"The next thing you know, there's a master community with a fence around it."

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Mina Kimes considers the issues facing real estate developments and the country clubs anchoring the facilities, focusing on a recent shuttering at Palmira in Florida. Not much surprise here...

Commercial real estate, a sector that's lagged behind the rest of the industry in experiencing the credit crunch, is about to get hit hard, according to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers survey. One finding: investors believe that sales of homes in golf club communities will be near abysmal next year which, in turn, will hurt club memberships.

"The courses are owned by people who leveraged them up, and they're going to feel the pain," said Susan Smith, the director of real estate at PwC.

Woolson predicts that the number of golf community foreclosures will continue to rise next year - and developers too will feel the pain. "I've made a lot of money over the past eight years selling golf courses that weren't making money," he said. "The developers see profits when they sell the last 25% of the development - if the market comes to a halt before then, they're in trouble."

" The European and American tours combined do not see that number of quality golf courses in a whole season."

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Mike Clayton on rotating Melbourne courses for the Australian Masters and what that has meant in the past:

In 1981, my first year on the tour, we played the Australian Open at Victoria, the PGA Championship at Royal Melbourne, the Victorian Open at Metropolitan, the Westpac Classic at Royal Adelaide, the South Australian Open at Kooyonga and almost every other year we seemed to be playing the immaculate holes at Kingston Heath. The European and American tours combined do not see that number of quality golf courses in a whole season.

"Remember, he won the US Open on one leg."

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John Huggan catches up with Hank Haney about the state of Tiger and managed to glean a few subtle notes about his possible pre-Masters schedule and his future.

"I'm sure his target is to be ready for the Masters. But to do that properly he'll have to play a couple of times before he gets to Augusta. He can't just show up not having played for so long. I know he pulled it off at the US Open, but ten months is a long time. He needs to have played some serious golf – maybe two events – before April. That sounds like a reasonable goal."

And this has to be music to Tim Finchem's ears...

"I can see him playing a bit more than normal in the short-term. His leg will be stronger than it has ever been. While his ligament will be at 85 per cent, the rest of the muscles around it will be in better shape than ever. So he will be capable of more than I have ever seen before. I really can't see this whole thing as anything but a positive. Remember, he won the US Open on one leg."

Compton Advances!

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Great stuff by Erik Compton and Stage 2 beckons as Antonio Gonzalez reports. Though I am a bit concerned about anyone whose first move of the day is to turn on the Golf Channel. Thankfully in this case, it worked.

Compton woke up at 6:30 a.m. and turned on the Golf Channel.

All the commentators had the same message: It was great that he was playing, but there was no way he could overcome seven strokes.

"It really motivated me," said Compton, who received special permission from the PGA Tour to use a golf cart and to continue taking banned anti-rejection pills. "People always want to count me out."

"Everybody almost looks like somebody who can play."

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Jim Moriarty files an entertaining GolfDigest.com column on the unusual gathering that is Q-School first stage:

If you're the kind of person who enjoys wandering through cemeteries reading inscriptions on mausoleums, the first stage of the PGA Tour's qualifying school is for you. It's quiet, respectful, sometimes surprising but mostly populated by, if not the walking wounded, at least the walking depressed.

"Now it's a survival hole"

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Teddy Greenstein loves the Rees-ification of Cog Hill, and I must say, it sounds like a good thing that it's next BMW Championship will be a playoff event, otherwise the boys would stay home. Thanks to reader Nick for the story, which includes this item on the new-look finishing hole:

The par 4 at Cog Hill's signature course was difficult, playing to a 4.135 average during the 2007 BMW Championship, but still lacked a certain fear factor.

The greenside pond looked good on TV but was barely visible to the pros. They made only eight double bogeys in the event's 260 rounds played.

"Now it's a survival hole," touring pro Garrett Chaussard said.

On a recent cool, windy day, Chaussard marched back to a new tee box that stretches the hole to a sinister 501 yards. He flushed a drive and still needed his 2-hybrid to reach the green from 220 yards out.

Chaussard, a University of Illinois product whose 2008 highlight was qualifying for the U.S. Open — though his 80-82 missed the cut by 13 shots — said the hole's new design makes it far more intimidating.

As part of Rees Jones' $5 million redesign, the tee box at No. 18 was moved back and to the left, making the pin visible — if you have 20/20 vision.

The green was lowered, thinned out and brought within spitting distance of the pond, leaving two bad options for the long approach: short (water) and long (deep bunker).

Jones' brilliant redesign is aimed in helping Cog Hill land a U.S. Open. Numerous bunkers have been added, deepened or reshaped to add ferocity to the layout, which could play at more than 7,600 yards.

Sounds so creative and inspired!

Enjoy Golfweek's Best New Courses While You Can

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At the pace we're on, there won't be enough new courses in the coming years to do these awards issues. Well, that won't stop them from trying. Maybe they'll go with "where are they now" issues trying to figure out what they were thinking in selecting some of these gems!

You have two options. There is the online version of the print edition with all of Brad Klein's musings, or the online photo slideshow backed by some of the finest copyright-free Muzak you'll ever want to not hear.

 

Australian Masters To Great Sandbelt Courses?

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The best thing about the Victorian Government rescuing the Australian Masters is that it's leaving longtime site Huntingdale, and according to word on the street as posted at GCA by Chris Kane, may be heading to Kingston Heath in 2009 and Victoria in 2010. Perfect opportunities for Tiger to go study his favorite type of golf!

Annika Hints At Return From Retirement As Retirement Beckons

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Gee, you think she could have gotten bored around the house for a few hours before growing restless about returning. Stephen Wade reports from China.

“If I get the urge to come back, I have a chance,” Sorenstam said. “That’s why I have never said this is the end. But we’ll see.

“There are new challenges ahead,” she added. “Getting married and starting a family. Who knows? I might come out on tour sooner than later. It might be tougher than I think it is.”

Tiger-The-Caddy Photo Caption Fun

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I passed on all of the "news" about Tiger's caddying gig as part of a Buick campaign. The more interesting news comes in this Michael Buteau piece where Tiger's agent and Buick's advertising man are letting the world know they are considering an extension on his deal, pending a few minor details like, say, the survival of the company!

Meanwhile, something about the body language of contest winner John Abel needs to be captured in a caption (thanks to reader Al for the link)...

"Phil [Mickelson] isn't going to come up (onstage) and try to do karaoke while I'm doing my show."

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JT managed to lure both John Hawkins and Alan Shipnuck to Vegas for game stories in their respective publications, and in the same press center! A Nobel peace prize may be next.

Hawkins notes this about the Las Vegas event:

Still, this was a marked improvement over recent gatherings in Vegas. Timberlake wisely ditched the three-course rotation that made this tournament so needlessly complicated -- it wasn't like the venues were within a 7-iron of each other -- and centralized everything at TPC Summerlin. Formerly a 72-hole pro-am, J.T. removed the chopper factor from the competitive arena, saying, "Phil [Mickelson] isn't going to come up (onstage) and try to do karaoke while I'm doing my show."

Shipnuck focuses on the overall economic state of the tour after praising Timberlake's turnaround of the moribund event. He offers this about the tax implications of an Obama presidency:

Paul Azinger estimated last week that his colleagues are 99% Republican (and that may be a conservative number) primarily because the players vote their pocketbooks. An analysis by the Tax Policy Center, recently cited in Rolling Stone, estimated that for those who make more than $1 million a year — which, including endorsements, is pretty much the entire Tour — the out-of-pocket difference between the tax plans of Barack Obama and John McCain is nearly $270,000. If Obama rides his lead in the polls to victory next month, Tour players will be feeling pain that is more than ideological.

Just Wondering...

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A few of you complained that I didn't focus on the substance in Tim Finchem's spellbinding SF Chronicle interview. Which of course, is a victory for the Commish. After all, doublespeak is a distraction tool and I fell for it!

Alright, here goes:

Q: The PGA Tour has a reserve of money it can call on in tough times. Would you tap that if you did have a decrease in sponsorships?

A: It's pretty simple. Through team sports and alliances, a big percentage of our revenue is derived from the communications side - broadcasts, etc. When we do our longer-term arrangements with television, and to some extent new media, we project out of that period so that right now we are in a six-year term with our network partners.

Our strategy is to grow our operating reserve during those years so we can withstand some negativity in the next cycle. We've done that for 20 years and it's worked well. We've grown in all those years. The question now is can we grow that reserve a little bit more aggressively to protect against what we were just talking about, namely retrenchment.

Anyone care to guess just how much is in the PGA Tour's rainy-day retrenchment fund?