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?

Desolation Row, november 7, 2014

     Shorewood, Minnesota. Just two years short of its 100th anniversary, Minnetonka Country Club has cashed in its chips. KARE-TV reports that the club’s course, with an original nine by Tom Bendelow, is one of 15 in greater Minneapolis that has closed since 2005. “The local players and the community do not like to see them go,” the executive director of the state’s golf association told the station, “but, unfortunately, it is a reality in our business.” Needless to say, Minnetonka was among the state’s oldest golf properties. Its owner, Bill Witrak, hopes to find a buyer, but he believes his property’s conversion to houses is “inevitable.”

     Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Circle the date: December 14, 2014. Assuming that his plans don’t change, that’s when Roy Clyburn will turn out the lights at Heron Point Golf Club, a venue that’s welcomed golfers on the Grand Strand since 1988. The club’s Willard Byrd-designed course needs to be upgraded, and Clyburn figures that an investment in his struggling property would be money down the drain. “I don’t think it would ever be profitable, not in this market,” he told the Myrtle Beach Sun-News. “Every course to some degree is struggling.” The good news for Clyburn: The club’s 155-acre property is zoned residential.

     Colton, California. The city of Colton has decided to snuff out a golf course that was co-designed by Sam Snead and Robert Trent Jones. The executive-length track at Colton Golf Club got its start in 1963, as Sam Snead All-American Golf Club, and was reportedly one of 10 similarly short, lighted venues that Snead and Jones opened across the country. Bob Mastalski, who purchased the course and named it after the city in 1992, reportedly wants to give it a makeover, but the city has denied his request for permits. According to the Colton Courier, the master plan for the property calls for a shopping area, a hotel, and a university.

     Dunnellon, Florida. The sands of time will soon run out on Rainbow Springs Golf & Country Club. If he can’t find a buyer -- and he’s been trying for more than three years -- Mark Kaprelian plans to close the 35-year-old club and its 18-hole, Joe Lee-designed golf course by the end of the year. Kaprelian reportedly paid $2.4 million for the property in 2010. When he listed it for sale, he was hoping to get $3 million for it.

     Flint, Michigan. Mott Park Golf Course has been forsaken by its last, best hope. The citizens’ group that wished to reopen the city’s defunct, nine-hole track has abandoned its plans, citing restoration costs that it simply can’t justify. “In total, the whole renovation of the course would cost probably around $700,000 to $800,000,” a member of the group’s board told the Flint Journal. She and her colleagues aren’t willing to spend that kind of money, she said, because “golf is an old guy’s game.” Mott Park’s course opened in 1923. The citizens’ group hopes to operate a driving range on the property, along with a course for Frisbee golf.

     Mahwah, New Jersey. The clock is ticking on KemperSports’ term as the operator of Apple Ridge Country Club. Ridgewood Real Estate Partners, the group that bought the club last summer, figures to maintain the club only until it can be transformed into something more profitable. “The intention is to develop it into housing at some point,” the club’s general manager told the Bergen Record. “However long that might take.” Apple Ridge features a Hal Purdy-designed course that opened in 1966. One of KemperSports’ goals was to attract new members, a task that may now prove to be impossible.

     Magalia, California. A year after he put Paradise Pines Golf Course on the market, Bob Fortino has decided to cut his losses. He pulled the plug on his nine-hole track on Halloween. “The rounds of golf were not adequate to support ongoing operations and expenses,” he told the Paradise Post. Paradise Pines’ Bob Baldock-designed course opened in 1971. Fortino, the owner of a local property-management firm, claims not to have any plans for the 40-acre property, but the newspaper says he believes it’s “more valuable if it is used for other purposes.”

     Peoria, Illinois. The Peoria Park District, facing what it says is a $1.36 million budget shortfall, has decided to save some money by closing one of its five golf properties. The sacrificial lamb will be Donovan Golf Course, an 18-hole layout that’s operated since 1929. The track will ring up its final rounds at the end of the 2014 golf season and eventually become a park. There’s a silver lining to this dark cloud, however: To make up for hurt feelings among some local golfers, the park district intends to invest in improvements at Newman Golf Course, an 18-hole track that opened in 1931 and desperately needs new greens.

     Baytown, Texas. Back in April, Goose Creek Country Club bit the dust. A development group eager to build a subdivision had offered $3 million for the club’s property, but the Baytown Sun reports that the expected $3 million sale has fallen through. According to the newspaper, “the property now faces foreclosure and forced sale.”

The Week That Was, november 2, 2014

     An era has ended for Justin Timberlake. The pop superstar has sold Mirimichi, his eco-friendly, highly rated golf complex in suburban Memphis, Tennessee, to a group led by Fred Edmaiston, the owner of a local dust-control company. Timberlake didn’t say why he sold



Mirimichi -- the venue takes its name from an American Indian word that translates as “place of happy retreat” -- but the Memphis Commercial Appeal reports that Edmaiston’s goal is “turning a profit by increasing the number of rounds played and tournaments planned at the course.” Mirimichi, a 27-hole facility, opened in the mid 1970s, as Big Creek Golf Course. Timberlake learned to play golf there. He bought the property in 2007 and gave it a cost-is-no-object makeover, hoping to lure, literally, a U.S. Open. At the debut of the redesigned track, he said, “I think this is probably the coolest thing I’ve ever been a part of in my life.” In all, Timberlake reportedly spent $16 million chasing his dream. Edmaiston, who appears to have lesser ambitions, intends to use Timberlake’s name in his marketing and advertising campaigns. Eventually, however, the facility will have to forge its own identity.

     A Chinese group, intent on becoming what it calls “a serious global investor in country clubs and golf courses,” has acquired 22 public and private golf properties, all of them presumably in the United States. C-Bons International Golf Group hasn’t revealed the names of the properties that it purchased or how much it paid for them, but it cheerfully noted that the transaction is “a milestone acquisition” and that its “primary focus at this time is on the acquisition of golf properties in the recovering United States market.” And while C-Bons didn’t reveal the identity of the sellers, it said that the properties, at least some of which are in Texas and the Northeast, had been “operated in partnership with Century Golf Partners” and will continue to be managed by Century’s management subsidiary, Arnold Palmer Golf Management. Previously, C-Bons had purchased three golf properties in Arizona and one in Las Vegas, Nevada. It says that it expects to “acquire additional strategic golf courses in the near future.”

     It seems that Donald Trump paid even less for the Lodge at Doonbeg than originally believed. The Independent, citing a filing made by the resort’s receivers, says that Trump picked up the 400-acre oceanfront property, in County Clare, Ireland, for just over €8.7 million (just under $10.9 million). The initial reports on the transaction speculated that the price was closer to €15 million (about $20.6 million), which was the amount that the receivers were asking for.

     Less than two years after merging with a financially secure neighbor in suburban Richmond, Virginia, Lake Chesdin Golf Club has been cut loose, and its future is in doubt. Lake Chesdin had hoped to ensure its future by joining forces with Meadowbrook Country Club, but Meadowbrook has bailed on the arrangement, complaining in a letter to the clubs’ members that its partner “would no longer pay shared costs.” Before the merger, Lake Chesdin had been owned by ClubLink, the largest owner/operator in Canada’s golf industry. ClubLink continues to own an equity stake in the club, and its next move will likely be to help find a buyer.

     Ted Bishop won’t get all the rights and privileges that his predecessors at the PGA of America have received, but he isn’t going to be disappeared. That’s the word from the PGA, which issued a “statement of clarification” about Bishop’s status after terminating him as the group’s president for making those much-discussed “insensitive gender-based statements.” According to the statement, “Bishop will continue to be recognized as the 38th president of the PGA, and his record of service during the time period which he served will remain intact.” Many reporters -- myself included -- believed Bishop when he said that he wouldn’t “be recognized as a past president in our association’s history.” Obviously, he was mistaken, and his interpretation of events caused many others to say things that they might like to take back, such as “The PGA did right by expelling him, wrong by banishing him from history” and “Having his entire tenure be stricken from the record carries a strong whiff of Stalinist erasure that reflects poorly on the PGA of America” and “The PGA apparently believes that history can, when desirable, be rewritten.” How long before we put this sorry episode behind us?

     Before the Tim Bishop fiasco is consigned to the dustbin of history, it’s worth noting that a clear majority of high-profile U.S. golf instructors think the PGA of America’s 38th president got a raw deal. According to a survey by Golf magazine, 65 percent of our nation’s top 100 golf teachers believe that Bishop shouldn’t have lost his job on account of his inappropriate Twittering. “The only rational explanation for the Board of Director’s [sic] actions is that they were executing the wishes of an undisclosed entity within the organization,” one of the instructors commented. “And this individual or individuals were determined to eviscerate [Bishop] and then watch with satisfaction as he bled out on the street before them.” I can’t honestly say that the same thought didn’t cross my mind as well.

     Dan Jenkins will be the first journalist to receive the Old Tom Morris Award, a lifetime achievement accolade that’s been bestowed annually since 1983 by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. Jenkins, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, has been writing about golf for more than 60 years and still remains unique in the profession. “Through his words,” said Keith Ihms, the GCSAA’s president, “we have all felt closer to the greats of the game.” Last year, the GCSAA gave the Old Tom Morris Award to Annika Sorenstam. Other winners include Bob Hope, Gerald Ford, and Dinah Shore.

Transactions, october 31, 2014

     Brattleboro, Vermont. John Judge, who’s had what he calls “a life-long ambition to own a golf course,” has purchased Brattleboro Country Club. The club, which this year celebrated its 100th anniversary, features an 18-hole course, with eight holes designed by Wayne Stiles. It was a forced sale, as the club’s financial condition “has been deteriorating for years,” according to the Brattleboro Reformer. “It was time to foreclose or find a buyer,” one of the club’s former presidents said. Judge, a club member, didn’t reveal the purchase price.

     Prescott, Arizona. Two years after filing for Chapter 11 and closing, Hassayampa Golf Club has once again been given a new lease on life. The club, which features a Tom Weiskopf-designed course, has been acquired by Capital Canyon Club LLC, an entity that’s said to be composed of former club members and residents of Hassayampa’s accompanying community. “You can count on us to bring to you the highest quality golf club you deserve,” the new owners wrote in a letter intended to lure prospective members. Hassayampa was founded in 1919 and closed for the first time in 1969. It was dead for 30 years before Desert Troon brought it back to life. The new owners aim to reopen the track next year.

     Pukalani (Maui), Hawaii. A Japanese investor has reportedly paid $4.25 million for Pukalani Country Club. The club, which opened in 1980, features an 18-hole golf course that was designed by Bob Baldock. The seller, an affiliate of Kobayashi Group, declined to identify the purchaser but told Pacific Business News that it’s “a Japanese person that has been coming to Hawaii and Maui for many years.” Kobayashi’s subsidiary continues to own developable property adjacent to the course.

     Granville, Ohio. After passing on an opportunity to buy Granville Golf Course, Denison University has accepted the property as a gift. The course, which opened in 1924, was designed by Donald Ross, and it serves as the home of the university’s men’s and women’s golf teams. The Columbus Dispatch reports that the property “had faced an uncertain future as revenue declined and its owners aged.” The youngest shareholder, according to the newspaper, “was pushing 80.”

     Alachua, Florida. A Tennessee-based group has agreed to buy and reopen the defunct Turkey Creek Golf & Country Club. The club, in suburban Gainesville, opened in the late 1970s and became a victim of the Great Recession in 2011. It features an 18-hole, Ward Northrup-designed golf course. The Gainesville Sun reports that the prospective owners, operating as GSP Business Alliance, specialize in “revitalizing golf clubs that are dead or dying.” Wallace Cain, Turkey Creek’s current owner, told the newspaper that he put the property on the market “a long time before we closed it.”

     Homer, Georgia. Last summer, a pair of would-be residential developers agreed to buy the only country club in Banks County. Vowing to be “in it for the long haul,” Jim Pritchard and Tony Adams paid an undisclosed price for Scales Country Club, which features an 18-hole, Mark McCumber-designed golf course. “We are very excited about keeping the golf course going and developing a first-class community for the Banks County area,” Pritchard told Banks News Today. The club opened in 1998, as Hammer’s Glen Golf & Country Club. At one time, its golf course was ranked among the 25 toughest in the state.

     Reno, Nevada. The imperiled ArrowCreek Country Club has been rescued by roughly 30 members of its accompanying community. The club, which was forced to declare for bankruptcy protection in early 2014, is now owned by a group that hopes to flip the property to the community’s home owners’ association. “There’s been a negative cloud over ArrowCreek for almost eight years,” the group’s chairman told the Reno Gazette-Journal, “and we feel that that cloud is being lifted.” Arrowhead features a pair of 18-hole courses, one designed by Arnold Palmer and one co-designed by Fuzzy Zoeller and John Harbottle. A sales price hasn’t been announced, but the new owners will reportedly assume $2 million in debt.

     Eden, Utah. A home builder has purchased the golf course at the former Wolf Creek Resort. A partnership led by John Lewis, the owner of Lewis Homes, paid an undisclosed price for the 18-hole, 52-year-old layout. The partners already own other attractions at Wolf Creek, so the purchase allows them to control more pieces of the puzzle. “With the acquisition of the golf course, we can now integrate resident and commercial development with semi-private golf and other community-based activities,” Lewis told the Salt Lake Tribune. “We now have a way to bring back the resort, a sense of community that essentially vanished with the recession and bankruptcy.” The seller was an entity called KRK Wolf Creek, which reportedly bought the property from a local bank in 2012.

     Bullard, Texas. Steven Plybon, a local oil man, has acquired a golf community anchored by Eagle’s Bluff Country Club. Plybon and his partners believe their purchase has given the club “renewed optimism for the future.” Eagle’s Bluff, the featured attraction of a gated community that lies along Lake Palestine outside Tyler, features an 18-hole, Carlton Gipson-designed golf course. It was once known as the Challenge at Eagle’s Bluff, part of a collection of courses owned by David Carlile.

     Beaufort, North Carolina. Culminating a process that took nearly a year, a development-minded duo from Raleigh has taken possession of North River Club. Todd Saieed and Ven Poole haven’t revealed what they paid for the seven-year-old club, which has been in financial trouble for several years. The club, which features an 18-hole, Bob Moore-designed golf course, is the centerpiece of a 629-acre community that could have as many as 1,500 houses, along with a retail/commercial area, at build-out. Thanks to a moribund local housing market, so far only 35 houses have been built.

     Palm Coast, Florida. A defunct golf property in Flagler County has sold for less than the price of some surrounding houses. A Jacksonville-based group led by Stephen Richardson and Michael Yokan reportedly purchased Matanzas Woods Golf Course, an Arnold Palmer-designed track that hasn’t operated since 2007, for a measly $266,750. The sellers reportedly paid $2 million for Matanzas Woods and two other nearby courses in 2011.

The Week That Was, october 26, 2014

     As far as the PGA of America is concerned, Ted Bishop never existed. His nearly two-year term as the group’s 38th president never happened. He never fought against the proposed ban on anchored putters, he never established a task force to test non-traditional ideas for growing the game, and he wasn’t responsible for appointing Tom Watson as the captain of this year’s miserable Ryder Cup team.
     Ted who?
     Like others in many walks of life, Bishop lost his job -- and lost it literally a month before his term was to expire -- because he made ill-advised tweets. Specifically, he made what the PGA described as “insensitive gender-based statements” in an online exchange with professional golfer Ian Poulter.
     Make no mistake: Bishop’s tweets were inappropriate and clearly worthy of punishment. Words matter, and they matter especially when they’re spoken by someone in a position of power.
     But is the PGA’s punishment commensurate with Bishop’s crime? Because Bishop has received what amounts to a professional extermination. In an act that might have been scripted by the Russian politburo, the PGA has forever made him a persona non grata and plans to strip him out of the group’s history. Bishop will never be able to show his face at a future PGA Championship or Ryder Cup match, never be honored as a past president, and never be invited to participate in PGA-sponsored events.
     Of course, there’s a certain absurdity involved in this business of vacating Bishop’s presidency. Like the NCAA (not to mention Josef Stalin, the world’s first Photoshopper), the PGA apparently believes that history can, when desirable, be rewritten. Fairly or not, however, Reggie Bush won a Heisman, the Fab Five played twice in the Final Four, and John Calipari won a bunch of games at UMass and Memphis that he no longer gets credit for. Asterisks can be added to record books and banners can be removed from stadiums, but memories can’t easily be erased.
     Damning Bishop to oblivion is a peculiar end to what Geoff Shackelford, during face time on the Golf Channel, called a “largely successful presidency.” To put the PGA’s verdict into perspective, rewind to the spring of 2013, when, in a room filled with many of golf’s most influential people, Sergio Garcia made a racist joke about professional golf’s biggest star. The outcome: Garcia received no punishment whatsoever -- no suspension, no fine, no anything. He simply apologized and then cashed his next paycheck.
     Bishop is the first president of the PGA to be dismissed while in office. As embarrassments go, his “impeachment,” as he called it, was probably punishment enough. Why did the PGA’s board feel it necessary to take a pound of flesh as well?

     The operator of a health-club chain in California’s San Francisco Bay area is on the prowl for golf properties that it can transform into “modernized country clubs.” Bay Club Company hasn’t spelled out exactly what the transformation will entail, but it’s got something to do with “fitness, sports and recreation, families with children, and hospitality.” We’ll learn more after Bay Club completes the renovations it aims to do at its first golf property, StoneTree Golf Club in Novato, which features a 14-year-old course that was co-designed by Johnny Miller, Sandy Tatum, and others. One change has already been made, as the club is now called Bay Club StoneTree. “This is just the beginning,” Bay Club’s president acknowledged in a press release. “We have identified and are in active conversations with several attractive acquisition candidates, including golf clubs, across California.” Bay Club’s purchases are being funded, at least in part, by York Capital Management, and it’s getting development advice from JMA Ventures.

     After lying low for a few months, Concert Golf Partners has purchased its eighth golf property. The Newport Beach, California-based group paid an undisclosed price for Sand Creek Country Club, a private venue in Chesterton, Indiana. The seller was a utility company based in Northwest Indiana. Sand Creek, which was established by Bethlehem Steel, features a well-regarded 27-hole complex and considers itself to be “the premier family-oriented country club in the Midwest.” In early 2014, CGP acquired Gaillardia Golf & Country Club, a financially troubled facility in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The company also owns four golf properties in Florida and one each in Maryland and North Carolina.

     Another domino has fallen for the PGA Tour. On its path to world domination, the tour has established a presence in South America, as it’s licensed its Tournament Players Club brand to a resort in Colombia. TPC Cartagena at Karibana features a two-year-old Nicklaus Design golf course that will host a $700,000 event on the Web.com Tour next year. “The PGA Tour has viewed South America as an important part of a larger picture,” said a spokesperson for the tour. The larger picture includes 32 TPC properties in the United States and another in Mexico. Eventually the tour hopes to create one in Beijing, China, and maybe another in Shanghai.

     Slowly but surely, real money is starting to flow into Asia’s professional golf circuit. Next year, despite a military coup and martial law, Thailand will host its richest golf event ever, the $2 million Thailand Classic. The tournament, jointly sanctioned by the Asian and European tours, will be played in February, at Black Mountain Golf Club in Hua Hin. “Thailand has been one of our strongest markets over the years,” the Asian Tour’s chairman said in a press release, “and the addition of a new event will cement the nation’s place as one of Asia’s golfing giants.” For comparison’s sake, it’s worth noting that $2 million in prize money is small potatoes compared to the purses that U.S. golfers compete for. In the United States, even the low-budget events -- the Franklin Templeton Shootout, the Barbasol Championship, the Barracuda Championship -- offer $3.1 million or more.

     Even if he has to say so himself, Greg “the Living Brand” Norman believes his new, links-inspired golf course in Vietnam will someday be ranked among the world’s elite. “I absolutely believe the Bluffs has the potential to be one of the top courses in the world,” he said at the course’s official opening. To be sure, Norman is generously paid to make such statements. He isn’t paid to make predictions, however, and he made a bold one during his visit: “I firmly believe that Vietnam will steadily evolve as another links destination as more courses like the Bluffs Ho Tram Strip are developed along the coastal areas of the country.” Sounds like an invitation to Mike Keiser.