"The course will make it a real vacation destination not just a Bible destination."

Leah Cowen reports that Israel "is finally waking up to the golf boom" with the development of a pair of Robert Trent Jones Jr. courses. Note the photo with the article that is said to be "computer generated."

Israel Resorts & Clubs has already built an $8 million water-treatment plant to irrigate the courses, which are set to open in 2011. The golf courses will be available to resort guests and golf-club members.

The two resort courses, the Sea of Galilee and Mount Arbel, have been designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr., whose last course in Tacoma, Washington, won the bid to host the 2015 US Open.

"He's one of the foremost golf architects in the world and it's a branding that will make Mount Arbel a real golf destination internationally," Bernstein said.

The links-style courses will capitalize on Arbel's seaside location and the plateau's natural contours.

And...

The history of Arbel also adds character to the course. The cliffs of Arbel contain the ruins of a fourth century Jewish synagogue. The mountain was also an assassination site, where Herod the Great killed Jews who went against his rule.

"I think it has the potential to be golf art," Jones told the Post. "It's in a location of great historic importance and that in itself is interesting."

I don't know, somehow I don't think of an assassination site and golf mixing, but I'm a cynic.

Bernstein added that he hopes the course will attract "snow-birds" (people living in cold-weather climates) from Europe and the East Coast of the US who would normally take golf-vacations in Florida and the Caribbean.

"When they've already been to Israel and seen the tourist thing there's no reason to go back," Bernstein said. "The course will make it a real vacation destination not just a Bible destination."

You think I'm going to touch that?