NY Times On Golf Real Estate: "Fewer Golfers, but Some Lush Courses Are Coming Back"

You have to wade through the usual backstory of why golf real estate failed when the economy crashed, but Nick Madigan's New York Times story does reach a  somewhat positive point by noting the improvement at some facilities devoted to golf real estate.

While the story does not address the specifics at the places succeeding as much as I'd hoped, it's the facilties focusing on service and re-imagining themselves as family-driven places that Madigan says are succeeding. Unfortunately, exclusivity is also part of the success recipe.

The Boca West Country Club’s heavy investment in its facilities, Ms. Tanzer said, “is a perfect example of adapting” to the changing economics of golf. “They’re spending a fortune on making the place family-friendly,” she said. “It’s a home run.”

At Boca West, where it costs new members $70,000 to sign up, Jay DiPietro, the club’s 78-year-old president and general manager, suggested that the troubles besetting some of his competitors could be blamed on poor management and on their focus on “the business of selling houses.” But he operates on a different principle, he said.

“We’re in the people-pleasing business,” he said. “These people paid a lot to be here.”

In any case, Mr. DiPietro said, the golf industry was vastly over-supplied with courses. “It was just waiting for a recession to knock the hell out of it,” he said. “The recession separated the boys from the men.”

Oliver K. Hedge, who appraises golf course properties for the real estate brokerage firm Cushman & Wakefield, said the golf industry had “made great strides” in shaking off underperforming courses in the last few years.
“A lot of clubs that have closed really should have closed,” Mr. Hedge said. “Florida is a good microcosm of the nation because we’re so dense with golf courses.”

Many of the closures, he said, have involved public and semi-private courses, the latter a reference to clubs that have an active membership program but that let non-members play for a fee.

Double Standard When It Comes To Female Competitiveness?

Now that we've had some time to digest the Suzann Pettersen-Alison Lee Solheim Cup incident, Karen Crouse raises an intriguing point fueled in part by comments from Butch Harmon.

You may recall Pettersen was well off the 17th green of a match when Lee picked up her ball without a concession. I've always felt Suzann knew that Lee was a little loose with the match play dynamics and etiquette and was lying in wait. Her mistake, in my view, was that she was too far from the action. Had she been standing on the green, arms folded (the international signal for putting out), she is considered a Seve-like competitor. But standing off the green, almost to the next tee?  She was rightly criticized.

Yes, golf is a crazy-strange sport.

But Crouse makes the case that female athletes play under different standards when it comes to competitiveness and that Pettersen may always be remembered in a negative light, perhaps due in part to her gender.

To be a female athlete is to be ever mindful that appearances matter. Prettiness is next to godliness, which is why many of the players wear makeup during tournaments and treat their competitiveness as an imperfection that needs to be covered up with hugs and smiles. The same icy stare that identifies Tiger Woods as a fierce competitor is off-putting when it freezes Pettersen’s opponents.

“Absolutely, there is a double standard,” said Pettersen’s swing instructor, Butch Harmon, whose past clients include Mickelson and Woods. “It’s not right. One of the things I love about Suzann is what a great competitor she is. She prepares, and she plays, to win.”

Speaking by telephone, Harmon added: “If you look at Serena Williams, she gets put in the same category. People say Serena Williams is overaggressive. No, what she is is very, very good and very, very competitive.”

I really don't think of Pettersen in a negative light because she missed a nuanced element of gamesmanship and it didn't hurt that she apologized (even though she isn't the one who made the initial mistake). 

But a few months later, how do you view Suzann and the incident? Are females held to a different standard when it comes to competitiveness?

Faldo On Overtinkering, Why Young Players Are Excelling

The most famous swing overhauler of the modern era is warning Jordan Spieth not to overtinker, and while that certainly is a headline worthy topic, I thought a few other points by the Nick Faldo were worth reading.

In a lengthy chat reported by Reuters' Tony Jimenez (who dutifully plugged the six-time major winner's six new wines), Faldo sounds horrified by Spieth's off-season plan to gain yardage. But it's his take on the role of technology via things like Trackman and the application of biomechanics that may explain why we are seeing so many complete, ready-for-prime-time players under 25:

"Now you have what I call the appliance of science. You have machines to tell your swing path, club-face angle, ball flights after one shot -- that's fantastic.

"I wish I would have had that rather than hit a million balls and then go, 'Oh, I wonder how this feels?," added Faldo with a giggle.

Europe's 2008 Ryder Cup captain also said golfers were much more powerful nowadays.

"The physical side has been taken to a new level. They've really done a good job in dispelling the thought that it's an old man's sport," said Faldo.

"These guys now are unbelievably strong. We have more than a dozen doctors travelling on tour with degrees in biomechanics ... they know exactly how to build a golfer and that's fantastic.

"This is all factual information, it's not a guess. It's been around for years now and kids at 15 get this knowledge for five years and bang, that's why they can come out at 20 and be impressive golfers."

Water Week And Goat Hill: Morning Drive's Coverage

I understand that on the list of sexy television topics, water issues in golf sounds about as thrilling as the early rounds of the National Paint Drying Championship. And while I'm biased because I'm on the show and much of the coverage focused on issues facing California courses, we all know that water use is a big deal in golf going forward for three reasons.

One, the playability of a course is just better and more fun when it's not overwatered.

Two, the game will not survive if most of the world thinks that a golf course is a place where water goes to disappear.

And finally, a generation of people whose annoying name starts with an "m" have already shown they are not afraid to make decisions about purchases or associations based on how something fits into the world. If golf is a water waster, the m's and the Gen Z's are probably not going to want to get near it.

So in case you missed it, and the chances are you have a job and did, here are three of the better moments from Morning Drive's Water Week coverage.

A look at the experimental work at Poppy Hills by Toro to develop new technologies gives a wonderful visual and behind the scenes look at what smart people are doing to make a golf course not waste water. There was also the backlash Pasatiempo received after photos appeared in Golf Digest showing it parched, with insight into the effort to reduce water and change community perceptions in Santa Cruz.

And the third piece involves Matt Ginella going to Goat Hill in Oceanside, California to learn about both saving the course, the effort to re-imagine the affordable muni going forward in the face of water shortages and all of the other great things they are doing to make it a true 21st century "community" course.

Update on 2015-11-17 03:16 by Geoff

**GolfAdvisor.com has this roundup of what courses are doing to conserve or rethink their approach.

State Of The Game 62: Ru Macdonald And Scottish Golf

Ru Macdonald joined us to discuss the state of Scottish golf and in particular, the travel industry there. We also kick around the exciting new Royal Dornoch-adjacent project under development by Mike Keiser, news of which was broken by Ru on his website.

If you are not a subscriber to his podcast you might want to add him to your queue, as the episodes are never too long but always filled with insights into Scottish golf. Of late he's been joined by recent University of St. Andrews graduate Graylin Loomis.

You can listen to the MP3 here, or listen and download the show here.

For iTunes, the episode is here.

We also asked Ru to pick a random sampling of shows for new listeners. Here are the links to the shows:

Episode 79 – Alan Shipnuck’s 10 Rounds In 6 Days
Episode 73 – Father/Son Trip to Northeast Scotland
Episode 67 - The Undiscovered Links of the Highlands with Jason Scott Deegan
Episode 63 – Ran Morrissett (Golf Club Atlas)
Episode 55 – Finding your Linksoul with John Ashworth
Episode 42 – A Scottish Golf Trip with Geoff Shackelford
Episode 22 – Playing Scotland’s Hidden Gems with Robert Thompson and Ian Andrew

Here's the embed:

New R&A Chief, Finchem Say Distance Issue Not An Issue

The R&A's Martin Slumbers and PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem, speaking at the HSBC Golf Business Forum, made clear they are not the least bit interested in doing a thing about distance increases.

So much for those hoping Slumbers would reverse the course of Peter Dawson, who said things were holding steady as he ordered "The Treatment" on all Open rota courses to mask his organization's fear of doing something meaningful.

No doubt this gibberish, quoted by Doug Ferguson AP notes colum, was followed by speeches about the need for sustainability to keep the game healthy. Hard to do when 8000 yards becomes the norm.

"What we are seeing at the moment is a fairly consistent percentage of some tremendous athletes who are hitting the ball farther," Slumbers said at the HSBC Golf Business Forum. "The percentage of them is unchanged. The average is a lot less than what the media talk about. The average has only moved 3 to 4 yards in the last 10 years. There's no burning desire on our part to make any changes."

We knew about the burning desire part, but to say players are hitting it farther and then say they are not according to the average, is an inconsistency even Peter Dawson never let slip.
at least made clear he's all about the PGA Tour.

"I do think if we get to a point where 75 percent of the field is hitting it where Dustin [Johnson] is and it gets a little boring, and we see signs of it affecting the integrity of the sport, it's a different matter," Finchem said. "Right now, I agree totally. We shouldn't do anything."

Slumbers also said distance "isn't getting out of control."

"It's a single-digit number of players who hit over 320 [yards]," he said. "The average is in the mid-280s -- this is run and carry. As long as it stays within those parameters, I'm celebrating skill."

Sigh.

"Public park vies for pro golf, sparking New Orleans debate"

AP's Cain Burdeau looks at the lack of community consensus over City Parks' $13 million Rees Jones renovation that is remaking the New Orleans park post-Katrina. A Zurich Classic date post-2020 is mentioned as a possibility.

Burdeau writes:

A group called the City Park for Everyone Coalition filed a lawsuit against the park, alleging it had violated wetlands protection laws by digging up the golf course and filling in wetlands.

In July, the Army Corps of Engineers agreed with the plaintiffs and said the park had illegally removed a 1.3-acre area of wetlands.

Golfers, too, have expressed doubts about the pricy course in the public park.

"I'm expecting nothing but fantastic out of it," said Carl Poche, a pro golfer from the New Orleans area. But he said building a top-flight course in City Park is contrary to the spirit of the park, where he fondly remembers playing rounds during the summer as a young man.

"It was mainly for people who couldn't afford the country club," he said.

The Youth Movement Is Real Because They Play A Different Game

Let's be honest: the youth hype in golf started as an effort to appeal to folks who don't watch golf for ad buyers who want to reach a younger audience. Then one by one men in their early 20s and women in their teens started not only getting tour cards, they started winning.

Yet something about the recent back-to-back wins to start the 2015-16 PGA Tour schedule by Grillo and Kaufmann have, in a weird way, been as powerful as the emergence of Spieth, Day and McIlroy. Why? Because we're seeing an ushering in of fearless youth clearly playing a different game, especially under final round pressure. These are not mere copy cats or young ones inspired by their peers.

Jaime Diaz, like me, was a skeptic of the rush to declare that a youth movement had taken hold. But after Kaufman's final round 61 and Las Vegas win--by someone who was not even a full time starter at LSU--he's no longer a denier.

There has been a discernible increase in truly competitive, younger-than-ever players who are ready to win. They might have names we barely know, but there are really no more upsets or even Cinderella stories in pro golf.

It’s evolution – from a litany of factors. Bigger and athletes drawn to the sport, following better fitness regimens, who have emulated physical specimens like Tiger, Dustin and Rory. There is more intense early competition, and equipment that can be tuned to minimize persistent flaws, breeding more confidence to swing harder.

But the biggest reason? Style of play.