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Nicklaus and Sorenstam Want to Design Olympic Course

Tuesday, June 8, 2010 Comments
Before the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro can host the first golf competition in the games in 112 years, the Brazilian capital needs to build a golf course. And Jack Nicklaus knows just who should design that course: the duo of himself and Annika Sorenstam, that's who.

Nicklaus and Sorenstam, who helped spearhead the effort that got their sport voted into the Summer Olympics last year, have made a pitch to co-design the layout where the 72-hole competition would be held. 

Doug Ferguson of the Associated Press has the story about the Nicklaus-Sorenstam pairing here. According to the article, "If selected, [Nicklaus] said he and Sorenstam would collaborate on the strategy of each hole -- Nicklaus from championship tees for the men, Sorenstam with women in mind."

Nicklaus has collaborated on courses before, most notably with Arnold Palmer on The King and the Bear at the World Golf Hall of Fame, and with Tom Doak at Sebonac on Long Island.

Competition for the job of designing Brazil's Olympics course is expected to be fierce -- one of the organizers of the 2016 Games recently said that more than a dozen golf architects have expressed interest in the project -- but a Nicklaus/Sorenstam bid will be tough to top.

"I'll be surprised if they don't select us," Nicklaus told Ferguson.

-- G.R.

Posted by Geoff Russell
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The "Instability" of Colorado Golf Club

Wednesday, June 2, 2010 Comments
Anybody who watched the Senior PGA Championship on TV last weekend had to be impressed with Colorado GC, the Bill Coore/Ben Crenshaw course outside Denver making its debut as a major championship site. Like just about every course that duo designs, the course looked natural, quirky, challenging and fun to play.

Can you sense the "but" coming?

Turns out Colorado GC is in a bit of a tight spot, financially -- which really shouldn't be a big surprise, considering it opened three years ago, just about the time the recession wave began to break over golf's shoreline. In his report from the Senior PGA in this week's issue of Golf World, senior editor Bill Fields talked to Mike McGetrick, founding owner of the upscale private club, who denied rumors the club would close after the tournament.

"No, we're not [closing]," McGetrick told Fields. "We hope in the next 90 days to be recapitalized, and that things are going to be great. We have 308 members, and Colorado GC is going to be here, whether I own it or somebody else does."

In a wrapup story published Tuesday, the Denver Post touched on the "instability" of Colorado GC, and floated the idea that the PGA of America might buy the club in an arrangement similar to its ownership of Kentucky's Valhalla GC. But McGetrick and PGA of America CEO Joe Steranka, while admitting a possible sale has been discussed, didn't sound optimistic that it would happen.

"The talks were never serious, in part because of the uncertainty of what's going on here," Steranka told the Post. "Valhalla is still a Kentucky-run private club; while the PGA owns it, we're very hands-off in the management. In my mind, corporate-run clubs lose their individuality, the personal culture."

You can read the entire Denver Post story here.

-- G.R.

Posted by Geoff Russell
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Cliffs Asking Members For Help

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 Comments
What does a golf development do when it needs money and the bank aren't lending? 

If you are The Cliffs Communities, you try something a little out of the ordinary: You ask your members for help.

According to this story in the Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times, Cliffs Communities is trying to raise $60 to $100 million, and it has sent letters to its members (an estimated 2,400 at six different developments in North and South Carolina, including High Carolina, where Tiger Woods is building a golf course) to see if they would like to contribute.

The story explains, "[Cliffs Communities] head Jim Anthony said the proposal is a product of the scarcity of funds available from traditional lenders and arose from periodic discussions Cliffs officials have with property owners. 'We have bankers and hedge fund guys,' and other property owners with significant resources and financial expertise, Anthony said. 'It was their initiative.' "

At least one member thinks it's a good idea.

"I think the proposal is worthy of consideration ... because it's well understood that the Cliffs needs additional capital to complete its projects at hand," Miller Williams, a property owner at Walnut Cove and chairman of its Finance Advisory Committee, told the Citizen-Times. "I trust my neighbor a lot more than a private equity group."

-- G.R.
Posted by Geoff Russell
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No New Course For Monterey Peninsula

Wednesday, January 6, 2010 Comments
There will be no new golf course built on the Monterey Peninsula. That's the result of a new plan adopted by the Pebble Beach Co. after a previous development proposal was rejected by the California Coastal Commission two years ago.

The San Jose Mercury-News has the story here.

In 2000, voters adopted a ballot measure that proposed significant development of land on the Monterey Peninsula, including another golf course to join Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill, et al. But seven years later, the coastal commission defeated the measure, which sent the Pebble Beach Co. back to the drawing board. 

According to the Mercury-News, "Opponents [of the 2000 plan] said the development would destroy up to 18,000 Monterey pines, and commission staff members said it was at odds with coastal policies to protect environmentally sensitive habitat. The new plan calls for a small hotel with up to 100 homes at the old Spyglass quarry; 80 new rooms at the Lodge at Pebble Beach and 60 new rooms at the Inn at Spanish Bay; and 90 single-family homes."

In a statement, Pebble Beach Co. chief executive Bill Perocchi said, "The commission staff and Pebble Beach Co. have been working to develop a project we could both support. ... We are very pleased that, together, we have been able to achieve that goal."

-- G.R.
Posted by Geoff Russell
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Arizona Update: 'Getting Hit From All Sides'

Wednesday, January 6, 2010 Comments
The Arizona Republic starts the new year with an update on the overall golf market in Phoenix and the surrounding suburbs. In summary: golf course owners and developers aren't noticing any rebound, at least not yet. Some, uh, highlights:

Many private clubs have opened their courses to the public, even for just one or two days a week, in an effort to increase rounds and revenue.

Many facilities are negotiating green fees. One golfer talks about having played the Arizona Biltmore for $55, and guesses it would have cost him twice that much a year ago.

Arizona officials estimate that "only" 5 percent of the state's approximately 340 golf facilities are in dire economic condition, compared to 15 percent nationally.

The story said there were no golf course residential developments opened in Arizona in 2009 -- startling news (economic troubles notwithstanding) considering how "white hot" the state's golf market was as recently as five years ago.

You can read the complete story here.

-- G.R.


Posted by Geoff Russell
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Woods Walks Carolina Design Site

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 Comments
Tiger Woods made a site visit to High Carolina, the golf course he is designing at The Cliffs property in Swannanoa, S.C., last weekend. The Charlotte Observer offers a report of that visit here.

Highlights of the story? First of all, given all the turmoil in the golf course construction business, it's nice to hear that any designer is making a site visit these days.

Second, according to the story, the course is at least two years away from opening. Permitting took longer than expected and, as a result, the land is still going through initial clearing stages. But tree stumps or no tree stumps, Woods apparently likes the land he's been given to work with. "I'm from L.A." he told the Observer. "We don't see [views] like this."

Finally, it's clear that whatever design fee The Cliffs is paying Woods -- and some reports say it could be as much as $10 million -- officials there feel they are getting their money's worth.

"We never anticipated he would be involved to this level," Jim Anthony, who has developed the six previous Cliffs golf communities, told the Observer.

-- G.R.
Posted by Geoff Russell
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Nancy Berkley on the FedEx Cup and Liberty National

Monday, August 31, 2009 Comments
As I was following the coverage of the Barclays, the first event in the PGA Tour's Playoffs schedule, I was particularly intrigued by the "Deeds & Weeds" related angle: the host site, the very private Liberty National GC, which cost $250 million to build, charges a $500,000 initiation fee and (according to some reports) needs at least another 100 members in order to become financially healthy.

I thought about trying to write something up summarizing this side of the story. But then I read this column by Nancy Berkley's on Cybergolf.com and decided she had already done it for me.

-- G.R.
Posted by Geoff Russell
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Great Park Losing Its Golf Course?

Thursday, August 13, 2009 Comments
Another golf course development project looks like it's on life support.

A proposed 45-hole course that was to be part of the Great Park, $1.4 billion, 1,300-acre community recreation center in Orange County, Calif., that is also to include "sports fields, community gardens and a man-made lake" -- and as many as 4,800 residential units -- may be canceled. At least that's what the project's developers, Lennar Corp., want according to a proposed new agreement with Orange County officials that would help jumpstart construction of Great Park, which has stalled during the economic downturn.

Details on the latest developments in this story from last Friday's Orange County Register. More specifics on the Great Park project can be found here.

Great Park is being built on the site of the old El Toro marine base, which closed about a decade ago. Lost in the redevelopment was the El Toro Marine Base Golf Course, which closed in December 2006. Fans of that course thought they would get a new course in the Great Park project, so they are (naturally) upset at the lastest developments.

"Without a golf course [Great Park] is going to have a facet of society that is missing," Ron Bloes, a past president of the El Toro Men's Golf Association, told the Register. "Golf in Orange County is part of the lifestyle down here. It's entrenched in the community."

-- G.R.
Posted by Geoff Russell
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New Resort Community Opens in Monterey

Thursday, August 6, 2009 Comments
It's been quiet on the new golf development front lately. Until today.

The former Fort Ord courses on the Monterey Peninsula, Bayonet and Black Horse, were recently re-opened after a $14 million renovation -- a good friend of ours played the Bayonet last week and said it was terrific -- and now comes word that a resort and residential neighborhood that is part of the project is set to open.

The Enclave at Cypress Grove is a 400-acre planned community that will eventually include homes, condominiums and a 330-room resort and spa. The first phase of the development is a parcel of 29 homesites, which have just been released for sale. Details are in this release here.

We wish them luck. Maybe they won't need it -- Monterey is Monterey, after all -- but it can't hurt.

-- G.R.

Posted by Geoff Russell
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Timberlake's $16 Million Course to Open in Memphis

Thursday, July 16, 2009 Comments
Believe it or not, there are golf courses going into business these days. One of them is Mirimichi, a public course set to open -- or re-open, actually -- next week near Memphis.

The course is the dream of pop star Justin Timberlake, who happens to be a Memphis native. Plans were to close Mirimichi in late 2007 and turn it into a housing development. But Timberlake -- a passionate golfer who has played in two Golf Digest U.S. Open Challenge events and is the celebrity host of the PGA Tour's annual tournament in Las Vegas -- stepped in and bought the facility. Then, according to this story in the Memphis Commercial-Appeal, he spent $16 million to renovate it.

The new Mirimichi sounds impressive: 7,400 yards from the tips, 80 bunkers, six lakes, two creeks, four waterfalls (Donald Trump will be jealous), an 18-hole putting course, a par-35 executive course (scheduled to open in October), a caddie program, and certification from the Audubon Classic Sanctuary Program. Reasonable green fees as well: $59 Monday through Thursday, $71 Friday through Sunday.

Mirimichi director of golf Greg King told the Commercial-Appeal, "The course is really going to be a world-class experience."

--G.R.
Posted by Geoff Russell
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