The Week That Was, july 30, 2017

     This year’s Open Championship set a laudable attendance mark, but the achievement may not be everything the R&A is touting it to be. For the record, the 146th edition of the magisterial event, held at Royal Birkdale just weeks ago, attracted 235,000 men, women, and children – a number greater than any venue aside from St. Andrews has ever recorded. The thing is, the R&A’s figures indicate that 15,000 of the 2017 attendees were juniors who got free passes as part of a grow-the-game initiative. So where does that leave us? The outcome is still worth bragging about – even if we eliminate the freeloaders, the Open lured 220,000 people, which would tie it for fourth on the all-time list – but the R&A should only be distributing attendance from paying customers. Be that as it may, the leader on the big board is the 2000 Open at St. Andrews, which counted 239,000 attendees. Next in line is the 2015 Open at St. Andrews (237,000), followed by Royal Birkdale this month.

     John McConnell, who’s always on the prowl for attractive golf properties in the Carolinas, may soon add another to his collection. The founder of McConnell Golf, who advertises his properties as “pure golf for the true golfer,” is the leading candidate to bag Southern Pines Golf Club, which is being sold by the Elks Club in Southern Pines, North Carolina. The club features an 18-hole, Donald Ross-designed course that’s said to rank “near the top of best courses to play in North Carolina.” A deal hasn’t officially been struck, but McConnell has advantages over the other suitors for the property. He has deeper pockets and a profound appreciation for Ross courses, and he needs a property in the Pinehurst area to give his membership sales some zing. His company owns 11 private clubs, and at least four of them feature Ross courses. The Elks are eager to find a buyer quickly, because they need a new lodge.

     The Republican Governors Association, the Republican Party of Virginia, and various GOP campaigns and committees are generously lining the U.S. president’s pockets, but the public at large isn’t giving a vote of confidence to Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles. Since June 2015, when Donald Trump made his grand entrance into the presidential campaign, the daily-fee course in Rancho Palos Verdes, California has been feeling a financial pinch. “It’s under-performed the market since 2015,” the executive director of the Southern Californian Golf Association told the Washington Post. “Just at the time when the rest of the industry was starting to see some upticks . . . it seems to have gone into a decline.” The numbers tell the story: Revenues from greens fees and cart rentals at the $300-a-round golf course (which, according to an appraiser, is “way overpriced”) have fallen by 12 percent, A dozen golf tournaments and golf-related charity events that once made regular appearances at the club have departed, the newspaper says, taking with them an estimated $250,000 in spending. The club, which once banked income from an average of 17 weddings a year, hasn’t hosted even one since November 2016. The number of movies, television shows, and commercials filmed on the property has fallen by nearly two-thirds. Given this accounting, it’s legitimate to wonder if Trump Golf might eventually put the property on the market.

     Golf’s institutional leaders may act as if they control our business, but the leverage is really in hands of their business partners. Women are, for example, members of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews and other former all-men’s clubs in Great Britain because HSBC all but demanded it as a condition of its continuing sponsorship. And now Trump Golf is feeling a corporate snub, from the company that sponsors the Scottish Open. Citing “clear issues” related to “politics,” Aberdeen Asset Management currently has no desire to host the Open at Trump International Golf Links Scotland. “Politics aside, Trump would be an ideal venue,” the company’s CEO told the Scotsman, “but you can’t put politics aside.” AAM’s sentiment is shared by the R&A, which months ago turned its back on Trump Turnberry as a site for the Open Championship. So it’s time to ask: How long before the sponsors of top-flight professional events in the United States stop putting politics aside and give Trump-owned venues the cold shoulder?

     Darius Oliver, the co-designer of Cape Wickham Links, has a second solo architectural commission: The publisher of Planet Golf is creating a nine-hole, par-3 track for the Hills, New Zealand’s most exclusive private club. The course, to be called the Farm, won’t have any tees, so golfers will be free to start from wherever they please, and it won’t have any bunkers, so it’ll be easier to play and maintain. “It’s the perfect venue to introduce children to our great game and an even better place to retreat before or after a beating on the tournament course,” Oliver said in a press release. He also noted, “I will have failed if members don’t play the course regularly.” As construction proceeds on the Farm, Oliver can hardly wait to get started on an 18-hole layout that’s expected to be built on Australia’s Kangaroo Island. It’s expected to be “one of the world’s most spectacular destination golf courses.” 

     Pipeline Overflow – The members of the National Golf Club, one of Australia’s most famous golf venues, have approved Tom Doak’s proposed $4.8 million overhaul of their Ocean course. Darius Oliver of Planet Golf describes the track, a product of Peter Thomson’s company, as “the lowliest ranked and least popular” of the club’s three courses. He thinks the club “is almost certain to see an under-performing golf course made more generous and enjoyable for the masses.” . . . A golf course will be among the attractions at an entertainment destination that’s expected to take shape in the Mekong Delta region of southern Vietnam. The Phú Cường Kiên Giang Ocean Urban Complex will occupy 420 coastal acres outside Rạch Giá, the capital of Kiên Giang Province, and it’s been master-planned to include a marina, a water park, a sports center, swimming pools, an international school, a shopping area, a hospital, a helicopter pad, and other attractions. Phú Cường Kiên Giang Investment JSC, which is primarily a seafood processor, began construction earlier this year and expects to debut phase one in 2020. . . . An unidentified local development groups want to build a golf course in a “satellite city” that’s taking shape outside Bulawayo, the second-largest city in Zimbabwe. According to Jonathan Thompson of Thompson Properties, who’s overseeing the construction, the unnamed city will also feature 20,000 houses (“plush and affluent houses,” no less), office space, an industrial park, shopping areas, schools, health-care facilities, recreational facilities, and other attractions.

     A trio of investors in Lake Havasu City, Arizona has paid $3 million for the Courses at the London Bridge, a 36-hole complex that dates from the mid 1960s. Dan Esse, Jeff Gilbert, and Craig Adams plan to spend millions more to redesign and refresh the courses, which, they believe, have been “driven down by corporations” who’ve owned the property in recent decades. The partners bought London Bridge from Arcis Golf, which has been lightening its portfolio of late. They aim to make the complex, to be renamed as Lake Havasu Golf Club, a place that local residents will be “proud to bring their families and friends to.”

     For sale: America’s most-liked least-played golf course. Wolf Point Ranch, which features an 18-hole, Mike Nuzzo-designed layout that makes critics swoon – “one of the greatest courses I have ever seen,” one of them has gushed – is being offered for $7.7 million. The track is outside Port Lavaca, Texas, and it’s hardly been played, as it was built for the personal use of the wealthy Texans who own the ranch. Nuzzo’s course is the centerpiece of a 475-acre spread that includes a 7,200-square-foot mansion, a 2,000-square-foot clubhouse, and undeveloped that could, in the words of a real estate agent, “potentially be developed.” Wouldn’t that be exciting!

The Week That Was, july 23, 2017

     Cape Wickham Links, one of the golf industry’s true trophy properties, now belongs to an investor who’s said to be based in Hà Nội, Vietnam. The Australian Financial Review reports that Ekaterina Kolmakova – sounds like a Russian woman, no? – paid “almost” $16 million for Cape Wickham, a 330-acre oceanfront spread on King Island in Tasmania. Duncan Andrews put the course, ranked #24 in the world by Golf Digest and #1 in Australia by Golf Australia, on the market in February. News of the sale was announced earlier this month, but the name of the seller wasn’t revealed until this morning. Kolmakova, who has no discernable presence on the internets, is expected to begin operating the course, a co-design by Mike DeVries and Darius Oliver, next month.

     Steve Smyers has designed one of the world’s toughest golf courses, perhaps the toughest. Maridoe Golf Club, a just-opened 18-hole track in Carrollton, Texas, has a rating of 80.5 and the U.S. Golf Association’s maximum slope, 155, thanks to what the Dallas Morning News describes as “consistently narrow and sloping fairways, deep rough, and water in play on 14 holes.” Maridoe’s gaudy numbers put it ahead of the most difficult course on an ESPN ranking, the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, which checks in at 79.6 and 155. Smyers, a Lakeland, Florida-based architect, built Maridoe for Albert Huddleston, who’s reportedly looking to host a U.S. Open. But Huddleston may be having second thoughts about having created such a monster, as the newspaper notes that “subtle alterations are likely,” specifically “wider, more accessible fairways.” The club’s president has acknowledged that he wants to “try to make it better.”

     Nicklaus Design’s first golf course in Denmark, a track that’s said to be “very fun and rewarding to play,” has opened after a lengthy and unexplained delay. Great Northern Golf Course, a 27-hole complex in the town of Kerteminde, is the first golf venture for Thomas Kirk Kristiansen, an heir to the Lego fortune who also reportedly breeds Arabian horses. Kristiansen is rich – according to Bloomberg, he’s worth $4.04 billion – and a press release says that he has “great enthusiasm” for golf. Great Northern’s drawing card is an 18-hole, Dirk Bouts-designed layout that was supposed to open in 2015. Years ago, Kristiansen promised it would be “one of Scandinavia best golf courses.”

     Some information in the preceding post first appeared in the April 2015 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     Pipeline Overflow -- A Hong Kong-based company wants to build a horse-racing center, including a hotel and a golf course, outside Can Tho, in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. The city’s people’s committee believes that SIBC International Limited’s to-be-named, 375-acre venue would serve to boost tourism in the area, but it wants to hear what the central government thinks before it commits to the proposal. . . . As part of an effort to popularize golf, the Nigeria Golf Federation has set out to build a half-dozen driving ranges. “We want [a] golf presence in all the states in Nigeria,” a spokesperson for the NGF said. “The gospel of the sport will be spread through the grass roots.” The NGF is currently trying to identify sites for the facilities. . . . Kevin Ramsey, California-based architect, is overseeing the construction of the second nine at what’s said to be Turkey’s first public golf course. The first nine at Samsun Municipal Metropolitan Golf Club opened last summer, on “an artificial island” in Samsun Province. The new nine, a possible collaboration with Jeffrey Danner, is scheduled to open in 2018.

     A Canadian resident who owns two golf courses in China has reportedly put a “degraded” U.S. golf course “on the road to recovery.” Coco Luo, the principal of Bald Eagle Valley Resort Holdings, Ltd., reportedly paid $4.45 million – it was an all-cash transaction – for Point Roberts Golf & Country Club, in Point Roberts, Washington. The seller, Kenji Nose, couldn’t make ends meet and shuttered the club last year. Point Roberts features an 18-hole, Graham Cooke-designed golf course that opened in 2001, and Luo has hired Wayne Carleton to oversee an improvement program that will cost “a substantial amount of money.” Luo, who’s said to be “a passionate and avid golfer,” expects to re-open the course in early 2018. In China, according to her U.S. representative, she owns unnamed courses designed by Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player.

     Surplus Transactions – An unidentified group has agreed to purchase Harker’s Hollow Golf & Country Club, a historic venue in Phillipsburg, New Jersey. At a public auction, the anonymous prospective buyers bid $800,000 for Harker’s Hollow, which features an 18-hole course designed by Robert White, the first president of the PGA of America. Harker’s Hollow opened in 1929 and has apparently seen better days, because the auctioneer who sold the property told a local newspaper that the new owners “remember it in its heyday and are looking to restore it and bring it back to its old glory.” . . . To preserve their property values, the members of the Cape Royal Homeowners Association, in Cape Royal, Florida, have purchased their community’s defunct 27-hole golf complex. The HOA paid an undisclosed price for the former Royal Tee Golf Club, which, upon re-opening, will be open to the public and operate as Cape Royal Golf Club. Royal Tee’s Gordy Lewis-designed courses will be operated by Green Golf Partners. . . . Speaking of Green Golf Partners, the company is likely out as the operator of Belleview Biltmore Golf Club. A group led by Dan Doyle and Dan Doyle, Jr. has reportedly agreed to pay $3.8 million to the city of Belleair for Belleview Biltmore, and the Doyles plan to buy GGP out of its contract. The club, which features an 18-hole, Donald Ross-designed golf course, describes itself as “an American favorite since 1925” and “the best-conditioned golf course anywhere in Florida.”

The Week That Was, july 16, 2017

     Apollo Global Management describes itself as a “contrarian” investor that’s willing “to invest in industries that our competitors typically avoid.” Maybe that’s why it’s agreed to pay $1.1 billion for ClubCorp, and to assume the liability for the $1 billion in debt that’s currently being shouldered by “the world leader in private clubs.”
     Apollo has no experience in golf, no record of success or failure. Over the years, it’s created various investment vehicles that today manage assets worth roughly $200 billion, among them ADT Corporation, Redbox, a grocery chain, and a telecom company. ClubCorp is its first true golf acquisition, although last year one of its investment funds bought Diamond Resorts International, a time-share owner and operator that has some golf properties in its portfolio, among them Ridge on Sedona, in beautiful Sedona, Arizona, and Mystic Dunes Golf Club, outside Disney World in Florida.
     ClubCorp’s prospective sale may help to persuade other private-equity firms to make golf investments, but it isn’t a watershed moment for the golf industry, just as KSL Capital Partners’ 2006 acquisition of ClubCorp ultimately wasn’t. Apollo’s purchase doesn’t signify any particular faith in golf from Wall Street or offer any fresh optimism about golf’s economic prospects. It simply indicates that a colossally wealthy private-equity firm has decided to make a monumentally insignificant investment in a company that shows some upside potential.
     News of the sale comes as a surprise only because several months ago ClubCorp declared that it was no longer for sale. The joke, alas, was on us. Almost certainly, ClubCorp’s announcement was a diversion created to give it space to negotiate with Apollo.
     Without question, ClubCorp is about to get a makeover. Two of Apollo’s three principals, Leon Black and Joshua Harris, were key decision-makers in the mergers and acquisition division of Drexel Burnham Lambert before they created Apollo. They’re experts in corporate “restructurings,” which means that in coming months, to reduce debt, they’ll look to sell some of ClubCorp’s poor-performing properties. They’ll also streamline ClubCorp’s operations, which means that expenses will be trimmed and people might be laid off. In a few years – say, three to five – ClubCorp’s balance sheet will look better than it does today, and they’ll look to cash out and deliver value to the investors to whom they ultimately answer.
     To be sure, ClubCorp has likewise been chasing value, in the form of short-term profits, ever since it went public. Some would say that it failed. But in a press release, its chairman said that the sale to Apollo “achieves our goal of enhancing value for shareholders.”
     So is ClubCorp’s sale a sign of failure or success? Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

     For the fourth time this year, Concert Golf Partners has added a property to its golf portfolio. Peter Nanula’s Newport Beach, California-based investment group has acquired Indian Spring Country Club, a 36-year-old, seniors-only venue in Boynton Beach, Florida. The Palm Beach Post reports that Indian Spring’s financial situation has been “uncertain” for several years, and a club official said that it didn’t wish “to wait until disaster hit” before considering a sale. The purchase price hasn’t been disclosed, but the club’s members reportedly approved the sale by a margin of 221-2. Indian Spring, the centerpiece of a gated, 800-acre, 1,900-house community, describes itself as a place where “you can live the life you’ve always dreamed about, surrounded by friends who make you feel right at home.” Such a life includes the opportunity to play on a pair of 18-hole courses, both of which were co-designed by Bruce Devlin and Robert von Hagge. Indian Spring is Concert’s fifth property in Florida. It joins Legacy Club at Alaqua Lakes in Orlando, Heathrow Country Club in Orlando, Carrollwood Country Club in Tampa, and Golf Club of Amelia Island on Amelia Island, in greater Jacksonville. With the purchase, Nanula’s company owns 16 properties in 10 states.

     During the presidential campaign, when Donald “the Candidate” Trump was fouling political discourse with derisive remarks about Mexicans, Muslims, the handicapped, and women, the United States Golf Association came under pressure to strip this year’s U.S. Women’s Open from Trump National Golf Club Bedminster. Sadly, the USGA declined to do so.
     “We have not wanted to get involved in politics, presidential politics,” the group’s executive director, Mike Davis, said in 2015. He added: “It’s a complicated matter, and we want to get it right.” 
     As it turns out, Davis’ comments were an excuse, not an explanation. The truth is, Trump had threatened to sue the USGA if it relocated the event. “We can’t get out of this,” Davis told the USGA’s executive committee, according to Christine Brennan of USA Today. “He’s going to sue us.”
     Davis hasn’t confirmed Brennan’s report, but he hasn’t denied it. So now he must answer other questions, staring with Why was the USGA so feckless? After all, the PGA of America took the Grand Slam of Golf from Trump’s course in Los Angeles. The Scottish Open, which had been virtually signed, sealed, and delivered to Trump’s resort in Aberdeenshire, found another home. And, according to a British newspaper, the R&A had “privately decided that [Trump’s] reputation is now so toxic” that Trump Turnberry can no longer host the Open Championship.
     Golf’s institutional leaders had been warned. They should have known that their famously litigious partner would take them to court, if necessary, to get what he wants. If there was a clause in the contract for the Women’s Open that gave Trump the right to sue, the USGA should never have signed on the dotted line.
     Even so, however, the USGA could have called Trump’s bluff and allowed the matter to follow its legal course. By doing so, the USGA, the sponsor of the Women’s Open, would have proved itself to be a defender of women’s rights. It could have fought the good fight. No matter how the courts ruled, it would have come out a winner.
     It’s possible that the golf industry will be smarter in the future. Now, finally, everyone in golf should understand what we’re dealing with. Trump isn’t interested in doing what’s good for golf. He’s solely interested in what’s good for him. Time and time again, he blackens the reputation of fundamentally good people.
     Maybe now we can finally end this relationship.

     Chinese investment in Africa is growing by leaps and bounds, as government-supported development groups capitalize on U.S. indifference and expand their global reach. The latest: An entity called Guangdong New South Group, Ltd. has secured permission to co-develop an industrial park, AEZ Pearl River, outside Eldoret, in western Kenya. The forthcoming park has been master-planned to include sites for factories, a science and technology center, a university, a convention center, and other economy boosters, and in the final phase of construction New South expects to build houses and a golf course. New South and its Kenyan partner, Economic Zones, Ltd., recently staged a ceremonial groundbreaking, and they could begin building for real before the end of the year.

     Pipeline Overflow – Construction has all but wrapped up at TPC Colorado, a club in Berthoud (it’s north of Boulder) that’s scheduled to open next summer. The property’s 18-hole, Arthur Schaupeter-designed layout is said to be “the first new golf course built in Colorado this decade” and the PGA Tour’s only venue in the Centennial State. In 2019, the club is expected to begin hosting an annual event on the Web.com Tour. . . . Construction has also been completed on the Nest at Friday Harbour, a Doug Carrick-designed layout in Innisfil, Canada, a town roughly an hour’s drive north of Toronto. The 18-hole course, the centerpiece of a long-delayed, 590-acre resort community, is scheduled to open next spring. Carrick told Golf Course Architecture that the course will be walkable and provide opportunities for three-, six-, nine-, 15-, and 18-hole play. . . . Now open for play is Irie Fields, a 100 percent organic golf course at the Kittitian Hill resort community on St. Kitts. The course, co-designed by Ian Woosnam and Gary Johnston of European Course Design, will, according to its publicists, “transform and elevate the game of golf in the Caribbean” and represent “the future evolution of golf.” We’ll see.

The Week That Was, july 9, 2017

     No details, but a Facebook post says that Cape Wickham Links, the Australian track that checks in at #24 on Golf Digest’s list of the world’s greatest golf courses, has been sold. The 18-hole layout, co-designed by Mike DeVries and Darius Oliver, is only a year old, and it went on the market in February. The new owners, whoever they may be, are expected to begin operating the property on August 15.

     It’s official: Darius Oliver, the publisher of Planet Golf and a co-designer of Cape Wickham Links, will design the highly anticipated golf course that’s expected to take shape on Australia’s Kangaroo Island. The 18-hole track, the centerpiece of a 600-acre oceanfront community named the Cliffs Kangaroo Island, is being developed by the team that produced Cape Wickham, a bucket-list layout on Tasmania’s King Island. Delivering a course as drool-worthy as Cape Wickham is a tall order, but the developers nonetheless expect to design and build what a press release describes as “one of the world’s most spectacular destination golf courses.” Echoing that sentiment, Oliver believes the site he’s been given “is ready made for great golf” and predicts that “golfers from all corners of the globe are going to fall in love with this place.” The Cliffs was initiated by a group that intended to build a Greg Norman-designed track. Oliver has modified Norman’s routing, in the process creating “a more logical” and more walkable course that, in the words of a publicist, features “what are undeniably more exciting golf holes.” A construction schedule hasn’t been announced, and all the necessary financing isn’t yet in place.

     Pipeline Overflow – The best golf course in Portugal, according to Golf Digest, is a 10-year-old Jack Nicklaus “signature” layout at Monte Rei Golf & Country Club, in the eastern Algarve. Monte Rei had hoped to break ground on a second Nicklaus-designed course in 2010, but its dreams evaporated when Europe’s economy crashed. Today, the community believes that “the conditions are right to relaunch,” and the Financial Times reports that second golf course, as well as a beach club, are “in the pipeline.” . . . Despite complaints by environmentalists, the controversial Desert Rose community in Namibia is said to be “in full swing.” A development group has proposed to build the community on a stretch of beachfront in Dorob National Park, outside the city of Swakopmund. If permission is granted, Desert Rose will include houses, a hotel, a convention center, entertainment venues, office space, a shopping area, and a golf course. . . . While they modernize West Bay Club in Estero, Florida, Dana Fry and Jason Straka are preparing to create a new course in Campinas, Brazil. The 18-hole track will feature “quite a diverse mix of golf styles,” says a press release, and attract “a diverse range of clientele.” Construction is expected to begin in late 2018.

     In 2010, France won the right to host next year’s Ryder Cup competition in part because it promised to create a generation of golfers. The plan, as outlined by la Fédération Française de Golf, was to build 100 driving ranges and “short” courses (pitch-‘n’-putt or par-3 tracks) in cities across the nation, in an effort to broaden golf’s appeal beyond its traditional white, male, middle-class base. At the time, France had 410,000 registered golfers, and the FFG set out, with the Ryder Cup’s promotional help, to boost the number to 700,000 by 2020. So far, according to the New York Times, things are proceeding smoothly on the development front. The FFG has helped to establish 91 of its promised “small structures,” and another 110 are said to be in development. Unfortunately, golf participation in France isn’t growing. In fact, the newspaper reports, the number of registered golfers in France “decreased for a few years and is flat over the last six years since the Ryder Cup announcement.” So yes, Robert Burns was right about the best-laid plans of mice and men.

     World-wide golf tourism has increased for seven consecutive years, according to the International Association of Golf Tour Operators, and it’s expected to remain on an upward trajectory for several more. Only one cause for concern: The rate of the increase is slowing. The IAGTO’s members saw, on average, 9.8 percent annual growth for four consecutive years until 2016, when the rate fell to 7.5 percent. Further declines – perhaps to as low as 5 percent annually – should be expected through 2020, says the IAGTO, due to “limits to supply in popular golf destinations.” Some tour operators aren’t cashing in on the good times, however, and they’re in the United States, where sales and future bookings are reportedly “running at less than half the global average.” The IAGTO doesn’t explain why.

     One of the Grand Strand’s oldest golf properties celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, and it may not see 51. Kevin Blum has pulled the plug on Brierwood Golf Club, a 160-acre venue in Shallotte, North Carolina, which he’s concluded was bleeding him dry. “There aren’t enough rounds, and I don’t have enough money,” he told the Myrtle Beach Sun News. Brierwood was designed by Ben Ward, a doctor. Blum bought the 18-hole track in 2014, reportedly for $1.25 million, and recently tried to sell it for $1.5 million. He found no takers. It appears that he’s decided to hold onto the course for now – “It has a lot of potential even if it’s not a golf course,” he said – although he reports that the city of Shallotte has expressed an interest in the property.

     Desolation Row Extended – Earlier this year, Massachusetts lost one of its Donald Ross-designed golf courses. Winchendon School has turned out the lights at Winchendon Golf Club, a venue that reportedly lost $200,000 last year and similar amounts in previous years. A spokesperson for the boarding school told the Worcester Telegram & Gazette that “there just wasn’t enough local support for it to make the finances work.” . . . Sunset Valley Golf Club, which occupies 46 acres in Omaha, Nebraska, has been dissolved and will likely be sold to a residential developer. The Omaha World-Herald says that the club, which opened in 1964, has had “financial struggles.” If the sale goes through, the club and its nine-hole course will close at the end of the season. . . . If all goes as expected, Pine Crest Golf Course, in Houston, Texas, will soon become a subdivision. A home builder has agreed to buy the recently closed 116-acre property, which had been home to an 18-hole, Derrell Witt-designed golf course. The course had operated since 1992.

The Week That Was, july 2, 2017

     The golf business in Victoria, Australia, the home of the Melbourne area’s famous “sandbelt” layouts, is experiencing a financial shakeout. Almost half of the state’s 374 golf courses are “in financial stress,” according to a government report, and the weakest of the bunch are gradually being converted into subdivisions. “Property developers are circling prime land,” the chairman of a task force that’s studying the problem told the Age, “and clubs struggling for money are looking for a solution.” The newspaper says that eight Melbourne-area venues are being redeveloped, and that developers have targeted 23 others. No need to worry about the area’s most treasured, most historic venues, however: While second-tier courses may be “fading,” clubs such as Kingston Heath and Royal Melbourne are said to be “thriving.”

     Fingers crossed, but by the fall of 2019 the University of Virginia men’s and women’s golf teams will be practicing on a new golf course. Davis Love III has been hired to redesign Birdwood Golf Course, a 33-year-old track that no longer challenges elite collegiate golfers. Though he describes Birdwood’s Lindsay Ervin-designed layout as “a great golf course,” Love has promised to “make it better,” a task that will require him to alter and/or relocate virtually every one of the track’s 18 holes. In addition, he plans to add a “short” course and a state-of-the-art practice area. The university expects the reconstruction to begin next summer, with Scot Sherman serving as the lead architect.

     Pipeline Overflow – Banyan Tree Holdings, Ltd., which created the biggest and best golf resort in Phuket, Thailand, wants to make golf “a genuine part of the DNA” at Laguna Lang Co, its waterfront resort in Thua Thien Hue Province, Vietnam. Laguna Lang Co already features an 18-hole, Nick Faldo-designed course. Now, according to the resort’s general manager, Banyan Tree plans to “supplement the challenging aspects” of Faldo’s course with “short holes and unique individual holes” that would apparently be sprinkled here, there, and everywhere on the property. What’s more, the company wants to build two more regulation-length courses in the neighboring area, though it desires to work “with other parties to bring this to fruition.” Clearly, many questions have been left unanswered. One thing’s for sure, though: Banyan Tree aims to give traveling golfers another reason to visit Vietnam’s Central Coast. . . . The media attention trained on Erin Hills and this year’s U.S. Open championship has been good for business at Fry/Straka Global Golf Course Design. The Dublin, Ohio-based firm, led by Dana Fry and Jason Straka, has been appointed to oversee a $4 million overhaul of the Pete and P. B. Dye-designed golf course at West Bay Club, in Estero, Florida. The designers expect to complete the job in late 2018. . . . Some welcome details have been announced regarding the Nicklaus empire’s fourth golf course in Malaysia. The 18-hole track at Forest City, “the city of the future,” will be co-designed by Jack Nicklaus and his son Jack II, and, though construction hasn’t yet begun, it’s expected to open in early 2018. Forest City’s Chinese developer, Country Garden Pacificview Sdn. Bhd., will eventually build two more 18s, but it hasn’t publicly committed to an architect.

     The handwriting was on the wall, and now it’s been written in indelible ink: Becky Peirce Municipal Golf Course, which closed temporarily at the end of last year, is now closed permanently. The 18-hole layout opened in 1956 and was redesigned by Denis Griffiths in 1986. By a unanimous vote, the city of Huntsville, Alabama has decided to turn the 140-acre property into a park that will include, among other things, hiking and biking trails, a dog park, a driving range, and a disc golf course. The city administrator believes the park will be a “tourist attraction.”

     Desolation Row Extended – One by one, golf courses in and around Deerfield Beach, Florida are going out of business. The next to go, pending a vote by Broward County commissioners, will be Crystal Lake Golf Club, a 109-acre spread in Pompano Beach with an 18-hole, Rees Jones-designed course. A developer wants to raze the course and replace it with 415 single-family houses and townhouses. A commissioner has complained, arguing that Crystal Lake is “just about the last piece of open space in Deerfield,” but such pleas fall on deaf ears in areas where housing is in short supply. . . . Hickory Ridge Golf Course, which promoted itself as the “best public access golf course in western New York,” will soon become 80 acres of farm land. Steve and April Hoag reportedly accepted $300,000 for the 18-hole layout that they bought in 2008, reportedly for $280,000. The course had opened in the early 1930s, on property that had been used as a farm. . . . The city of La Mesa, California has pulled the plug on Sun Valley Golf Course. The nine-hole track had operated since the mid 1950s and had in recent years added disc golf and footgolf in an attempt to generate income, but it couldn’t overcome its financial challenges. The city plans to maintain the property as a park.

     Sandals Resorts International has acquired the only 18-hole golf course on Saint Lucia, with plans to make it “a world-class facility that can facilitate major international tournaments.” SRI hasn’t said what it paid for St. Lucia Golf Club, but its chairman, the Honorable Gordon “Butch” Stewart, claims to be “over the moon” to provide vacationers with “such a great golfing option in the Eastern Caribbean.” What’s more, Stewart aims “to make what is great even better,” a job he hopes to entrust to Greg “the Living Brand” Norman. If Norman accepts the commission, he’ll overhaul a John Ponka-designed layout that offers what the club says is “perhaps the most challenging 18 holes of golf in the Caribbean.” SRI plans to operate the club as Sandals St. Lucia Golf & Country Club at Cap Estate.

     Surplus Transactions – Pinewood Country Club isn’t likely to be on life support for much longer. If all goes as expected, the 54-year-old club, in Slidell, Louisiana, will be rescued by Chris Smith, a longtime club member, and Louis Ochoa, the club’s food-service provider. Smith and Ochoa have agreed to pay $1.15 million for Pinewood, which the New Orleans Times-Picayune says “had fallen on hard financial times in recent years.” According to the newspaper, Smith will own the club’s Bill Bergin-designed golf course and Ochoa will own the clubhouse and recreational amenities. . . . Coppertop at Cherokee Hills Golf Course, an 18-hole track in Valley City, Ohio that’s been suffocated by a money squeeze, has changed hands. Greg Clement and some partners have taken over three mortgages on the course, after longtime owner Mark Haddad’s bid for financial restructuring was denied. The course has been around since 1930. . . . In April, for $900,000, a group led by Matt Jennings has purchased Cherokee Valley Golf Club, a 25-year-old venue in Travelers Rest, South Carolina. The club, which features an 18-hole, P. B. Dye-designed course, serves as the home of the men’s and women’s golf teams from nearby North Greenville University. Jennings’ partnership reportedly bought Cherokee Valley from Brown Golf Management.