Breaking: Someone Wants To Build A Golf Course...In America!

Paul Dunn pens a Pilot guest essay decrying the Pine Forest project in Pinehurst going before the Moore County Board of Commissioners this week.

Developer MHK Ventures Inc. estimates the planned gated community could ultimately contain 600 to 700 homes, two 18-hole and one nine-hole golf courses, a 300-room resort hotel and a commercial district. With 43 excellent golf courses already situated within the so-called Golf Capital of the World, one might question the project’s financial prospects with the economy in deep recession.

After 9/11, ClubCorp abandoned bold plans for Pinehurst Courses No. 9 and 10. The Dormie Club, Legacy Lakes and Little River haven’t seen strong demand for golf venue homes. Stonehill Pines, ambitiously touted to be a major Foxfire project, lies dormant on the drawing board. So the first question the public and commissioners should ask is, “Are 45 more holes of golf and another resort hotel realistic at this time and place?”

The Machrie Closes

The Herald's David Ross reports that the Machrie, which has been teetering has been closed.

By all accounts it's a splendid links. Hopefully they'll find a way to make it work.

UNM Golf Course Could Be Shut Down

Thanks to reader Rick for this disappointing report on the recommendation of a University of New Mexico advisory committee to shut down their renowned golf course, which is an astonishing $4.6 million in debt.

"We want to continue to give the local folks a great golf course and also want to maintain our rating nationally."

Steve Lynn of New Mexico's The Daily Times looks at the revenue problems of the well-regarded Pinon Hills, the most blatant example yet of water costs impacting the health of a golf operation.

Meanwhile, the golf course is watering less despite spending more on the nonpotable water.

The course spent $42,000 on 134 million gallons of water in 2004.

By contrast, it spent $151,000 on 118 million gallons through October this year while spending about the same last year on $172 million gallons.

At the same time, the course has cut its budget. The city projected a $1.35 million budget that funds the city's golf courses this fiscal year, a decline of almost $90,000 from last fiscal year's budget.

The city expects higher green fees to raise revenue by $100,000, parks department director Jeff Bowman said.

"We want to continue to give the local folks a great golf course and also want to maintain our rating nationally," Bowman said.

"Golfweek" ranked Piñon Hills the No. 4 public golf course in the nation this year.

Naturally those last two sentences provide a nice reminder to those who don't think courses overspend to appease panelists.

"You may not want to hear this, but golf at every level is rife with cheating."

In light of the recently off-radar incident involving Elliot Saltman, John Huggan devotes his Scotland and On Sunday column to the oddity of non-cheaters in golf suffering penalties while elite players seem exempt from penalty for outright cheating.

You'll never read the names of those involved though. Officialdom doesn't want you to know who they are (and the legal implications of publicly exposing the culprits don't help either). Some, in fact, are really quite famous. One multiple major champion, by way of example, is a notorious cheat and the subject of any number of head-shaking locker room tales. Ryder Cup players are not immune either. At least one is tainted forever by his serial cheating. And there are others, many of whom have won events through the most dubious of methods.

Every year it goes on and on, right up to the present day. During this past season on the European Tour there was at least one instance where a pro, outraged by the behaviour of his playing companion, refused to sign that fellow competitor's card. Not that anything came of it. In such instances, tour officials invariably take it upon themselves to attest the disputed numbers.

And that's the problem. Why is it that the innocent seem to be persecuted to the nth degree by the rules while the guilty are protected?

"Why are we changing thousands of courses - or at least dozens - for the sake of the golf ball? Why not just change the ball?"

One last item from John Huggan's profile of Bill Coore. On the distance chase:

"Why are we changing thousands of courses - or at least dozens - for the sake of the golf ball? Why not just change the ball? There is no doubt it has had a negative effect on architecture generally. Guys just hit past stuff so much these days. To which people say we can move tees back - but sometimes you can't - or move bunkers - but sometimes that isn't practical or advisable. I hate to see bunkers that have been there for decades suddenly moved. For one thing, rebuilding a bunker exactly as it was isn't that easy.

"Having said that, the ball has less influence on our work than for some other designers. We don't do courses for tournament play. Mostly, our courses are for membership play. Yes, they have been used for events - the PGA Seniors was at Colorado Golf Club this year and the PGA Tour's season-opener has been at Kapalua for a while now. But we didn't do those courses with events in mind, they arrived later.

"We tend to work from the greens backward to a certain point. Beyond that, distance is not a priority. Our biggest interest is in making a hole fun to play."