoffrey Cornish and K. D. Bagga, both of whom truly “grew the game” and left important legacies. Cornish made an enduring contribution as the co-author (with Ron Whitten) of two invaluable reference books on design, The Golf Course and The Architects of Golf. Bagga, an Indian architect, had dedicated the final 20 or so years of his life to the mostly thankless task of designing and building what he called “affordable, easily sustainable, and more accessible golf courses for the masses.” Our business also lost John Harbottle, one of the best-known architects in the Pacific Northwest, who aimed to create what he once described as “natural-looking golf courses with a links touch”; Alan Blalock, an architect from Alabama who collaborated with Glen Day and Hubert Green; and Robin Nelson, who lived in California but worked mostly in Hawaii and Asia. I encourage you to learn more about all of them and to celebrate their lives.

Memento Mori, december 28, 2012

The final rounds at Patch Golf Club, in Groves, Texas, will be played on December 30. “The constant rise in fuel prices, insurance, insecticides, herbicides, and the cost of maintaining equipment, combined with declining revenues, left us no choice,” said Brad Bailey, the course’s owner and the town’s mayor. The Patch’s nine-hole, 67-year-old course was nothing special -- the Port Arthur News called the club “pretty much a bare-bones operation” -- but it nurtured Chris Stroud, who’s now a PGA pro. “The Patch has a special place in my heart,” Stroud told the newspaper. “When my friends were going to parties, I was at the Patch, often playing by myself.” The News believes the course “is being sold as part of a real estate development.”

The end is near for a U.S. Navy golf course on the island of Guam. Admiral Chester Nimitz Golf Course, which opened in 1952, will close on February 10, 2013. The reasons: It’s in the path of military development and it loses money. “The golf course has been incurring a significant revenue loss over the past three years,” the navy said in a press release, “and is not considered the best use of tax dollars, particularly in today’s challenging fiscal environment.” The 6,785-yard track was said to be “a favorite for all levels of golfers because of its wide fairways and friendly rates.”

In what a local newspaper described as “an emotional auction that disappointed many members,” Lake View Golf Club in Sterling, Illinois was sold last month. “There were a lot of tears shed, mine included,” admitted one of the club’s officials in the wake of the sale. The club, which had been foreclosed upon by its lender, featured an 18-hole golf course that now belongs to Charlie Lawrence, the owner of a local trucking company. Lawrence declined to tell reporters what he plans to do with the property, but a club official said it would be converted into a cattle farm.

A residential developer has agreed to buy Hillcrest Golf & Country Club, in Altoona, Wisconsin, and a closing is expected to take place before the end of the year. “We’re in the process of creating a conceptual plan to develop the entire site,” Jim Rooney told the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram. “The possibilities are endless, but we are a real estate company, not a golf course company.” Hillcrest, which features an 18-hole golf course that opened in 1926, had seen its membership shrink to fewer than 100 members this year. It reportedly owed its lender $2.1 million, most of it borrowed to build a new clubhouse a little more than a decade ago.

After experiencing what the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel calls “a drastic decline in rounds played in recent years,” Raymond Heights Golf Course has closed. The nine-hole, par-3 track in Caledonia, Wisconsin rang up 15,000 to 20,000 rounds annually from the mid 1990s through the early 2000s, but its owner, Tim Stare, says that in recent years the number has dropped by about half. The course, which used to describe itself as “a beginner- and child-friendly” layout, opened in the early 1960s. “We do not know what the new owner has planned,” Stare wrote in an e-mail to the course’s customers, “but we do not anticipate that he will be operating it as a golf course.”

The Week That Was, december 23, 2012

The European debt crisis, economic deceleration in China, and uncertainty about the impact of the “fiscal cliff” deliberations in the United States will have a negative effect on international golf development and construction in 2013. That’s my unfortunate conclusion about our industry’s prospects for next year, based on an analysis of the planet’s economic situation by the United Nations. “I’m afraid this time around we’re not very optimistic about how things are moving,” said the author of the report, called “World Economic Situation & Prospects 2013.” The report’s worst-case scenario, according to the New York Times, is “a new global recession that mires many countries in a cycle of austerity and unemployment for years.” Let’s hope we can avoid that outcome. On the bright side, the report offers some suggestions about how nations might boost their economies -- in particular, government programs that focus on job growth -- but concludes that austerity-obsessed politicians aren’t likely to accept them.

If the design fee for the Olympics’ course in Rio de Janeiro is $300,000, what should an architect expect to take home for his work on the forthcoming Trinity Forest Golf Club in Dallas, Texas? The answer: Maybe not much. An official from AT&T, one of the venture’s sponsors, has made it known that prospective designers “can cover their time and costs and nothing else,” according to the Dallas Morning News. “No one gets to make a profit out of this,” the official told the newspaper. “This is a not-for-profit in every way.” In other words, the newspaper noted, the project’s promoters believe their course “will be so prestigious that it will attract bids from experienced course designers and project managers who simply want their names associated with it.” My questions: Will developers of other high-profile courses use the same strategy to put the squeeze on design talent? And if they succeed, how will it impact design fees for other course construction?

In a frank, honest Q&A with Buffalo Golfer, Ian Andrew discussed his favorite golf courses (the Old Course at St. Andrews heads his list), his major design influences (“To be frank, I’ll steal a great idea from

anyone”), and his apprenticeship with Doug Carrick (“We grew apart quickly”). But my favorite part of the interview came when Andrew, a Canadian architect, addressed the golf ball, which he believes is “killing the game.” Here’s part of what he said: I would roll back the ball by 15 to 20 percent. It would take the emphasis off power and return the value of shot-making and working the ball. . . . The reduction in length would stop the wholesale carnage that has taken place on many of the greatest layouts in the game, where new tees -- or worse, major renovations -- have been made to some of the game’s greatest holes, ruining them in order to keep up with technology. A shorter ball would [also] make the game cheaper. We would need smaller land envelopes for new courses, less maintained area on our courses, and less expense to operate. . . . The ball is the quickest, easiest, and most impactful way we can turn around the future.

A reporter for the Independent says that the average asking price for houses nestled along the 50 top-ranked golf courses in England is £265,000 ($428,200), compared to a national average of £170,000 ($274,000). The most expensive houses are located at Walton Heath Golf Club in Surrey (average price: $874,200), followed by those at Wentworth Club in Surrey ($738,500) and Sunningdale Golf Club in Berkshire ($720,700). Comparable houses without golf-course views are likely to cost about $150,000 less, according to a report cited by the newspaper. This is unquestionably a hefty premium for golf real estate, but the newspaper notes that property values at the top 50 courses have increased by 7 percent since 2010 while those in other places have remained flat.

A golf course will be among the attractions at a resort and “world-class trade hub” that will take shape on a 1,500-acre man-made island in the Malaysian state of Malacca (or Melaka). In addition to the golf course, Mestika Heritage Island, as it’s been dubbed, will include houses, a theme park, a trading center, and something called the Cheng Ho Institute of Higher Learning.

Entebbe Golf Club, in Uganda, is about to get a makeover. The 6,684-yard course, which opened in 1901, will get a new irrigation system, ponds to supply water, and a new practice center. The overhaul is being overseen by Golf Data, a South African firm that serves as the African representative for Jack Nicklaus’ design group.

Remember the episode of “Seinfeld” in which George finds one of Kramer’s golf balls in the blowhole of a beached whale? Well, now that “Seinfeld” has been deemed “the funniest sitcom of all time,” a writer for Golf Digest has catalogued some of the show’s funniest golf-inspired moments.

The Pipeline, december 21, 2012

Where’s the next hot spot for golf development? It’s not one of the usual suspects, according to David Dale and Kevin Ramsey of Golfplan. In a recent interview with Asian Golf Business, the Santa Rosa, California-based architects say that India “will continue to grow, but challenges presented by escalating land costs, lack of water, and difficult approvals will moderate growth.” China, they believe, “still has great potential, but so much is in the hands of the government [that] it is hard to say where and when that will go.” And South Korea “has its challenges ahead, with a lot of bad banking debt, and a fair bit of that related to golf clubs.” The future, Dale and Ramsey contend, is partly in Brazil, where developers are hoping to capitalize on golf’s appearance in the 2016 Olympics, but mostly in the world’s second-largest and second most-populous continent. “We see great potential in Africa in the next 20 years,” they say.

The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the December 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

Next month, fingers crossed, Gil Hanse expects to break ground on his golf course in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In an interview with CNN International, the Malvern, Pennsylvania-based architect suggested that the course would resemble a track in the Australian sand belt, like maybe one of the 18s at Royal Melbourne Golf Club, but would “utilize the vegetation that’s indigenous to Rio” and ultimately “look and feel as if it belongs where it is.” The course will have wide fairways, Hanse explained, “very much like the original design for Augusta National,” but the participants in the Games of the 2016 Olympics will need “to focus on hitting the proper half of the fairway” and “the proper quarter of the green” if they expect to take home a gold medal. Hanse expects to wrap up construction in the spring of 2014.

Also next month, construction is scheduled to begin on the second course at St. Andrews Beach Golf Course, on the Mornington Peninsula south of Melbourne, Australia. The course, which has been designed by Ross Perrett, will complement the property’s Tom Doak-designed course, which has ranked among the nation’s top tracks since it opened in the mid 2000s. “We are confident that we will produce a world-class links course on a superb parcel of land reminiscent of the great links of Scotland and Ireland,” Perrett has said. When it opens, in late 2013 or early 2014, Perrett’s course will be part of a private club limited to 281 members. Why 281? That’s the score shot by Peter Thomson, Perrett’s long-time design partner, when he won the Open Championship in 1955.

Some information in the preceding post originally appeared in the August 2010 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

A 400-acre landfill in southern Dallas, Texas may soon become the home of a pricey golf club. AT&T, Southern Methodist University, and the city of Dallas are teaming up to develop Trinity Forest Golf Club, which will include an 18-hole championship-worthy course and a nine-hole “short” course. Trinity Forest’s initiation fee could be $100,000 or more, but the city’s participation in the venture will ensure that 25 percent of the tee times are reserved for non-members, some of whom might actually be city residents. Tom Doak and the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw are among the architects who’ve toured the site and are presumably being considered for the commission.

Since 48 of Iceland’s 67 golf courses are nine-hole layouts, you won’t be surprised to learn that Edwin Roald has designed a nine-hole replacement course for Siglufjordur Golf Club. The club is up near the Arctic Circle, in the small town of Siglufjordur, which used to be the center of the nation’s herring industry. After decades in decay, Siglufjordur is being revived -- new hotel, new marina, new golf course -- and may soon become what Roald calls “an enjoyable place to live in and visit.” Golf construction began several months ago, and the course is expected to open in 2015. When it does, Siglufjordur’s original course will be retired. Incidentally, Roald is probably the golf industry’s premier advocate for nine-hole courses, which he believes can open up “a vast opportunity to utilize properties of sizes and dimensions previously deemed unsuitable.”

Any day now, construction is expected to begin on Jordan’s first 18-hole golf course, a Greg Norman “signature” layout at Aqaba Lagoon Golf Club. The track will be among the many attractions at Ayla Oasis, a 1,060-acre water-oriented community outside Aqaba, the nation’s capital. “The project has the potential to put Jordan on the world’s golf map in the future,” Norman said at a press event during a site visit in early October. Make of this what you will, but the Jordan Times reported that Norman was making “his first visit to Jordan” and that he and the community’s developer spent “over four hours” making “a comprehensive site tour and inspection.” Bruce Glasco of Troon Golf, which has been inked to manage the club, expects the course to open sometime in 2014.

Some information in the preceding post originally appeared in the October 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

The wheels of government may turn very slowly in New Orleans, Louisiana, but progress is being made on the city’s Rees Jones-designed golf course. A public-private partnership has been approved, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that ground may be broken on the 7,500-yard layout in February. The $24.5 million, tournament-style track will take shape in City Park, which had four 18-hole courses before Hurricane Katrina blew through town. Today there’s just one, the North course, which was reopened in 2009.

Jack Nicklaus recently jetted to the Bahamas, to check on the construction of his “signature” golf course at the Baha Mar resort. The track is taking shape on property that once served as the home of Cable Bay Golf Club, which featured a Devereux Emmet-designed course. (It might have been the Bahamas’ first course.) Baha Mar will eventually include hundreds of villas and condos, the biggest casino in the Caribbean, the biggest convention center in the Bahamas, a shopping area, and something like six hotels. The course is scheduled to open roughly a year from now.

Some information in the preceding post originally appeared in the April 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

Via Christmas card, David McLay Kidd reports that his golf course in South Korea is under construction and expected to open in the fall of 2013. The 27-hole complex will be among the attractions at Yeosu Island Golf Resort, in South Jeolla Province, and Kidd says that every one of its holes will offer an ocean view. (Those of you who are fluent in Korean can learn more at the resort’s website.) The resort will be located on an island off the city of Yeosu -- Daegyeong Island, according to another source -- and it’ll be reachable only by ferry.

italy Toscana Oaks Gets National-ized

A Norwegian group has revived its long-simmering golf venture in Tuscany, and it’s enlisted the PGA of Italy to help promote it.

The community once known as Toscana Oaks Golf Club is now being called PGA of Italy National Resort & Spa, but little else about it has changed. The club is still being developed by Tuscany Holding SRL, a group led by Alf Ulven, an Oslo, Norway-based businessman and real estate developer. The club will still be accompanied by up to 385 vacation houses, and its 18-hole, 6,800-yard golf course will still cater primarily to the international travelers that the developers aim to attract.

And of course, PGA of Italy National will still occupy roughly 210 acres in Aulla, a historic village roughly 60 miles southeast of Genoa. People have been living in Aulla since the eighth century (if not before), and Tuscany Holding aims to capitalize on the village’s tourism potential by establishing a boutique hotel and a spa amid its ancient buildings, just steps from the golf course.

When the project was originally unveiled, in the mid 2000s, its golf course was to be designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr. Sometime later, the commission was awarded to Hurdzan/Fry Environmental Golf Course Design, a Columbus, Ohio-based group led by Mike Hurdzan. Now the course is being co-designed by two of Hurdzan’s former associates, Dana Fry and Jason Straka, who are working, in the words of a press release, “under the auspices” of Hurdzan’s firm.

Fry and Straka opened their own company, Dublin, Ohio-based Fry/Straka Global Golf Course Design, earlier this year. A couple of months ago, Straka told me that he hoped Tuscany Holding could break ground on the golf course by the end of the year but that the notoriously glacial pace of government processing in Italy could bring delays.

“The owners are keen on starting as soon as possible,” he says, “but things take their own time in Italy.”

Straka speaks from experience. While working for Hurdzan, he and Fry were involved in the design and construction of two Italian courses: the second 18 at Royal Park Golf Club in suburban Torino and Acaya Golf Club outside Brindisi.

The development process for PGA of Italy National is being managed by Paul Dellanzo, a former Troon Golf regional manager who now has his own firm in Bioggio, Switzerland.

The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the October 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.