The Week That Was, january 6, 2013

The government of Singapore’s investment arm appears to be closing in on its purchase of four high-profile U.S. golf venues. Last week, a deal was sealed to ensure that PGA West, the premier property under contract, will remain affiliated with the PGA of America until 2061. This licensing agreement is a key to PGA’s West’s value and one of the reasons that Singapore is willing to pay a $1.5 billion for Paulson & Company’s golf portfolio. In addition to PGA West, which features six “signature” 18-hole golf courses, John Paulson’s hedge fund is also selling the Greg Norman-designed Great White course at Doral Golf Resort in Miami, Florida; Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa in Phoenix, with two 18-hole courses; and Grand Wailea Resort Hotel & Spa on Maui in Hawaii, which has three 18-hole courses plus two others at the adjacent Makena Beach & Golf Resort. The Singapore Investment Corporation agreed to buy Paulson’s properties at a recent auction. If the transaction closes, it’ll likely be the biggest sale of the year.

Jaime Ortiz-Patiño, one of the grand old men of golf, died last week in a hospital in Marbella, Spain. I didn’t know him personally but I certainly knew of him, for he was one of the best-known and best-liked people in Europe’s golf business. “In many ways, he has been the ‘soul’

of golf in Europe,” said the vice chairman of the European Tour, in a Tour-produced obituary. Ortiz-Patiño leaves an important legacy: Club de Golf Valderrama, his destination golf course in Andalusia, the venue where the Ryder Cup matches were first played in continental Europe. Those matches, in 1997, along with numerous other high-prestige events that were played on Valderrama’s Robert Trent Jones-designed golf course, put the Costa del Sol on the world’s golf map. A former golf writer for the Times summed up Ortiz-Patiño’s life this way: “Jimmy Patino had impeccable manners, endless charm, lots of money, and a determination to achieve whatever he set his mind to.” He was 82.

If you’re thinking that 2013 will be the year when Cuba finally starts to build some golf courses, you may have another think coming. Rob Sequin of the Havana Journal has concluded that all of the nation’s much-ballyhooed golf ventures have come to “a complete standstill” and that Cuba is “far, far away from breaking ground on any new golf courses.” Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Greg Norman is peeved again, this time at Medalist Golf Course in Hobe Sound, Florida, which had the nerve to hire another architect to oversee some renovations. “It’s really a slap in the face at the end of the day,” Norman told Golf Digest. “It hurts a lot, to tell the truth.” To ease the pain, Norman, who once served as Medalist’s president, has demanded that the club return some of his memorabilia and stop marketing the track as a Greg Norman/Pete Dye co-design.

Speaking of Golf Digest, did you ever wonder about course #101 -- the “bubble” course that just missed being named to the magazine’s top 100 in the United States? Well, you don’t have to wonder anymore.

CIDCO has finally opened its golf course in suburban Mumbai, India, just five years later and seven holes fewer than originally planned. The golf course -- a “swanky” track, according to the Indian Express -- is in Kharghar, one of the 14 “nodes” of Navi Mumbai, a planned community that CIDCO is developing. The company had hoped to open an 18-hole course in 2008, but concerns about the loss of forests and the relocation of long-time residents in the area shrunk the amount of land available. So the current layout, co-designed by Phil Ryan and Robert Cairns of Victoria, Australia-based Pacific Coast Design, features just 11 holes. CIDCO hopes to complete the 18-hole track someday, but it likely won’t happen anytime soon.

Some information in the preceding post originally appeared in the November 2008 and October 2010 issues of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

Hacienda Santa Martina Nature Club & Golf Course, in suburban Santiago, Chile, has opened the second nine of its 18-hole golf course. The track has been designed by Randy Thompson, an architect based in Chile who apprenticed with Robert Von Hagge. Thompson has also produced courses in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay.

A golf club in Maryland has sued a nearby power company, alleging that its golf course has been damaged by coal fly ash produced by the utility. The lawsuit, filed by Walden Golf Club, claims that the water in its well contains abnormally high levels of toxins including aluminum, lead, vanadium, and nickel and that Constellation Power Generation allowed those metals to seep into the local ground water. “A golf course with toxic soil, dead or dying grass, and no access to non-contaminated irrigation water is valueless,” the lawsuit declares. The club has asked for $20 million in compensation.

In Friday’s blog, I mentioned that a California-based LLC has agreed to buy Club at Cordillera, in Colorado. I’m thinking that the transaction has closed, because the new owners have announced that Troon Golf will manage the facility.

Congratulations to Roland Nagel of Kirksville, Missouri, who played golf for the first time last week. “It was a good experience,” Nagel said after playing five holes at Kirksville Country Club. “I hit the ball better than what I thought I would.” I’d love to wish Nagel a long and happy relationship with our sport, but I don’t think it’s likely. He’s 91, and he isn’t sure if he’ll ever play again. He just wanted to check off an item on his bucket list. “I’m getting old,” he told a local newspaper. Aren't we all.

Transactions, january 4, 2013

Toll Golf, an affiliate of the big home builder, has agreed to buy Snowmass Club outside Aspen, Colorado. “It’s a high-quality facility,” explained Toll Golf’s president, “and in a high-quality location.” The original golf course at Snowmass was co-designed by Arnold Palmer and Ed Seay and opened in 1980. In 2003, however, the layout was completely redesigned by Jim Engh. The club is being sold by Aspen Skiing Company, an entity controlled by the Crown family of Chicago. Last year Crown Golf Properties, the family’s golf operations group, sold its other golf property in Colorado, River Valley Ranch Golf Club in Carbondale. Toll Golf operates two dozen golf properties in Florida, Virginia, California, Nevada, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and other states, but Snowmass will be the only stand-alone golf property in its portfolio. The transaction is expected to close later this month.

Slowly but surely, the financial mess centered on Cordillera Golf Club is being cleaned up. At an auction late last year, a California-based investment group, Wind Rose Holdings LLC, agreed to buy the tony golf community in Edwards, Colorado, reportedly for $14.2 million. The sale, presuming it closes, ends Cordillera’s bankruptcy proceedings as well as all pending litigation between David Wilhelm, the community’s developer, and the club’s 600-plus members. Wind Rose intends to purchase Cordillera’s trio of 18-hole golf courses -- tracks designed by Tom Fazio, Jack Nicklaus, and Hale Irwin -- but the community’s Dave Pelz-designed “short” course will be turned over to the homeowners’ association. In recent years only the Fazio course has been open for play, and that will likely also be the case in 2013. For those of you who keep track of who’s trying to buy what, Donald Trump was among the three bidders for the property.

A company controlled by New Zealand’s richest family has purchased Pegasus Golf & Sports Club and its accompanying community in suburban Christchurch. Todd Property Group, the real estate arm of the Todd family, paid an undisclosed price for the property, which includes 300 houses and an 18-hole golf course that was co-designed by Kristine Kerr. The firm has promised to complete the build-out, which will require it to build a town center, a school, and more recreational amenities. The Todd family, led by recently knighted John Todd, is worth $2.7 billion, according to National Business Review. As best I can determine, this is the family’s first golf acquisition.

An affiliate of Oklahoma’s Cherokee Nation has paid more than $8 million for a 320-acre parcel in Tahlequah that includes Cherry Springs Golf Course. The property has been a source of friction for the sellers, who are members of the Berry family. “After several years of litigation, fighting over control of the property,” Brian Berry told a tribal newspaper, “we’ve finally come to an opportunity for the Berry family to go their separate ways.” The golf course was designed by Brian’s brother, Burl. The 6,814-yard track opened in 1989.

Two years after it filed for bankruptcy protection, Ford’s Colony Country Club in Williamsburg, Virginia has new owners. The club was purchased late last year by an unnamed group led by Accord Golf Capital and Och-Ziff Real Estate, a New York-based hedge fund. The new owners have hired Traditional Golf Management to operate the property’s three 18-hole courses, all of which were designed by Dan Maples. Traditional reportedly has an interest in Accord Golf Capital.

OnCourse Strategies, an Austin, Texas-based course owner and operator, has acquired its first golf property in Florida. In late 2012 the company paid $2 million for Sarasota’s Serenoa Golf Club, which had been foreclosed upon by its lender. The club features a golf course designed by Mark David Allen and is part of a 383-acre community that was begun by Cy Bispham. “We just saw good value, with a price that had potential to be a good investment for us,” J. Michael Ussery of OnCourse Strategies told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. “The whole deal with being able to make a golf course profitable is first getting it at the right price, then having the expertise to operate it efficiently and effectively.” Ussery’s company has eight properties in Texas, among them WindRose Golf Club in Spring and Blackhawk Golf Club in Pflugerville.

Vanguard Golf Management and a partner have acquired Falcon Ridge Golf Course in Mesquite, Nevada. The course, which opened in two phases in the early 2000s, had been in financial trouble. The seller was a group led by Crescent Hardy, who co-designed the 6,550-yard layout with Kelby Hughes. Vanguard owns and/or operates four other golf properties, all of them in Utah. The group includes Thanksgiving Point Golf Club in Lehi and Sky Mountain Golf Course in Hurricane.

Lostwithiel Hotel Golf & Country Club, outside Bodmin in Cornwall, England, has an unidentified new owner. The sale was brokered by GVA, which reports that the club was purchased by “a local entrepreneur with existing experience in the golf and leisure sector.” Thanks for nothing, guys. The so-called entrepreneur bought a 5,984-yard course that opened in 1991, plus a 28-room hotel. The sale was one of four that GVA has completed since October 2012.

In mid November 2012, Jim McNair, Jr. acquired Golf Club at Cedar Creek in Aiken, South Carolina. McNair, the owner of Aiken Golf Club, plans to upgrade Cedar Creek’s 21-year-old, Arthur Hills-designed course. A group of home owners in the accompanying community helped to facilitate McNair’s purchase, as financing was reportedly hard to find.

A group led by Rick Orizotti and Terry O’Keefe has purchased the 400-acre Canyon River golf community in Missoula, Montana. Canyon River is anchored by an 18-hole, 6,966-yard course that was co-designed by Lee Schmidt and Brian Curley and opened in 2006. The community currently has about 60 houses, and the new owners hope to build 200 more.

In late 2012, affiliates of Meadowbrook Golf sold three golf properties in Florida: Tiger Point Golf Club in Gulf Breeze, Club at Hidden Creek in Navarre, and Shalimar Pointe Golf & Country Club in Shalimar. Textron Financial Corporation, Meadowbrook’s lender and a company that’s trying to exit the golf business, had set a deadline in late November for the sales.

kenya Here Comes the Big Money

One of the Middle East’s biggest developers has decided to make a splash in Kenya.

Dubai-based Emaar Properties plans to establish an eco-friendly resort, including an 18-hole golf course, in Narok County, in the southwestern part of the nation. The resort, called Enkereri Masa, will take shape in an as-yet unidentified town that’s said to be “on the fringes” of the Maasai Mara Game Reserve. The 580-square-mile Mara, as it’s called, is Africa’s best-known wildlife sanctuary and a popular vacation destination, primarily for safaris. Numerous hotels and campgrounds are operating in the area, but no golf courses of note.

Emaar is best-known as a developer of master-planned communities, some of them with golf courses. Its portfolio is highlighted by two prominent properties in Dubai: Arabian Ranches Golf Club, which features a “signature” course by Ian Baker-Finch (with assistance from Nicklaus Design), and the Montgomeie (Colin Montgomerie with Desmond Muirhead), the featured attraction of the Emirates Hills community.

The company also has a residential division in India, where it’s created Boulder Hills Golf & Country Club in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. It hopes to build other courses in India, as well as tracks in Indonesia, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

Emaar’s latest venture is further evidence of Kenya’s arrival on the international golf scene. The nation currently has, give or take, 42 courses, and perhaps a dozen others are in planning or under construction.

In addition to its golf course, Enkereri Masa will feature a hotel and a spa, both of which could open as early as next year. Emaar is developing the property with the African Dream Collection, Ltd.

Enkereri Masa hasn’t yet been approved, however. Before Emaar and the African Dream get permission to begin construction, they’ll need to prove that their resort won’t damage the environment or drain the local water table.  

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

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.”