The Week That Was, november 30, 2014

     Dan Washburn, the author of The Forbidden Game, is hearing disturbing things about the state of the golf business in the People’s Republic. He’s heard, for example, that the industry is currently “in a full stop mode” and that “big-time golf development is absolutely over in China for the foreseeable future.” Among the reasons: Cooling real estate markets, severe water shortages, and stricter lending practices that have tightened the money supply. Also, the government is again enforcing its 10-year-old moratorium on golf construction and has sent shivers down the spines of developers by threatening to close as many as 100 existing golf courses. Though he’s viewed as an expert on golf in China, Washburn doesn’t know what to make of it all. “Maybe this is truly the end of the boom,” he muses. “Maybe it’s just another bump in the road.” Either way, those who still think that China is golf development’s promised land surely have another think coming.

     New business ventures, including what’s been described as “a major branding deal” and “an increased devotion to digital,” are on the horizon for Nicklaus Companies. Within the next six months or so, according to a report in Forbes, Jack Nicklaus’ marketing apparatus plans to unveil Nicklaus-themed airport restaurants (how did we ever live without them?) and new food and beverage products (we all scream for ice cream!), and it may move the company into what a company official calls “golf entertainment.” Golf-course design will continue to be the firm’s primary line of business, but in recent years Nicklaus has supplemented the architectural division’s revenues by putting his name on apparel, wine, eye wear, household goods, home appliances, limited-edition pens, calendars, golf balls, memorabilia, and other mostly unnecessary stuff. Forbes says that the forthcoming ventures are an effort “to institutionalize the Nicklaus Companies’ brand so that it could live on indefinitely.” Next year, Nicklaus will celebrate his 75th birthday.

     It’s going to be a really swell Christmas for the equity members of a private golf club in suburban Toronto. A residential developer has offered $412 million for the 400 acres occupied by York Downs Golf & Country Club, a price that values each member’s share at $200,000. The members haven’t yet agreed to the offer -- a vote will likely take place early next year -- but a sale appears to be foregone conclusion, seeing as how the club’s initiation fee had been only $30,000. “I don’t know how the club would exist if we turned this down,” a member told Global News Toronto. “It is simply too much money to ignore.” With its windfall, York Downs could conceivably relocate or buy out a competitor, but the news service reports that the idea “doesn’t seem to be gaining traction.” The members would prefer to take the money and run.

     Graeme McDowell, the professional golfer from Northern Ireland, has registered a complaint about the “elitist” nature of golf. “We have to make the game cheaper, more accessible, faster, and more fun,” he wrote in a recent blog post for the BBC. “When I go to different parts of the world, I see that golf is still elitist. It doesn’t encourage people who can’t afford to play. We need nine-hole, par-3 courses, like the one I grew up on. I don’t understand why we don’t see more of that, especially in the United States.” McDowell deserves credit for drawing attention to one of the golf industry’s major problems, but he isn’t being honest when he suggests that he doesn’t know why nine-hole, par-3 tracks are so few and far between. And while we’re on the subject, it’s worth noting that life on the “elitist” PGA and European tours has benefited McDowell handsomely. Yahoo! Sports says that McDowell has earned nearly $27 million during his career, an amount that likely doesn’t include money earned from endorsements, investments, and other ancillary income streams. If McDowell thinks the golf business would be better off if it had a greater number of short, easy-to-play courses, he can certainly afford to build a few.

     CEOs who are adept at keeping their eyes on the ball at the golf course often lose sight of it in their executive suites. According to a statistical analysis by a trio of college professors, the companies of CEOs who play more than 22 rounds of golf annually have “lower operating performance” than companies with CEOs who keep their noses somewhat closer to the grindstone. The professors came to their conclusion by analyzing the corporate performance of 363 U.S. chief executives who posted their golf scores at a USGA website, a practice that will undoubtedly soon end.

The Week That Was, november 23, 2014

     China is still Asia’s (and most likely the world’s) number-one hot spot for golf development, according to a survey of architects commissioned by the Club Managers Association of Asia. The architects ranked Vietnam as the next-best land of opportunity, followed by Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. It’s worth noting, however, that many respondents have cooled on Asia, as they expressed worries about a range of issues including tougher water restrictions, the lack of growth among “native” golfers, China’s moratorium on construction, and an absence of financing. “Our research indicates that both present actions and the current wider sentiment held are signs of softening in the pace of new supply,” the report states. Spots six through 10 on the hot list are occupied by Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, and the Philippines.

     A pair of U.S. investment groups has agreed to purchase a half-dozen golf properties owned by a financially beleaguered British hotelier. Boston-based Sankaty Advisors LLC (an affiliate of Bain Capital) and Los Angeles-based Canyon Capital Advisors LLC will acquire five resort-style hotels with golf courses in England (among them Mottram Hall Club & Spa outside Manchester and Slaley Hall in Northumberland) and one in Scotland (Cameron House in Loch Lomond). A price hasn’t been announced, but so-called experts suggest that the sellers, De Vere Hotels and De Vere Luxury Lodges, will get something like £160 million ($250 million). De Vere had accumulated more than $1 billion in debt before it was taken over by Lloyds Banking Group, which has insisted that De Vere’s assets be liquidated. Seeing as how the new owners are investors and not operators, they’re unlikely to be in the golf business for long. Until they depart, QHotels, which had operated the properties for De Vere, will manage the properties.

     The world’s most over-hyped chain of golf properties now has a presence in the Bahamas. The soon-to-open Jack Nicklaus “signature” course at Baha Mar, a casino-focused resort in Nassau, will become the 35th link in the PGA Tour’s network of Tournament Players Clubs. “The PGA Tour is thrilled to expand the TPC Network’s brand presence into the Caribbean for the first time,” the tour said in a press release. “TPC at Baha Mar truly epitomizes the standard of excellence and tournament-hosting capabilities for which TPC courses are recognized worldwide.” Baha Mar, which is controlled by Chinese investors, is the second property to join the TPC network in recent weeks. It’s surely just a coincidence, but the chain’s recently acquired property in Cartagena, Colombia features a Nicklaus Design course.

     To secure their futures, a trio of golf clubs in suburban Melbourne, Australia may merge into a giant “super club.” All three are well-known, well-regarded, long-established Sandbelt venues with 18-hole courses: Rossdale Golf Club, which calls itself “Melbourne’s friendliest golf club”; Patterson River Golf Club, self-described as “by far the best value-for-money golf club in the area”; and Woodlands Golf Club, whose golf course is ranked by Golf Digest in Australia’s top 20. A recent study has determined that half of the golf clubs in Australia are under “financial duress,” and Inside Golf has predicted that 20 percent of metropolitan Melbourne’s clubs will either close or merge during the next decade. “It’s no secret that the slice of the pie for private membership is decreasing and the market is getting more competitive,” the general manager of a Melbourne-area club told the magazine last year. The merger won’t happen unless it’s approved by the members of all three clubs, and the negotiations could take a year or more to conclude.

      The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the September 2014 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     As they looked down the barrel of a $389,000 bill that they can’t pay, the members of Asheville Golf & Country Club voted to sell their property to McConnell Golf. The margin was 222 to 96. Over the next three years, John McConnell’s golf ownership and management entity will sink $4 million into the oldest private club in North Carolina, with a top-of-the-list project being a conversion to USGA-spec greens. “The overall plan is to protect the integrity of the golf course as Donald Ross first designed it,” McConnell told the Asheville Citizen-Times. A price wasn’t announced, but the newspaper reports that McConnell Golf will assume up to $2.3 million worth of the club’s debt. Presumably, the company will cover the $389,000 balloon payment that the club is obligated to make in February 2015.

     What are those adages about chickens coming home to roost and letting sleeping dogs lie? I don’t remember them right now, but I’m sure they apply to the increasingly irrelevant Tiger Woods, who’s needlessly picked a public fight with Dan Jenkins of Golf Digest. Jenkins landed the first punch by writing a fabricated interview with the notoriously close-mouthed mega-star and serial adulterer, but his piece was flying largely under the radar until Woods published a far more publicized response and then dispatched his highly paid public-relations team to extract an apology from the magazine’s editors. Obviously, Jenkins touched some raw nerves, but it was Woods who, in the aftermath of Thanksgiving Day five years ago, reminded us of the often stark difference between image and reality. If Woods wants to know why people don’t like him anymore, maybe it’s because they’ve read and remembered what are allegedly his actual words.

Vital Signs, november 21, 2014

     Remember when the golf industry set out to increase the number of U.S. golfers to 40 million by 2022? The plan hasn’t gone very well, has it? Since Golf 2.0 was unveiled, the number of U.S. golfers has fallen from roughly 26 million to about 23 million, and it continues to fall. In fact, the program is failing so miserably that it’s completely bummed out Jim Koppenhaver, who’s concluded that our nation won’t get anywhere near 40 million golfers during our lifetimes, even though the sport is as accessible as it’s ever been and as affordable as it’s ever going to be. “We won’t threaten 30 million U.S. golfers again in the near future, let alone any number north of that,” Koppenhaver grumbles in November’s Pellucid Perspective. His reasoning: “The very things that make our sport appealing to the current base are things that are barriers for the larger population.” On this subject, Koppenhaver’s thinking reflects a changing perspective in our business. Not so long ago, we believed we could establish a broad river of golf participation. Today, we’ve resigned ourselves to having a narrow but hopefully deep one. Absent some social or economic miracle, golf is going to be to sports what Van Morrison is to music.

     The European Golf Course Owners Association has run the numbers, and it estimates that by 2020 the number of registered golfers in Europe, currently about 4.3 million, is going to drop by 18.6 percent, to 3.5 million. And that’s really not the worst of it, because as the continent’s golf population shrinks, it’s going to age dramatically. In its Vision 2020 policy paper on the future of the golf industry, the EGCOA reports that last year 56 percent of the registered golfers in five major golf markets -- France, Germany, Sweden, Spain, and the Netherlands -- were over 50 and that 33 percent were over 60. By 2020, the group says, 66 percent will be over 50 and 42 percent will be over 60. It behooves me to note that the EGCOA is making projections based on current trends and that trends can and often do change. That being said, the group’s data pretty much signals the end of all but boutique golf development in Europe, doesn’t it?

     Until 2008, according to a study by McMahon Group, golf was the number-one reason people gave for joining a country club. Since then, however, golf has fallen to something like sixth on the list of attractions that prospective members seek. “They like golf and the golf culture, and probably someone in the family plays golf, but it’s difficult for them to justify country club membership on that basis alone,” McMahon’s president told the Detroit Free Press. “They are looking for more of a lifestyle model.” Talk of “lifestyle models” always frightens me, because it prompts visions of struggling golf communities whose residents love the lifestyle but not the golf itself. Inevitably, there comes a day when people have to choose what matters most to them, and when that day comes, position six is not the place to be.

     Good news for those who believe that the golf industry goes as the housing market goes: The nation’s highest-priced houses are selling faster than any others on the market. In October, sales of houses priced at $1 million or more were up by 16 percent over the number sold in October 2013, and the second best-selling segment consisted of houses priced between $750,000 and $1 million, which were up by 12 percent. “People in the top 10 percent of wealth are really feeling confident now,” the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors told CNBC. If you’re wondering how working-class Americans are doing, sales of houses priced below $100,000 fell by 6 percent.

     Warm weather, nice hotels, and easy airline connections are helping the Dominican Republic cash in on golf tourism. Last year, the nation welcomed 103,000 international travelers who came exclusively to golf, and this year it expects to attract 125,000, an increase of 21 percent. In all, according to figures provided by Property Showrooms, vacationing golfers contributed more than $198 million to the nation’s economy in 2013, and the amount is expected to surpass $297 million in 2016. Do you think Cuba is taking notice?

     Whose is bigger, Greg Norman’s or Donald Trump’s? The correct answer: Trump’s, hands down, presuming that we’re merely talking about who has the biggest golf clubhouse in Dubai. It once appeared that Norman was going to be the Big Daddy, as the so-called Norman Clubhouse at Jumeirah Golf Estates supposedly measures out at 131,000 square feet and is said to be “a destination in its own right.” But though it may dwarf the local competition, it’s going to look puny compared to the 30,000-square-meter building -- a whopping 322,917 square feet -- that’s about to take shape at Trump International Golf Club Dubai. Damac Properties wants the clubhouse at its Trump-branded course to be “the largest of its kind in Dubai,” and -- for the time being, at least -- it’s succeeded. In Dubai, and elsewhere as well, size really does matter.

The Week That Was, november 16, 2014

     It appears that John McConnell’s investment entity will soon add another golf property to its fast-growing portfolio. McConnell Golf, already the owner of eight private clubs in the Carolinas, has submitted the preferred bid on Country Club of Asheville, in part because it’s agreed to invest in overdue improvements at the 120-year-old venue in Asheville, North Carolina. “We were looking for someone willing to make a significant infusion of cash into the clubhouse and golf course to do renovations,” the club’s president told the Asheville Citizen-Times. The club features an 18-hole Donald Ross-designed golf course that originally opened, in 1928, as Beaver Lake Golf Course. According to the newspaper, the club’s members are expected to vote on the proposed purchase later this week.

     In what’s been described as “a mutual parting of the ways,” Phil Mickelson’s proposed acquisition of Fairbanks Ranch Country Club has been scrapped. Had the transaction closed successfully, the club, in Rancho Santa Fe, California, would have been the sixth golf property owned by Mickelson-controlled investment groups. And though he swung and missed with Fairbanks Ranch, Mickelson deserves some credit for having a surprisingly rare diversification strategy. While other current and former performers on the PGA Tour’s stage look to supplement their incomes with easy pickings like wine-making and “signature” architecture, Mickelson is actually demonstrating faith in golf operations. His confidence in our business makes one wonder why the rest of professional golf’s superstars haven’t availed themselves of similar opportunities. As for Fairbanks Ranch, the real estate broker who’s marketing the club told Golf Digest that he has another prospective buyer in the wings and that an agreement is “very close.”

     Yet again, some of golf’s major benefactors have been slapped with huge but ultimately meaningless fines in connection with a banking scandal. HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, and UBS, all of which have been in trouble with the law previously, are among five financial-industry conglomerates that have agreed to pay a combined $4.25 billion in fines because they conspired to rig the foreign currency markets. Golf no longer figures into UBS’s marketing program (it formerly sponsored the Players Championship and the Hong Kong Open), but HSBC and RBS are intimately connected to our business. HSBC writes the big checks for the Open Championship, and it underwrites professional events in -- follow the money -- China, Abu Dhabi, and Brazil, while RBS, a former patron of the Open Championship, works close to home, supporting activities organized by the Scottish Golf Union and the U.K.’s First Tee groups. For years, the people in golf who prowl for corporate cash have looked the other way when our most prominent partners are caught doing things they shouldn’t be doing, and because of this negligence, all of us in golf ought to be ashamed of ourselves. If our sport is truly supposed to be scrupulously honest, how can we justify doing business with these people?

     Better late than never, Augusta National Golf Club has offered a membership to the chief executive of IBM, a longtime sponsor of the Masters. Virginia “Ginni” Rometty, who took the helm at the tech giant in 2012, has joined as the club’s third female member, joining former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Rainwater, Inc.’s Darla Moore. Since Rometty’s male predecessors at IBM had been invited to join Augusta National, her absence on the fabled grounds had become increasingly difficult to explain. Incidentally, the club didn’t accept Rometty for membership because of her golf game. She reportedly carries a handicap of 35.4.

     Two of New Zealand’s oldest, most prominent golf clubs are once again discussing a marriage, one that Golf Club Management says “will comfortably be the biggest golf club merger in history.” Fit to be tied are Grange Golf Club and Royal Auckland Golf Club, which are located on adjacent property in suburban Auckland, on the North Island. Between them, the clubs have hosted every major amateur and professional championship the nation has to offer, including the New Zealand Open on numerous occasions. The wedding was proposed by Grange, which has experienced a sharp decline in membership over the past decade and has desperately been searching for a partner. It tried to hook up with Royal Auckland last year and with another local club prior to that, but both times its advances were rebuffed. If the current negotiations lead to the altar, GCM says that the new, bigger, and better club will feature a 27-hole complex created by Jack Nicklaus’ design firm.

     Some information in the preceding post first appeared in the June 2014 and May 2013 issues of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     For the eighth time, the American Society of Golf Course Architects has chosen to bestow its highest honor upon a journalist. Next year’s Donald Ross Award will go to Bradley S. Klein, who’s published seven books on golf course history and architecture and currently serves as Golfweek’s architecture editor. “His critiques keep architecture in the public eye and start conversations about how design contributes so much to the essence of the game,” the ASGCA said in a press release. “We appreciate his skill in describing what we do and all that golf courses bring to our communities.” The press release notes that Klein, a former college professor, is also a member of the International Caddie Hall of Fame.

The Pipeline, november 14, 2014

     Taking their cues from Barnbougle Dunes, some abalone farmers in South Australia have set out to create a pair of destination-worthy, links-style golf courses on a stretch of remote oceanfront property roughly 175 miles south of Adelaide. Damian and Justin Scanlon want to build their Nora Creina Golf Resort on part of a 600-acre parcel just south of a coastal town called Robe. “It has to be one of the greatest courses of the world,” Justin Scanlon told the Sunday Mail. He added: “This has to be somewhere where people from the States, someone from Japan or China, says, ‘It’s one of the courses I have to go and play.’ ” The brothers’ first layout will be co-designed by Neil Crafter and Paul Mogford, who are hip to working in out-of-the-way places with the potential for great golf. These days, they’re also working on two projects in Tasmania, one on the southern part of the island and one near St. Helens. If Nora Creina’s first course is successful, the Scanlons will build a second.

     The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the September 2014 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

       Rees Jones, who made his reputation with challenging, target-style courses that tested the skills of the world’s most accomplished golfers, is changing with the times. His forthcoming links-style course in Iowa,

 a drawing card for a casino in the northwestern corner of the state, was laid out on rolling, treeless terrain, and it takes the pressure off amateurs by offering a variety of routes to every hole. “Since the game of golf is supposedly waning a little bit, we are designing courses with less bunkering, more chipping areas, and smaller bunkers,” the New Jersey-based architect told Keloland TV. “I think the Falls is a perfect example of what golf of the future is going to be.” The Falls has opened nine holes for preview play. Its full 18 debuts in the spring of next year.

     With deep-pocketed Russian investors, a Croatian hotelier has set out to build a pair of resorts, each with a 36-hole golf complex, on adjoining islands in the Adriatic Sea. Jadranka Hotels believes that the resorts -- one on Lošinj, the other on Cres -- will lure vacationers from Russia, Great Britain, and Scandinavia who might have otherwise traveled to spots on Croatia’s Istrian peninsula, or to somewhere else in the Mediterranean. The money for these ventures is coming from Jadranka’s new majority owners, Moscow-based brothers Alexei and Dmitry Ananijev, who are said to be worth $2.3 billion. They control Promsvyazbank, one of Russia's largest private banks, as well as office space and other assets in the capital city. Croatia isn’t currently a golf destination, although its tourism officials are eager to make it one. If Jadranka actually builds its courses, the size of the nation’s golf portfolio will effectively double.

     The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the August 2014 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     Ain Al Emarat, one of several comatose golf ventures the Middle East, is on the cusp of its second life. Al Qudra Real Estate has set out to revive the gone-but-not-quite-forgotten community, which will take shape in the desert outside Al Ain, Abu Dhabi. The community’s featured attraction will be a Thomson Perrett & Lobb-designed golf course that was supposed to open in 2010. In 2007, when TPL won the commission, it described the site as “magical, pure links land” with “the potential to become a truly great golf course.” Ain Al Emarat has been master-planned to have enough housing for 120,000 residents along with a business district, a 40,000-seat sports stadium, a leisure and recreation center, and other attractions. Al Qudra believes the course “will thrill the residents of the UAE and its international golfing visitors.”

     The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the May 2014 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     More than a decade after it opened, an upscale country club in Indian Wells, California has set out to complete its Jack Nicklaus “signature” golf complex. Since 2003, Toscana Country Club has operated with an 18-hole South course a 10-hole North course. But now, responding to pressure from the club’s members, Sunrise Company has expressed faith in the future of golf in the Coachella Valley. The Desert Sun says that the eight holes under construction are “the first holes to be built in the golf-rich desert in three years.” Toscana expects to grass the new holes next summer and to take the wraps off the completed North course by the end of 2015.

     A Taiwanese construction company is looking to build an eco-resort, complete with a pair of 18-hole golf courses, in Vietnam’s Quang Ninh Province. In recent months, representatives from Happiness Cement Corporation (Taiwan) have toured several sites and reportedly have their eyes on 1,290 acres in Quảng Yen, a commune located just northeast of Hai Phong. Besides the golf courses, the to-be-named resort is expected to feature a hotel, entertainment venues, sports centers, and parks. The parties hope to begin welcoming vacationers by the end of the decade, or maybe in the early 2020s.

     The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the June 2014 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

    Sometime next year, a tribal casino in Nebraska will debut an 18-hole, Paul Albanese-designed golf course. Tatanka Golf Club, which has been described as “Nebraska’s Sandhills with trees,” will serve as an amenity for the Santee Sioux Nation’s Ohiya Casino Resort in Niobrara. The course takes its name from a Lakota word for buffalo, and Albanese has routed some holes to within 20 feet of buffalo pens. “We felt it was important to have them within the course to be true to the culture of the area,” the Michigan-based architect explained in a press release. Albanese learned his trade from Jerry Matthews, Ray Hearn, and Pete Dye, and he established a firm with Chris Lutzke in 2004. So far he has just one solo design to his credit (Sweetgrass Golf Course in Harris, Michigan), but Tatanka offers him a marvelous chance to enhance his reputation.

     Before the end of the year, tourism officials in Manipur, India hope to identify a private-sector partner willing to build an 18-hole golf course outside Imphal, the state’s capital. The 7,200-yard track, to be accompanied by a lodge with four rooms for overnight guests, will take shape on roughly 170 acres of state-owned property in the village of Nongmaiching. The nation’s ministry of tourism is expected to finance 25 percent of its construction costs. Manipur, one of India’s least-developed states, describes itself as “a paradise on Earth” and “the Switzerland of the East.” It aims to become “the great tourist discovery of the 21st century.”

     The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the May 2014 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     Most Chinese golfers prefer their courses to be lush and green, but Lee Schmidt and Brian Curley hope they’ll eventually develop a taste for more ancient versions of the game. The Scottsdale, Arizona-based duo has wrapped up construction on an 18-hole, links-style course on the edge of the Gobi Desert that they believe has “the potential to be one of the greatest courses ever built.” The daily-fee track, currently being called Dalu Dunes, is located in the town of Dalu, roughly 60 miles north of Hohhot, the capital of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. “We hope this design will not only change the misconceptions of the game in China regarding overly manicured and watered courses,” Curley said in a press release, “but also inspire developers to seek out great, natural sites like those found here.” Dalu Dunes is being built by an affiliate of Inner Mongolia Yitai Group, a coal-focused energy company that ranks among China’s 250 largest corporations. The property will eventually sprout a hotel and other golf facilities, including an 18-hole par-3 course. The regulation-length track is expected to have its official opening in 2015.

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.