talking points More Is Less

USA Today recently interviewed Gary Player. Here's Player's response to the question, "What's your take on the state of the game?"

It's healthy, but we've got to stop making golf courses longer, because it means you've got to use more water, more oil, more labor, more fertilizer -- and these are all hurting the game. . . .


The whole economic problem we're facing now is because of greed, and golf is no different. From Timbuktu to Washington, D.C. to Augusta, everyone made their golf courses longer. Why? We wasted hundreds of millions of dollars. . . .

We need our leaders in golf to make the right decisions. We haven't started to see all the problems we're going to have with water. Nobody should be getting a permit to build a golf course unless they are using effluent water. Nobody should be using potable water. I designed a golf course on my ranch which is 80 percent water free, with no fertilizer. That's the wave of the future, and it's going to take a new generation of leaders to figure that out.

worth reading China: The Pending Collapse

Lawrence Solomon, the executive director of a group called the Urban Renaissance Institute, has been a contributor to the Wall Street Journal and the Toronto Globe & Mail, and he's currently a columnist for the National Post.

Here's his view of China in 2011, as excerpted from a recent column in the Post:

The Chinese economy today parallels that of the latter-day Soviet Union: immense accomplishments co-existing with immense failures.

In some ways, China's stability today is more precarious than was the Soviet Union's before its fall. China's poor are poorer than the Soviet Union's poor, and they are much more numerous -- about one billion in a country of 1.3 billion.

Moreover, in the Soviet Union there was no sizeable middle class. Just about everyone was poor and shared in the same hardships, avoiding resentments that might otherwise have arisen.

In China, the resentments are palpable. Many of the 300 million people who have risen out of poverty flaunt their new wealth, often egregiously so. This is especially so with the new class of rich, all but non-existent just a few years ago, which now includes some 500,000 millionaires and 200 billionaires.

Worse, the gap between rich and poor has been increasing. Ominously, the bottom billion views as illegitimate the wealth of the top 300 million.

How did so many become so rich so quickly?

For the most part, through corruption.

Twenty years ago, the Communist Party decided that “getting rich is glorious,” giving the green light to lawless capitalism. The rulers in China started by awarding themselves and their families the lion's share of the state's resources in the guise of privatization, and by selling licences and other access to the economy to cronies in exchange for bribes. The system of corruption, and the public acceptance of corruption, is now pervasive. Even minor officials in government backwaters are now able to enrich themselves handsomely. . . .

If the corruption were limited to awarding contracts to friends and giving mines, power plants, and other public assets to relatives, the upset among the poor, who would realize some trickle-down benefits, would be constrained. In fact, the corruption deprives the poor of their homes, livelihoods, health, and lives.

Take golf courses, a status symbol among China's new rich. To obtain the immense tracts of land needed near urban markets, developers have been cooking up deals with local officials that see land expropriated and typically tens of thousands of residents and businesses evicted per golf course, generally with unfair compensation. Although the construction of new golf courses is officially banned, thousands more are expected to be built in the next few years.

Golf courses aside, countless other real estate developments abetted by officialdom likewise wipe out entire communities. Then there are resource projects such as hydro dams that can displace numerous people and businesses. The Three Gorges Dam alone displaced several million people.

The corruption extends to the enforcement of regulatory standards for health and safety, which few in China trust. In recent years, China has endured a tainted milk scandal and a tainted blood scandal, each of which implicated corrupt officials in widespread death and debilitation. In a devastating 2008 earthquake, some 90,000 perished, one-third of them children buried alive in 7,000 shoddily built “tofu schools” that skimped on materials. Nearby buildings for the elites that met building standards, including a school for the children of the rich, were largely unscathed.

The government tries to tamp down the outrage over the abuses inflicted on the public by banning demonstrations and censoring the Internet. But it is failing. Year by year, the number of demonstrations increases. Last year alone saw 100,000 such protests across the county, directly involving tens and indirectly perhaps hundreds of millions of protesters.

China is a powder keg that could explode at any moment. And if it does explode, chaos could ensue. As the Chinese are only too well aware, the country has a brutal history of carnage at the hands of unruly mobs.

For this reason, corrupt officials inside China, likely by the tens of thousands, have made contingency plans, obtaining foreign passports, buying second homes abroad, establishing their families and businesses abroad, or otherwise planning their escapes. Also for this reason, much of the middle class supports the government's increasingly repressive efforts.

What might set off that spark?

It could be high unemployment, should China be unable to control inflation or the housing bubble that now looms. It could be another natural disaster, such as the 2008 earthquake which spawned outrage -- rapidly organized via cellphones and the Internet -- that the government had difficulty containing. It could be a man-made disaster. Many fear that a “tofu dam” might fail, leading to hundreds of thousands of downstream victims.

Whatever might set off that spark, it is only a matter of time. The government shows no interest in relaxing its grip on power. If it did so, the officials in power might face retribution.

Meanwhile, we in the West see a China that by all measures is becoming stronger and stronger, not realizing that it is also becoming more and more brittle. The Soviet regime, when it fell, went out with a whimper. China's will more likely go out with a bang.

No regime can contain the grievances of a billion people for long.

malaysia IMG's First-Time Designers

Padraig Harrington and K. J. Choi, whose careers are managed by IMG, have been tapped to design 18-hole “signature” golf courses for a resort community in Malaysia.

So far, not much is known about the community, except that it’ll include houses and a hotel and take shape on a former palm oil plantation near Kuala Lumpur.

I got wind of the project last fall, when Harrington told the Irish Independent, “It has not been officially announced, nor does the course I’m designing have a name, but it’s just outside KL.”

I've since learned that the courses are expected to be championship-caliber tracks that will stretch to 7,000 yards or more. The community’s unnamed developers could break ground on them this year, but it hasn’t yet been determined whether the courses will be built at once or one at a time.

Neither golfer has yet designed a golf course, although they each designed a hole for Legend Golf & Safari Resort in Limpopo Province, South Africa. They'll receive design assistance from Brit Stenson, the head architect in IMG’s office in Cleveland, Ohio.

The Week That Was: February 27, 2011

cuba Has the Countdown Begun?

Don't get all hot and bothered, but CNN is reporting that “the bourgeois sport of the West” -- that would be golf, naturally -- “is poised for a comeback on the communist-run island” of Cuba.

I hate to sound like an old sourpuss, but haven't we heard this story numerous times before? Is there really any reason to believe golf will gain a foothold in Cuba anytime soon?

Well, maybe there is. If you believe CNN -- or if you believe what people are telling CNN -- Cuba may very well achieve lift-off in 2011.

Andrew MacDonald, the CEO of London, England-based Esencia Hotels and Resorts, tells the news service that he plans to break ground on Carbonera Country Club “in the next few months.”

“Golf is becoming a reality in Cuba this year,” he said boldly.

This is real news, especially when you consider that Carbonera has been in the works for something like seven years. And that MacDonald is in a position to make it happen.

But if MacDonald is so confident about the future of golf in Cuba, why didn't he mention that Esencia is working on a second golf project on the island? It's called Rancho Luna, and it's supposed to be built in the town of Cienfuegos, on Cuba’s southern coast.

Maybe it's because Rancho Luna isn't going to happen anytime soon.

And what about the other golf projects that are always mentioned in stories about golf in Cuba? Are they any closer to coming out of the ground?

I'm not holding my breath.

CNN reports that Vancouver-based Leisure Canada is “at advanced stages with three planned golf developments in the Pinar del Rio province on Cuba's west coast.” That's nice, but Leisure Canada has been working on its golf projects since the early 1990s.

CNN also reports that London-based Foster & Partners “has been commissioned by a Spanish developer to build a 2,000-unit golfing community with three courses” somewhere on the island. Again, that's nice. But Foster & Partners got the commission more than a year ago. It should have made a little progress by now.

MacDonald tells CNN that he's “impressed by the enthusiasm and golfing knowledge of the Cuban contractors and government officials” and is convinced that their vision of building 15 or 16 golf courses over the next five to seven years “will become a reality.”

“Golf just wasn't a priority in Cuba before, and now it is,” he said.

I hope that's true. When it comes to golf and Cuba, however, I'm taking my cues from the golf pro at Havana Golf Club. He was quoted in the story as saying, “When the new [courses] open, show them to me. Then I will know it is true.”

bahamas Baha Mar Finds Its Sugar Daddy

More good news from another island in the Caribbean: Baha Mar Resorts, Ltd. has broken ground on Baha Mar, its 1,000-acre resort along Nassau’s Cable Beach. The project had been in the tank for more than two years, ever since the developers’ original partner, Harrah’s Entertainment, bailed out on them.

The mega-resort is said to be the largest project of its kind in the Caribbean, even bigger than the gigantic Atlantis resort on Paradise Island. At build-out, Baha Mar is expected to have thousands of condos, a 100,000-square-foot casino, four hotels (a total of about 2,250 rooms), a convention center, a shopping area, an entertainment venue, a water park, and three spas. (Jeez, wouldn't two be enough?)

The work has begun because Baha Mar Resorts, a group led by Sarkis Izmirlian and Don Robinson, has persuaded a pair of Chinese companies -– Beijing-based Export-Import Bank of China and the government-owned China State Construction & Engineering Corporation -– to cough up $2.5 billion in funding.

I'd be remiss if I didn't note that Jack Nicklaus will create a “signature” golf course for the resort. The course will replace the developers’ Cable Bay Golf Club, the Bahamas’ first golf course. Some sources say the track, which opened in the late 1920s, was designed by Devereaux Emmet.

And here's another factoid worth noting: Baha Mar is expected to create about 4,000 construction jobs for Bahamian workers and about 7,000 jobs for Chinese workers.

“The great geographical distance between our two countries has not impeded our friendship,” the Chinese ambassador said at the groundbreaking ceremony.

Baha Mar is scheduled to open in late 2014.

australia Eastern Golf Club Names Its Buyer

Eastern Golf Club has identified the preferred buyer of its 118-acre property in Doncaster, a suburb of Melbourne.

It's Mirvac Group, the company that owns Gainsborough Greens Golf Course in suburban Brisbane. Eastern didn't say how much Mirvac is going to shell out, but various sources believe the club's property is worth about $100 million.

Eastern was established in its current location in 1924. It's expected to relocate to a 605-acre tract in nearby Yering, where it'll have a new, Greg Norman-designed golf course. Mirvac plans to build houses on its current home.

Mirvac, which has been in business for nearly 40 years, is one of Australia’s biggest home builders. It's co-owned Gainsborough Greens since 2006 (it became the sole owner in 2009), and last year it commissioned Ross Watson to oversee a four-year makeover of the 6,637-yard track.

Eastern expects to provide more details about the sale in a couple of weeks.

spain The “Strip” Tease

The chairman of Las Vegas Sands Corporation wants to build a “mini Las Vegas” in Spain. He isn't too particular about where.

Sheldon Adelson hopes to build the little Vegas in Madrid or Barcelona, but he's looking for the best deal. He says the $20 billion venture could include as many as 20,000 hotel rooms, convention and meeting space, and a shopping area.

“We're very seriously considering this, we're very actively pursuing this,” Adelson said in a story originally reported by the Associated Press. “There's no reason why we can't do it.”

Las Vegas Sands operates two casinos on the Strip in Las Vegas, three in Macau, one in Pennsylvania, and one in Singapore.

Adelson didn't say anything about building a golf course at his “mini Las Vegas” in Spain, but I'm willing to bet he's got one penciled in somewhere. I mean, you can't gamble 24 hours a day.

worth reading Who's Optimistic?

“For the first time in a long time,” says the opening line of a story in the Winston-Salem Journal, “there's optimism in the golf industry.”

That's good to hear, and a sentiment I generally agree with. My conversations with people in the golf business tell me that the vast majority are certainly more hopeful and more confident than they were last year. Without question, they're decidedly more upbeat than they were during the black days of 2009.

Unfortunately, the Journal's article left me asking a lot of questions about exactly where the golf industry stands today.

The paper bases the entire foundation of its article on a prepared statement from Rhett Evans, the CEO of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. Evans contends that increased attendance at the industry's most important trade shows -- the PGA Merchandise Show and the Golf Industry Show, both of which were held in recent weeks -- suggest that happy days will soon be here again.

“There is definitely a different feeling than what prevailed last year at this time,” Evans said in a press release issued by the Golf Industry Show. “From a qualitative and quantitative perspective, the Golf Industry Show was quite successful.”

This sounds good until you consider that the attendance at the Golf Industry Show was down significantly in 2009 and 2010. The traffic at the event really had nowhere to go but up.

Despite that, I'm not convinced that the actual attendance really was up.

According to the Golf Industry Show's statistics, the event in 2009 had an “overall attendance” of 17,151, while the event in 2010 brought 16,156 through the turnstiles. I'm no mathematician, but that looks like a decline of about 1,000 to me.

In 2011, according to a statement issued earlier this month, the show recorded a “total attendance” of 14,781. This looks like another decline to me, but the GIS calls it “a 4 percent increase over 2010.”

Again, I can hardly balance a checkbook. Here's a link to the page with the post-show press releases from 2010 and 2011.

Let me post a simpler set of numbers that may give a clear-cut indication of where we are in the golf industry today. The press releases also say that GIS 2010 attracted 657 exhibitors, while GIS 2011 attracted 551.

Silly me, I read these numbers as a decline of about 100 exhibitors. The Golf Industry Show calls them “support to the growing wave of optimism that the golf industry is beginning to shake out of its doldrums.”

There's a truth hidden somewhere in all these numbers, but for now, at least, I can't find it.