“Everything was going along pretty well, even this summer, and then it was like someone turned the switch off Sept. 1.”

/

Bill Huffman does an excellent job making anyone in the golf business want to slash their wrists  leap off a bridge consider alternative business models. Actually, he very thoroughly considers the plight of Arizona golf and the sudden downturn in play, talking to SunCor Golf VP Tom Patrick. Thanks to reader Steven T. for catching the story.

This was interesting:

Still, and despite ridiculously low green fees already popping up lately in the West Valley, Patrick doesn’t expect a price war to break out. That’s because costs for rye seed are way up, water has never been more expensive, and maintenance costs are running through the roof after a mass exodus of undocumented workers back to Mexico.

“If people don’t come out to play, the courses will just go broke,” Patrick predicted. “In fact, that’s why so many are up for sale right now, even being foreclosed on — and you’re going to see more of that.”

Case in point: Starfire Golf Club in central Scottsdale went on the auction block this week for $8.5 million.

In another statement on the economy of Arizona golf, Royal Dunes, the former all-men’s club in Maricopa originally named Southern Dunes, completed its foreclosure on Wednesday when it was returned to lender Duane Young of Palm Springs, Calif.

Rumor on the street is the course is going to shift from private to public. (And, yes, women will be able to get a tee time there for the first time.)

“The golf industry is like everybody else,” Patrick said. “Things are not good, and until the banks loosen up some money, it’s going to get worse.”

Meanwhile, Patrick said, the golf industry is bracing for that perfect storm.

“You’re already seeing it,” he said.

“In places like Las Vegas, which really is getting hammered, they’re cutting back on everything, even the size of the courses by taking out turf.”

Well that's not such a bad thing.

Dean Barnett, R.I.P.

/

John Kirk's lovely tribute on GolfClubAtlas tipped me off on the passing of someone I only knew through email and his writings, though we tentatively planned on meeting and playing Rustic Canyon sometime this winter. That's one round I'll sorely miss playing (and you know how much I love slashing it around for five hours). But Dean's passion was so strong and his eye so unique, I couldn't wait to take him on a tour.

Dean wrote one of my favorite golf architecture stories, which you can read here. This spring he also filed this entertaining blog item on The Players v. The Masters.  He was working on a follow up to his architecture piece titled "Saving Golf" and had quizzed me about a variety of topics via email. For a Red Sox fan, he sure got it.

He was a respected figure in the conservative blogosphere and his passing prompted a nice tribute from Mitt Romney, as well as this from the Weekly Standard. The Boston Globe also ran this obituary.

"It also is likely that there will be less of a need for long, punitive rough."

/

There is a USGA.org Q&A with president Jim Vernon about the state of the USGA and his first year in office. I liked his answer on the groove rule change, which could be the first time I've seen someone from the USGA suggest that it could lead to less rough.

How do you expect the rules changes concerning grooves to impact how courses are set up for tour-level and championship competitions?

Vernon: For those setting up courses for players of this level, I think you’ll see a whole array of opportunities. If you look at the PGA Tour, the major championships, or the European Tour for that matter, you’ve seen a trend over the past 15 years showing hole locations have gotten closer and closer to the edge of the green each year, and that won’t need to be as much the case anymore. The rules changes may well reopen greens to some different hole locations that will still reward accuracy, but you won’t have to put it three or four paces from the edge of most of your greens. It also is likely that there will be less of a need for long, punitive rough. 

"As a professional golfer we have to adapt to that by playing more internationally because that is where the opportunities are and that's where they will continue to grow."

/

Martin Parry reports that Phil Mickelson really likes the idea of playing overseas. Why do I think Tim Finchem reads this and says, "why weren't you so eager to play overseas when we played WGC's on foreign soil?"

Phil:

"Certainly, the dollar weakening over the past few years has made foreign currencies much stronger, which makes the purses much larger, so there's been a lot of international wealth being created," he said.

"The US golf industry has been stagnant for quite some time so all of our growth has been occurring on a global basis.

"As a professional golfer we have to adapt to that by playing more internationally because that is where the opportunities are and that's where they will continue to grow.

"So I look forward to having opportunities to continue to play more internationally and I understand that that is going to be an important part of being an international golfer."

The 38-year-old, who has won twice on the US Tour this year, added that he hoped other golfers recognised the importance of not just playing more overseas but helping popularise the game in under-exploited markets.

"The States' market is stagnant so the more opportunities we can have where top players play throughout the world and expose those places to golf I think will help grow the game," he said.

"That's an important part of what we do. The (season-ending) FedEx Cup ending in September has given us much more opportunity to do that now."

"Is it Harry Vardon we have on our new Tour thing [logo]? Why isn't it Seve?"

/

James Corrigan talks to Padraig Harrington about Seve's contribution to European Tour golf and offers this intriguing idea.

Said Harrington: "Is it Harry Vardon we have on our new Tour thing [logo]? Why isn't it Seve? He is the man when you think about it. He is the European Tour, and it is at times like this that you kind of say, well, we wish we had more of Seve."

Imagine if he proposed that in branding obsessed America? Let's hope this idea, uh, gains traction.

FedEx Cup Fix Update!

/

Doug Ferguson looks at the 54-hole cut policy that only has one serious detractor in Charles Warren, and which has been successful in helping lighten the load for Sunday play. He also shares this on the FedEx Cup fix in the works. Naturally, it's drifting close to the ADT (RIP) model some of us love.

One solution that appears to be getting a lot of attention is not to reset the points until the Tour Championship, which could mean any of the 30 players at East Lake would have a chance to win. Plus, it would be decided over 72 holes and protect the integrity of the competition.

A decision is not expected for another month at the earliest. 

Walters Wins Suit Against TravelGolf

/

Jeff German reports for the Las Vegas Sun. This can't bode well for the future of TravelGolf.com:

District Judge Jennifer Togliatti has awarded Las Vegas golf course developer Billy Walters a $9 million judgment against the owner of a large Arizona-based Internet company he alleged had defamed him.

Walters charged in a 2006 lawsuit that Robert Lewis, a Flagstaff businessman who runs Travel Golf Media Inc., had falsely disparaged him and two of his golf courses, Stallion Mountain and Desert Pines, on the Internet after he refused to sign a new agreement to promote the courses on the company’s many Web sites.

The new contract, the suit alleged, required Walters to pay three times the promotional fees he had been paying Travel Golf Media.

Lewis published a series of posts with critical reviews and unflattering photos of the golf courses over two months in the spring of 2005, the suit alleged.

Walters’ lead lawyer, James Pisanelli, argued that the defamatory statements had caused Walters emotional distress and injured his personal reputation.

Stevie's Rebranding Complete! Your Captions Please...

/

Wow, releasing a bird into the wild without attacking the person taking the photos! What restraint shown by Tiger's luggage looper Stevie Williams. His image rehab is complete, I say! And nice branding for NBC Sports too. (Images courtesy of our friends at BZA PR, who are handling the Kiwi Challenge.)