The Week That Was, september 11, 2011

asia Random News & Notes

Here are some development-related factoids, as provided by an Asian news service affiliated with the Wall Street Journal. Some of you will consider this old news, but I think it's worth repeating.

-- China now has close to 600 courses, all of them built since 1984, and about 1.3 million golfers. The People’s Republic aims to increase the number of golfers “to 30 million in the next 20 years,” notes Mario Rodrigues of LiveMint.com, and “the country will need to develop 2,000 courses over the next eight years” to do so.

-- In a story distributed by the Xinhua news service, the Forward Chinese Amateur Tour says that China had 490 18-hole courses at the end of 2010, including 97 in Guangdong Province, 51 in Shandong Province, and 70 in and around Beijing. Xinhua did some math and determined that the number of courses in China has tripled since 2004, from 170 to more than 570 today -– a stunning achievement, considering that a ban on golf construction has been in place in the People’s Republic since 2004. Xinhua helpfully points out that “only 10” of the new courses “were approved by the government and given business licenses, which implies that most of China’s golf courses were illegally built.”

-- Finally, let’s not ignore some dark clouds that may be gathering on the development horizon in Asia. Rodrigues says that Thailand and Malaysia, which have grown markedly as golf destinations over the past two decades, “are now facing their own issues of oversupply -– more courses than golfers.”

china Site-Seeing in the People's Republic

Have all the best sites for golf courses in China already been exhausted?

In a nation as large as China, it hardly seems possible. But over the past year or so, a growing number of U.S. architects have issued complaints about the quality of the properties they're expected to build courses upon.

“There are still some good sites there,” one of them recently told me, “but they're few and far between.”

I'm not going to reveal any identities or pinpoint any places. Suffice to say that in the past few weeks alone I've spoken with two architects -- one who lives east of the Mississippi and one who lives west of it -- who are finding it increasingly difficult to do their best work in China.

The problem: As China's government more rigorously protects farm land, course architects are being asked to work on wickedly difficult places, including the sides of mountains, expanses of solid rock, and featureless areas such as landfills. Heck, several (if not all) of the courses at the Mission Hills resort on Hainan Island were built on what's been described as “a dense bed of lava rock” that had to be capped with up to three feet of grass-accommodating soil.

“We're going to get complicated sites from now on,” says Mr. West. “They aren't going to give up farm land anymore.”

I'm not suggesting that a shortage of ideal sites is going to slow golf construction in China in an appreciable way or that high-quality courses can no longer be built there. What I'm suggesting is that the future of golf design in the nation may require ever-larger doses of what we used to call American ingenuity.

Mr. East, for example, is working with a major Chinese golf developer on a project within a two-hour drive of Beijing. The course is to be part of a community that includes villas and a hotel, both of which will occupy decent land. For the golf course, Mr. East got what he calls “a severe site.”

“When I first saw it,” he says, “I didn't think there was any way to build a golf course there.”

Of course, where there's a will, there's a way. And when there's a paycheck involved, you can bet that a solution won't be far behind.

anguilla The “Sanctuary” Is Sold

CuisinArt Resort & Spa has acquired the troubled Temenos resort community, the home of the only golf course on the island of Anguilla.

CuisinArt placed the high bid on the half-built, 280-acre community during a public auction in June and closed on the purchase in August. The resort had been dying a slow death since 2008, when its owners decided to quit throwing money at it.

Temenos has beachfront mansions, high-priced villas, a hotel, and an 18-hole, Greg Norman-designed golf course. Simon Fuller, the creator of “American Idol” and “So You Think You Can Dance,” owns property in the community, as does Dan Brown, the author of The Da Vinci Code and other novels.

CuisinArt plans to give the resort a new name -- CuisinArt Golf Resort & Spa -- and has promised to make unspecified improvements to the 7,063-yard golf course and its 33,500-square-foot clubhouse. The golf course opened in 2007 and was closed for a spell in 2009, due to the resort's financial difficulties.

One of the island's government officials once called Temenos -- it's a Greek word that means sanctuary -- “the most important project Anguilla ever had.” Late last year a group led by Roger Staubach, the one-time Dallas Cowboys quarterback, had hoped to buy it, but the deal fell through.

talking points Let Us Now Praise Famous Courses

Phil Mickelson may not have won this year’s Scottish Open, but he came away from the event bubbling with appreciation for its venue. And he isn’t the only one: Castle Stuart Golf Links, which was co-designed Gil Hanse and Mark Parsinen and opened in 2009, is already ranked among the world’s top courses.

Here’s what Mickelson had to say about it, in remarks published by the Scotsman:

This is great golf course architecture. Most of the greatest holes that have ever been designed have been designed 60 to 100 years ago. I don’t see that type of greatness in a lot of modern-day architecture. But with Gil Hanse, that type of thought-provoking, fun golf course is being brought back.

Our modern-day architects have this feeling that equipment has changed the game and therefore they must make every hole long and hard and totally unplayable for the average player. And unfortunately, that has driven a lot of people away from the game of golf. I think it’s one of the leading reasons why a lot of participation has been down, because [their courses] are not fun. . . .

Hanse recognizes that golf is not about longer and harder. Longer and harder is just longer and harder. It’s monotonous and ultimately not very thought-provoking. [The game] is about fun and creativity, and it doesn’t have to beat you up all the time.

It should be a prerequisite to play Castle Stuart before you’re allowed to design courses nowadays.

china Size and Whispers

If there’s one thing Richard Mandell has learned about golf development in China, it that more always seems to be merrier.

“The Chinese certainly like to do things big,” he wrote earlier this year in a column for the Washington Times. “It is amazing to me how many multiple-course facilities are under construction and in planning.”

Don’t be surprised if Mandell is soon working on some of those multi-course complexes. Today he’s cultivating nine prospects who could deliver design contracts on more than a dozen 18-hole courses, including a pair of 54-hole complexes and one 72-hole complex.

The Pinehurst, North Carolina-based designer has been introduced to these prospects over the past year or so, during the 11 trips he’s made to Zhangjiajie, in Hunan Province, in connection with the design and construction of Skydoor Golf Club.

In fact, as if to prove that size really matters in the People’s Republic, Skydoor itself may grow bigger than originally expected. The club’s first 18 is scheduled to open next month, with a long-planned third nine to follow. And if all goes well, the club’s developers could add up to 18 more holes.

The Week That Was, september 4, 2011

japan The Fallout

I'm sure it won't surprise anyone to learn that the golf business in Fukushima Prefecture is hurting as a result of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March.

The Daily Yomiuri reports that 12 of the prefecture's 63 courses are closed until further notice due to radioactive contamination. Of those courses, three are in the prefecture's dead zone and one is in the half-dead zone just outside it.

Note: My use of the phrases dead zone and half-dead zone hasn't been approved by the Japanese government.

The eight other shuttered courses in Fukushima, located in supposedly safe areas, are free to open if they want to but haven't done so and may not anytime soon -- or perhaps ever. It costs a bundle to decontaminate a course, and there's little reason to believe that educated golfers are ever going to feel comfortable playing on radioactive grass.

The prefecture's still-operating courses are also suffering, as they're having a hard time attracting players and holding on to their members. This is to be expected in an area where golfers have more pressing things to do, like maybe rebuilding their shattered lives. To wit: The number of players at the 40 golf properties affiliated with the Fukushima Prefectural Golf Association was down by 49 percent in May 2011 as compared to May 2010.

What's worse, the newspaper says, is that “future prospects remain dim.”

china More at Mission Hills?

Will more golf courses soon emerge at Mission Hills Hainan? And if so, how many?

As most everyone knows, golf construction at Mission Hills Hainan has been taking place on an epic scale. David and Ken Chu, the principals of Mission Hills Group, opened the resort's first three courses in April 2010, added another trio in September 2010, and then delivered four more tracks earlier this year.

But 10 courses are not apparently enough.

Ron Gluckman of the Wall Street Journal reports that “work on more courses at the site,” which occupies 19,800 acres on Hainan Island, “is continuing.”

Gluckman doesn't say how much work is continuing, but he issued some details about a goofy-sounding course -- “outlandish,” he calls it -- that the Chus apparently allowed him to write about. According to his report, the 18-hole, Brian Curley-designed layout will feature “a replica of the Great Wall, a hole inside a giant bowl of noodles, a small-scale version of the Bird's Nest Stadium from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and a tee tucked behind a waterfall.”

Curley, who's designed all of the existing courses at Mission Hills Hainan, likens this “fantasy” course to miniature golf, “but on a grandiose scale.”

“Purists might not like [the course], but I think it's exactly what golf needs,” he says. “Golf has been stagnant for way too long.”

Exactly what golf needs? Seriously?

The Chus are extremely tight-lipped about their golf activities, so much so that Mission Hills Hainan was once known only by its code name: Project 791. For a while, in fact, they even denied its existence, despite the fact that construction updates were regularly making their way out of the People's Republic.

The question now is, How many more courses do the Chus plan to build at Mission Hills Hainan? Before you answer, consider this: An early master plan for the resort showed 18 courses, and some reporters were led to believe that as many as 22 were in the works.

denmark Makeover for a Great Dane

A Danish design team has broken ground on what they describe as “the biggest reconstruction project ever to take place in Denmark.”

The venue is the New course at Himmerland Golf & Country Club in Gatten, an American- and Scottish-influenced track that was designed by Jan Sederholm. The club aims to give the course a major overhaul, in the hope of landing an event on the European PGA Tour in 2014.

Philip Spogárd and Michiel VanderVaart have been commissioned to oversee the renovation. The course will be lengthened with a set of so-called tournament tees (when all is said and done, it'll be the nation's longest layout), its greens will be rebuilt to USGA specifications, and its bunkers will be relocated and rebuilt. A new par-3 hole will be created, some fairways will be recontoured to eliminate blind shots, and a new irrigation system will be installed.

The construction is being done by David Nelson, a Scottish builder.

Himmerland is said to be one of the top resorts in Scandinavia. It has a second 18-hole course, the Old course, as well as a nine-hole, par-3 track. Spogárd and VanderVaart also expect to upgrade the latter.

The golf upgrades are part of a larger-scale rejuvenation taking place at the club. The property's clubhouse is being enlarged, and its hotel is adding meeting space and a spa.

“We will be able to offer something pretty unique when both the golf course and our other facilities are ready,” the club’s chief executive said in a press release.

The redesigned course is scheduled to debut in August 2012.

worth reading The Long Good-Bye?

You can add another name to the list of people complaining about today's ever-longer golf courses -- and it comes all the way from the Czech Republic.

It's Rick Woelfel, who begins a recent opinion piece on the state of the game by saying, If the course setup for the just-concluded PGA Championship was indicative of where golf course design is headed, there are some dark clouds on the horizon.

The course, at Atlanta Athletic Club, played to 7,467 yards -- way too long for Woelfel's tastes. Below is an abridged version of his commentary. It was originally posted at ExeGolf.com, a “community portal” operated by the European Society YOOP SE.

Our concern is that in an unceasing effort to protect against the skills of today’s touring professionals, golf course architects and tournament administrators have set a trend which has resulted in courses becoming increasingly difficult, perhaps too difficult, for the average golfer.

In recent years, the courses that the PGA Tour plays have gotten increasingly longer; they are now well over 7,000 yards in most cases. No one is suggesting that recreational players tackle a course of that length; something between 6,300 to 6,500 yards is plenty long enough for most amateurs. A case could be made that many people should tee it up closer, to an even 6,000 yards, which allow them a legitimate chance to reach most par fours in two or reach the bend in a dogleg without driving the ball 270 yards-plus.

The problem is that as tour courses get longer, architects and greens committees feel compelled to make their own facilities play increasingly longer and harder. In the end, this creates a situation that becomes increasingly frustrating for the average player. At a time when the number of golfers has leveled off and when the industry claims to be focused on “growing the game,” the powers that be must take extra care not to drive golfers away from the game by presenting them with playing conditions that are overwhelming. . . .

If the game is to continue to thrive and survive, architects must remember that not everyone who plays their courses is a single-digit handicapper. The game will be better for it.