The Week That Was, november 9, 2014

     In recent years Mike Keiser has been traipsing across the British Isles, searching for a site that he can transform into one of his patented build-it-and-they-will-come golf complexes. Now, finally, it appears that he’s found one. It’s a 1,200-acre spread along Inch Strand, in southwestern Ireland, and it’s said to have “unlimited potential” as a location for links golf. “When I first saw the property, 10 years ago, it looked like Pacific Dunes but even better,” Keiser told Golf magazine, referring to one of his tracks at Bandon Dunes. “What distinguished it from Pacific Dunes is that it feels like it’s on an island.” For close to 20 years, the site has been evangelized by Arthur Spring, a County Kerry-based golf architect who’s won the nod to design the initial 18. As a measure of his commitment, Keiser has assigned Jim Urbina to oversee course number one’s construction and to help identify the best land for course number two.

     Some information in the preceding post first appeared in the December 2009 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     Justin Timberlake took a major haircut when he sold Mirimichi, his golf complex in suburban Memphis, Tennessee. According to local property records, the pop-music megastar sold the 27-hole, 315-acre

 

complex for just $500,000, a price that appears to be a steal for the new ownership group. As I noted in last Sunday’s blog, Timberlake had reportedly sunk $16 million into Mirimichi -- nearly $900,000 on the purchase, $1.2 million on additional land purchases, and close to $14 million on upgrades. Money may not be everything, but it’s rare to see someone throw so much of it away.

     For the second time this year, a heavyweight in the golf industry has decided to call it quits. George O’Grady, the CEO of the European Tour, hasn’t yet set a date for his departure, but he’ll likely leave office sometime next year, after he grooms his successor. Also stepping out the door in 2015 will be Peter Dawson, who’ll retire as the CEO of the R&A and the secretary of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews. O’Grady has been in office since 2005. The Guardian calls him “a generally popular leader” and believes that he leaves the European Tour “in generally good health,” but it concedes that “both he and the Tour are in need of a fresh start.” As for myself, I called for O’Grady’s dismissal in the pages of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report more than a year ago, after he made a tactless reference to “coloreds” and inexcusably failed to punish Sergio Garcia for putting his racial insensitivities on public display. I won’t miss O’Grady a bit. Goodbye and good riddance.

     A British newspaper has all but named George O’Grady’s successor. The Telegraph writes that Guy Kinnings, the global head of golf for IMG, is “at the top of the [European] Tour’s shortlist of preferred candidates” to take O’Grady’s seat. Kinnings is an obvious choice, as during his more than 20 years at IMG he’s become intimately familiar with all the nooks and crannies of the European Tour, in particular its corporate benefactors, its media partners, and its top money-winners. What’s especially interesting is that, according to the Telegraph, Kinnings “is believed to have recently turned down the opportunity to become chief executive of the R&A.” Maybe he knows what’s on the horizon.

     Gary Morse, who turned his father’s mobile-home park into the nation’s largest retirement community, died in late October. Morse developed the Villages, a 33-square-mile, virtually all-white, seniors-only enclave south of Ocala, Florida. Often imitated but never duplicated, the Villages redefined retirement living for a large part of the U.S. middle class, and its commercial enterprises -- among them golf courses (more than 40), health-care centers, a television station, a radio station, a bank, an insurance company, movie theaters, office space, and shopping areas -- helped to make the reclusive Morse fabulously wealthy. (Bloomberg estimates that his estate is worth $2.9 billion.) And because he never hesitated to write a check to conservative fundraisers, Morse was beloved in Republican political circles. He was 77. An obituary in the Villages’ newspaper didn’t report a cause of death.

     Concert Golf Partners has taken a shine to undervalued golf properties in Indiana. Just weeks after it acquired a private club in Chesterton, the Newport Beach, California-based group has closed on Hawthorns Golf & Country Club in suburban Indianapolis. CGP reportedly paid $5.5 million for Hawthorns, a 279-acre facility that had been forced to declare for bankruptcy protection earlier this year. CGP has also reportedly agreed to repay some of the money -- the full amount is $10 million, according to the Indianapolis Business Journal -- that Hawthorns owes to current and former members. The club features an 18-hole, Arthur Hills-designed course that opened in 1994. With the acquisition, Concert now owns nine golf properties in Florida, Maryland, Oklahoma, and North Carolina.

     Four Seasons Resorts has taken over management of Larry Ellison’s golf courses on Hawaii’s Lanai Island, and, as part of a “rebranding” strategy, the company has changed the courses’ names. The Challenge at Manele is now called Manele Golf Course, and the Experience at Koele is Koele Golf Course. Just curious: Does anyone out there think that the new names are better than the old ones?