The news from Dubai keeps getting worse for Tiger Woods. Especially if it's true.
As you know, the work on Woods' much-ballyhooed first golf course, the centerpiece of Tiger Woods Dubai, was suspended last year, when sales of houses in the high-falutin' desert community ground to a halt. If the project's developers had kept to their original construction schedule, the course would have been open already.
Now, in a story titled "Tiger's Golf Course Ventures Beset by Delays," CNN says that "doubts remain over the immediate future of Tiger Woods Dubai" for a variety of reasons, the primary one being that "the real estate market in the emirate has collapsed."
No real news there, folks. We all know that the project's "immediate future" is dicey. And we know that Dubai's housing market is very wobbly, if not completely "collapsed."
So CNN spread a little more doubt on the situation.
According to the news agency, the Middle East's rotten economy and Woods' marital infidelities (now with steamy text messages!) have led "economic and golf industry experts" to wonder if the golf course "will ever be completed."
All of which leads me to ask: Is that the sound of a golf project dying?
Or is it merely a distortion of reality by some commentators in the golf business, full of sound and fury but ultimately signifying nothing?
Heck, I don't know. Can you trust the message if you don't trust the messenger?
To be sure, Dubai Properties Group has dismissed all this nasty talk about the project's possible demise. The company's CEO, Khalid Al Malik, told CNN, "Part of the project is sold, and the other part will go to the market once it's completed, because we believe it's better to do it then."
Al Malik's statement doesn't scan well. I think he means that some of the houses in Tiger Woods Dubai have been sold, which is true, and that the rest of them will go on sale after the golf course is completed.
Does that sound right?
Because if I'm reading him correctly, there's an obvious follow-up question that must be asked: Without the income from the real estate sales, where will the money for the golf construction come from?
I can't answer that question, either. But I should note that Dubai Properties Group is a government-owned entity, and governments always find ways to fund programs they think are important.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
SOUTH KOREA Trinity Golf Club, Seoul
Any day now, South Korea’s richest woman is expected to break ground on her second golf course, a Tommy Fazio-designed layout in suburban Seoul.
The 7,400-yard track will be the featured attraction of Trinity Country Club, and Fazio says it’ll be “one of the hardest, maybe the hardest course in South Korea.”
The club is being developed by Lee Myung-hee, the daughter of Samsung’s late founder and, according to Forbes, South Korea’s seventh-richest person (estimated net worth: $1.79 billion). Her brother, Lee Kun-hee, who recently resigned as Samsung’s chairman, is South Korea’s richest person, with an estimated net worth of $2.32 billion.
Lee is the chairwoman of Shinsegae Group, which owns several hundred stores of various kinds, including the nation’s Starbucks outlets. Its flagship holding is Shinsegae Centum City in Busan, which Guinness World Records says is the world’s largest department store. (It’s a colossus, with eight floors of shopping, a spa, an ice rink, a golf driving range.)
Fazio’s golf course will take shape on property near Lee’s first golf course, Jayu Country Club. Lee hopes to open it in 2012.
The 7,400-yard track will be the featured attraction of Trinity Country Club, and Fazio says it’ll be “one of the hardest, maybe the hardest course in South Korea.”
The club is being developed by Lee Myung-hee, the daughter of Samsung’s late founder and, according to Forbes, South Korea’s seventh-richest person (estimated net worth: $1.79 billion). Her brother, Lee Kun-hee, who recently resigned as Samsung’s chairman, is South Korea’s richest person, with an estimated net worth of $2.32 billion.
Lee is the chairwoman of Shinsegae Group, which owns several hundred stores of various kinds, including the nation’s Starbucks outlets. Its flagship holding is Shinsegae Centum City in Busan, which Guinness World Records says is the world’s largest department store. (It’s a colossus, with eight floors of shopping, a spa, an ice rink, a golf driving range.)
Fazio’s golf course will take shape on property near Lee’s first golf course, Jayu Country Club. Lee hopes to open it in 2012.
Monday, March 15, 2010
VIETNAM Crazy Eights
In the summer of 2008, just months before the world's economy imploded, a parade of developers planned to build something like 18 new golf courses in and around Hanoi.
Today only eight are still alive. And by the time you read this, there may be even fewer, because Vietnam's government has been whacking golf projects faster than an HBO crime family.
The most recent executions occurred earlier this month, when officials in Hanoi told 11 developers that they should, in the words of a Vietnamese news service, "pursue other plans." The reason? The developers' golf courses -- along with the houses and hotels that were to accompany them -- were going to be built on rice fields and were therefore not in the national interest.
So 11 developers are out of luck and at least a little out of pocket. You can add their projects to the nearly 100 golf licenses that have been revoked in Vietnam over the past year or so.
But here's the odd part: I've been reading the newspapers, and I haven't heard a word of complaint from any of the developers whose Hanoi projects were whacked. Not one peep about the unfairness of it all.
Why not?
I think it's because Hanoi has done the developers a favor, and they know it.
Hanoi doesn't need 18 golf courses. For the time being, at least, it can get by nicely with the two or three it already has, plus the one or two that are said to be under construction. It may never need anywhere close to the eight that remain on the books.
The tourism ministers won't admit it, but Vietnam is not a golf-mad country. Heck, it's not even a country where golf can honestly said to be growing.
This is a country that, according to the New York Times, had two golf courses in 1975, when the Vietnam War ended. In the 35 years since, the nation has built 15 or 20 more courses but has managed to grow only about 5,000 golfers -- about the number you'll find in a seniors-only community in suburban Phoenix.
Sure, Vietnam needs some golf courses for tourists, but those courses will be built in places like Nha Trang and Phan Thiet, where there are warm beaches and women in bikinis. How many vacationers are going to spend a week in Hanoi, even if it has a dozen golf courses?
Roughly 6.5 million people live in metropolitan Hanoi, and the fact is that hardly any of them golf. Wouldn't it be wiser for Vietnam to develop the golfers before it develops the golf courses?
I don't know about you, but I'm not convinced that golf is a growth industry in Vietnam.
Today only eight are still alive. And by the time you read this, there may be even fewer, because Vietnam's government has been whacking golf projects faster than an HBO crime family.
The most recent executions occurred earlier this month, when officials in Hanoi told 11 developers that they should, in the words of a Vietnamese news service, "pursue other plans." The reason? The developers' golf courses -- along with the houses and hotels that were to accompany them -- were going to be built on rice fields and were therefore not in the national interest.
So 11 developers are out of luck and at least a little out of pocket. You can add their projects to the nearly 100 golf licenses that have been revoked in Vietnam over the past year or so.
But here's the odd part: I've been reading the newspapers, and I haven't heard a word of complaint from any of the developers whose Hanoi projects were whacked. Not one peep about the unfairness of it all.
Why not?
I think it's because Hanoi has done the developers a favor, and they know it.
Hanoi doesn't need 18 golf courses. For the time being, at least, it can get by nicely with the two or three it already has, plus the one or two that are said to be under construction. It may never need anywhere close to the eight that remain on the books.
The tourism ministers won't admit it, but Vietnam is not a golf-mad country. Heck, it's not even a country where golf can honestly said to be growing.
This is a country that, according to the New York Times, had two golf courses in 1975, when the Vietnam War ended. In the 35 years since, the nation has built 15 or 20 more courses but has managed to grow only about 5,000 golfers -- about the number you'll find in a seniors-only community in suburban Phoenix.
Sure, Vietnam needs some golf courses for tourists, but those courses will be built in places like Nha Trang and Phan Thiet, where there are warm beaches and women in bikinis. How many vacationers are going to spend a week in Hanoi, even if it has a dozen golf courses?
Roughly 6.5 million people live in metropolitan Hanoi, and the fact is that hardly any of them golf. Wouldn't it be wiser for Vietnam to develop the golfers before it develops the golf courses?
I don't know about you, but I'm not convinced that golf is a growth industry in Vietnam.
Friday, March 12, 2010
IRELAND Carne Golf Club, Belmullet
Construction has resumed on the new nine at Carne Golf Club in County Mayo, Ireland.
Carne’s existing 18, the last course designed by Eddie Hackett –- he died in 1996, three years after it opened –- has been called “one of Ireland’s last true hidden gems,” and it appears that Hackett knew he’d created something special. When the course opened, he said, “There will be no better links course in the country or, I doubt, anywhere.”
The 6,742-yard track is often described as “wild,” “natural,” and even “lunar” -– you should check out the pictures at the club’s website, CarneGolfLinks.com -– and the same descriptions will probably also be applied to the new nine, a 3,500-yard track that’s been designed by Jim Engh, an architect based in Castle Rock, Colorado.
Mitch Scarborough, an architect in Engh’s firm -– both architects are members of the club and are working pro bono -– says the addition is taking shape on “a super wild, incredible site with enormous dunes.”
“It’s mind-blowing, how wild it is,” adds Scarborough.
The club is in Belmullet, a town located along the nation’s northwestern coast. It’s owned by Erris Tourism (Turasoireacht Iorrais Teo), a community-owned group that was created to promote tourism in the area, which is far off the nation’s well-beaten tourist tracks.
The addition has been routed through the highest dunes on the club’s 260-acre property. The members began building it in 2005, and they finished three or four holes before the construction stopped, in 2007. They anticipate that the new nine will open in late 2011.
Carne’s existing 18, the last course designed by Eddie Hackett –- he died in 1996, three years after it opened –- has been called “one of Ireland’s last true hidden gems,” and it appears that Hackett knew he’d created something special. When the course opened, he said, “There will be no better links course in the country or, I doubt, anywhere.”
The 6,742-yard track is often described as “wild,” “natural,” and even “lunar” -– you should check out the pictures at the club’s website, CarneGolfLinks.com -– and the same descriptions will probably also be applied to the new nine, a 3,500-yard track that’s been designed by Jim Engh, an architect based in Castle Rock, Colorado.
Mitch Scarborough, an architect in Engh’s firm -– both architects are members of the club and are working pro bono -– says the addition is taking shape on “a super wild, incredible site with enormous dunes.”
“It’s mind-blowing, how wild it is,” adds Scarborough.
The club is in Belmullet, a town located along the nation’s northwestern coast. It’s owned by Erris Tourism (Turasoireacht Iorrais Teo), a community-owned group that was created to promote tourism in the area, which is far off the nation’s well-beaten tourist tracks.
The addition has been routed through the highest dunes on the club’s 260-acre property. The members began building it in 2005, and they finished three or four holes before the construction stopped, in 2007. They anticipate that the new nine will open in late 2011.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
CHINA Crime Pays
Did you know that Jack Nicklaus has been involved in illegal activities in Beijing? So has his son, Jack II.
And they aren't the only golf architects who've run afoul of the law in China's capital. So have Nick Faldo, Peter Thomson, Graham Marsh, Ron Fream, and more than a dozen others.
Their crimes? They've designed golf courses in and around the city.
As you know, it's against the law to build golf courses in China and has been for many years.
Despite the prohibition, Beijing has seen plenty of golf development. The list starts with Pine Valley Golf Resort, which has an 18-hole Nicklaus "signature" track and 27 holes by Jack II, and it includes Faldo's Honghua International Golf Club, Marsh's Huatang International Golf Club, and Fream's Win-River Golf Club.
Thomson is a two-time offender, with Grand Canal Club and Beijing Links Golf Club.
Some other prominent scofflaws are Bob Shearer (Yaoshang Golf & Country Club), Brad Benz (Beijing Golf Club), and Scott Miller (Huanggang International Golf Club).
In fact, according to a statement by a member of China's parliament, only one of the golf courses in metropolitan Beijing -- the Chinese government says there are 20, but I found more than 30 -- has been built legally.
So if you're a member of Beijing International Golf Club, the first course built in Beijing (in 1986), you can breathe easy.
The rest of you? Up against the wall, hands above your heads. Spread 'em.
I'm just kidding, of course.
But so is the Chinese government. And everybody knows it.
Even the guy who blew the whistle on Beijing's golf courses, Sun Anmin, quickly gave the industry a pass. He told Beijing Youth Daily that the illegal courses could be legalized simply because they've created jobs and preserved green space.
If that's all it takes, why persist in the charade?
Clearly, China is one of those places where it's easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.
And they aren't the only golf architects who've run afoul of the law in China's capital. So have Nick Faldo, Peter Thomson, Graham Marsh, Ron Fream, and more than a dozen others.
Their crimes? They've designed golf courses in and around the city.
As you know, it's against the law to build golf courses in China and has been for many years.
Despite the prohibition, Beijing has seen plenty of golf development. The list starts with Pine Valley Golf Resort, which has an 18-hole Nicklaus "signature" track and 27 holes by Jack II, and it includes Faldo's Honghua International Golf Club, Marsh's Huatang International Golf Club, and Fream's Win-River Golf Club.
Thomson is a two-time offender, with Grand Canal Club and Beijing Links Golf Club.
Some other prominent scofflaws are Bob Shearer (Yaoshang Golf & Country Club), Brad Benz (Beijing Golf Club), and Scott Miller (Huanggang International Golf Club).
In fact, according to a statement by a member of China's parliament, only one of the golf courses in metropolitan Beijing -- the Chinese government says there are 20, but I found more than 30 -- has been built legally.
So if you're a member of Beijing International Golf Club, the first course built in Beijing (in 1986), you can breathe easy.
The rest of you? Up against the wall, hands above your heads. Spread 'em.
I'm just kidding, of course.
But so is the Chinese government. And everybody knows it.
Even the guy who blew the whistle on Beijing's golf courses, Sun Anmin, quickly gave the industry a pass. He told Beijing Youth Daily that the illegal courses could be legalized simply because they've created jobs and preserved green space.
If that's all it takes, why persist in the charade?
Clearly, China is one of those places where it's easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.
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