The Week That Was, august 18, 2019

     South Korea is to David Dale and Kevin Ramsey, the principals of Golfplan, what China once was to Lee Schmidt and Brian Curley. Golfplan, a Santa Rosa, California-based design firm originally founded by Ron Fream, says it’s responsible for more than two dozen golf venues in the Land of the Morning Calm, and today it has three others in the pipeline. Set to open this fall is the firm’s second 18-hole track at Keun Wi O’Phel Golf Club, outside Daegu, the nation’s fourth-largest city, while two other venues – Sehyeon Golf Club in suburban Seoul and Solseado Golf Club, near Haenam – are under construction. All of these courses will offer public play, and Dale, who’s responsible for both courses at Keun Wi O’Phel, says in a press release that his firm is producing “attractive, strategic designs” that “will be embraced by South Korea’s ever-more sophisticated public golfer.” Clearly, there’s a market for public golf in the nation, as Golfplan reports that the first course at Keun Wi O’Phel rang up 120,000 rounds last year.

     Pipeline Overflow – Believe it or not, the development team behind the ridiculously overdue Arm End golf project in Tasmania is reportedly “confident” that “work will begin at the site within three months,” with a course debut expected in 2022. When we last heard from Greg Ramsay and his partners, in 2013, they were working with course designers from three continents: Mike Nuzzo from of Texas, Line Mortensen from Scotland, and the team of Neil Crafter and Paul Mogford from Australia. . . . Construction will soon begin on Rees Jones’s re-do of St. George’s Golf Course, a long-abandoned layout that his father designed on Bermuda. The forthcoming 18-hole course, an executive-length track, is expected to open in late 2020 and promises to be “environmentally friendly, socially responsible, and economically sustainable.” . . . This fall, Caspar Grauballe, a Danish designer who apprenticed with Martin Hawtree’s firm, expects to break ground on an 18-hole course in Poznan, Poland. Grauballe told Golf Course Architecture that the track, Black Water Links, “will take inspiration from classical links and heathland courses, but with a modern twist.”

     Pipeline Overflow Overflow – Royal Creek Golf Club, the centerpiece of a resort in northeastern Thailand, will officially open in late 2019 or early 2020, according to Golfasian. The travel company says that the course is the first international-standard layout in Udon Thani Province and advises that “anyone living, visiting, or wanting to travel to Udon Thani must have Royal Creek on their playlist.” Caution: Golfasian notes that “extra balls are a must.” . . . Two down, eight to go: Brian Curley has unveiled his second 18-hole track, the Ocean Dunes layout, at FLC Đồng Hới Golf Links, a 7,500-acre resort community in Vietnam’s Quảng Bình Province. FLC Group, the property’s developer and one of Curley’s most precious clients, could build as many as 10 courses at Đồng Hới. . . . Nicklaus Design has wrapped up construction of the Gimme, a family-friendly short course for Concession Golf Club, a high-end venue in Bradenton, Florida. The nine-hole, par-3 layout, which will be accompanied by a putting course and numerous references to Jack Nicklaus’s famous “concession” in the 1969 Ryder Cup competition, is scheduled to open in November.

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