Fifty Years From Now ...

[David Lott]

Follow money and power: The great golf courses have generally been built when elites with wealth and power have decided to embrace golf. It has worked even better when these elites have some taste, and there is a dominant ideal of what is a desirable golf course.

This was true in the US in the 1920's and is being repeated now here and elsewhere. Though now there are multiple elites and at least two dominant ideals of what is desirable in golf--the minimalist movement and the ever popular grandiose.

I nominate India as most likely to fit these criteria. They have growing mega-affluence in the elites and the potential for a large and prosperous middle class. India also has a magnificent variety of climates and landscapes and in many places lots of water. You could say that China has all these things, but the British tradition tips the balance. India has already embraced tennis and cricket, elite British sports, and I think it would embrace golf as well.

The only question is whether either of these nations could build enough courses for their own populations. Maybe not, and if they can't can golf really develop? It is, after all, a game accessible to all in its birthplace Scotland, and that is pretty much true in the USA now too. This popular access may end up a precondition to quality and quantity of golf. The limited golf--and great golf--Continental Europe comes to mind as an example.

Darkhorse: Mexico

[RJ_Daley]

I agree with Gib and others that point to China, their sensibilities and appreciation for art forms, including natural and cultivated gardens that collaborate with natural processes.  I think their middle class will explode in affluence just like their skylines are exploding into some of the most exciting architecture in the world.  Just think what those skylines in their great cities looked like in the 60s under Mao.  Now, they rival the most exciting in the world.  The same is true with their golf course explosion.  Now, it is for an elete class, like Gib and David are speaking.   But, their middle class will rise and follow on with their recreational pursuits just like the U.S. did at the turn of the last century.  

I also like Jerry's pick of South Africa.  Just cruising the google maps of their coast lines is enlightening as to how much apparent good land they have.  And, there is a golf tradition there.  It just depends on what their economy does for their middle class.  

Dark horse... the areas in the Balkans around the Black Sea. Bulgaria, Moldovia, Ukraine and Georgia.  Maybe even Turkey to a lesser extent.  There are some very cool coast lines beaches and duneslands, with relatively golfy weather.  

[Gib_Papazian]

David,

Interesting post. You may have a point about India given their connection to the British Empire - even today. I am not sure, though, whether India is minting millionaires as fast as China.

Time will tell; wisdom and prognostication will not die with me, although pedantic bullshit might.

The thing about China is that the next generation is going to find all the trappings of wealth, power - and yes, sexual promiscuity - impossible to resist.

Red Ferrari, sexy girl and brand new set of Callaways . . . . .

How is the power structure going to get their party youth to put on thick, itchy wool coats and spout a bunch of hooey about "the people this and the people that?"

It will sound as hollow as that nutbag in Chinatown here in S.F. who stands on the corner of Grant and Broadway with a megaphone, ranting against western culture while he smokes American cigarettes, wearing Nike shoes.

Political dogma has no chance long term when competing with technological gadgets, fine booze and the opportunity to make enough jing to go out to clubs and meet hot pussy.

This goes a bit afield, but I went to USC in the late 70's and early 80's, when we had an enormous population of Iranian students. Each was invariably vocal in their anger at all things American - marching in Westwood and making a nuisance of themselves.

Yet, the parking lot of the Iranian Student Union looked like a Pontiac Trans Am dealership and all that pious, hypocritical adherence to their Muslim horseshit never seemed to extend to the local fern bar, where they drank like fish in their tailored threads, snarling about how America was an evil place.

The closest I ever came to seeing one of those towel heads on a prayer rug was on their knees puking in the bathroom.

So my point is that no totalitarian government, be it a theocracy or otherwise, can survive long term against the march of our Western Culture. They can pretend for a while, but people eventually do what they want whether the Mullahs approve or not.

The same will be true for China - really all of Asia. Golf already has an enormous foothold in South Korea . . . . . the only thing standing between them and the Chinese market is one piss-ant, sawed off little faggot to the north. The next time Kim Jong-il rattles his saber at anybody, I bet he is going to quickly find it shoved in his posterior.

The Chinese are not stupid; fellow communist or not, he is a loose cannon and bad for business.  

Get rid of the lunatics in power and all of these countries will take to golf just like they did cell phones and all things risque - it inevitable.

Remember the 9-11 hijackers? What were they doing the night before, reading the Koran? Uh, no, most were swilling booze and finger-banging the pole dancing infidels before they went out and killed a few thousand of us for Allah.

Fads catch on in Asia far faster than Arabia, but the net net is still the same. Neither government can control their people long term, no matter how hard the thumb presses - the horse escaped long ago and there is no going back.

Fifty years from now, China will have its own PGA Tour - funded by the same people who are raking in money with both hands in Macao . . . . . another Communist outpost devoted to capitalism.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Riding high on the horse tonight after the latest victory, eh?

It's nice having you post this week. Very refreshing!

[Rich Goodale]

Gib

You've really mellowed out during your sabbatical.  Come on, tell us what you REALLY think!

Tommy

Any chance of Notre Dame joining Stanford and Vassar in a new NCAA football conference for girlie schools?

Irhc

[Gib_Papazian]

Tommy,

What is refreshing is not being subjected to any grief about my Trojans. That Bruin debacle last year hurt, though the Rose Bowl against Michigan was a spectacular way to start the year.

I do not want to jinx us, but this is still collegiate ball and anything can happen. That stated, Booty and the boys look like an NFL team . . . . .

Rich,

No, I have not mellowed. I am still the same dicknozian as always. The glass is still half empty . . . . . . . If I was not a snide curmudgeon, nobody would bother to read what I write.

Lest you have forgotten from our many days together, I believe every word of it. My spew is not for effect.

[Rich Goodale]

I like "diicknozian."  Sort of an Armenian variation of Dickenzian, which briongs us back to Darwin, and to GCA......

[Adrian_Stiff]

As an area Eastern Europe, Slovakia, Czech, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary. Many of these countries will grow several fold over even the next 10 years.

[Matt_Sullivan]

While I am by no means a Zhongguo Tong, I have lived in China for three years and been coming here for the best part of a decade.

At present, golf in China is, generally, both crap and expensive. For it to really take off it needs to either be crap and cheap or expensive and good. The latter is much more likely, given golf's status as an elite (and non-Olympic -- which matters here) sport.

However, I am not sure that China will ever take to golf in the same way that Western nations. At grass roots level, it has already been gazumped by, among other things football (ie soccer) and basketball. And in the major cities, the chances of affordable and accessible facilities being developed is very, very small. Even at my club in Beijing, the number of junior golfers playing can be counted on your fingers (no toes necessary)

The game in China will remain an upper middle-class/upper class pursuit. This will fund some fantastic developments over, potentially, some interesting terrain -- like, for example, Kunming's Spring City. However, going forward, China will be more environmentally restrictive than places like, say, Vietnam or Indonesia. And the focus on for-profit clubs (due in part to the massive competing demands for real estate) will limit the growth of the golf-loving benevolent dictator/benefactor (a type that drove so many famous US courses: Augusta, Pine Valley, NGLA etc etc).

Cheap land drove a lot of golf course development in the UK, US and Australia. There's not a lot of cheap, good land in China right now.

[Tom_Doak]

Tom P:  I guess where we disagree is the number.  I'm thinking that there will be a year in the not too distant future when there are less than 50 new courses opened in the USA, and numbers-wise, 50 isn't a very big number for China.

Matt S:  Thanks for the perspective of someone in China.  Your report is similar to what I've heard from the Asian and American architects working there already.

Gib:  I agree with you that the Chinese have the potential to take up golf in a big way, though there are many hurdles at Matt points out.  The one factor you left out is the language barrier -- not just the Mandarin language but golf lingo.  (It's the one factor that favors India and South Africa in this game; they've already got the golf lingo down.)  

Unless someone is prepared to go over to China and build the whole course themselves -- which is hard to do anywhere without a great piece of ground -- they'll have to figure out how to get the client and the contractor to understand in great detail what it is they're trying to build.  That would seem to favor the plan-based architects over the minimalist operations.  However, I do think it's important for golf to really establish a foothold in China, and I have decided that I want to be part of that.  Now I just have to find an associate or two who want to go and make it happen.

[Adam Clayman]

Tom, Do you think you could elaborate on why you feel Golf needs to have a  foothold in China?

[paul cowley]

50 years is a long time out to predict for, but I will go with a little closer to home.........Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean [and this includes Cuba].

All these areas have vast potential when you consider available land a willing work force, and proximity to market.....North America, Europe, South America and even Eastern Asia.

[Tom_Doak]

Adam:

Golf is a great cultural bridge, and it's imperative for us to have more cultural bridges to China.

It is also a game which bridges generations and social status and allows people to be more upwardly mobile, and all of that would be good for China.  But, they have to get past building courses to attract foreign businessmen or sell real estate, and start building courses for Chinese people to play ... and that is a big leap.

Paul:

For 3-5 years out I would agree with your selection -- we get more calls about projects in Mexico and the Caribbean than about projects in the U.S. already.  But, fifty years out, I hope that other countries and regions will have begun to assert themselves.

[paul cowley]

Tom....I think 3-5 years is on the light side, primarily because travel time is the biggest impediment for most, and one of the main reasons that Asia will lag for a while [we who spend too much time in the air for business have a tendency to forget the masses don't enjoy the same thing as a part of their recreation]....but this only assumes we are talking about an existing market base, not creation of a new one, but this has been expressed already.

Actually, in 50 years the time to travel anywhere will be irelevent and not a hindrince....so I guess I will change my answer to anywhere in the world, or anywhere you can grow grass and find a suitable site, and anywhere you can find people with the money to get there.

The whole world population will be the market by then.  

[TEPaul]

"Tom P:  I guess where we disagree is the number.  I'm thinking that there will be a year in the not too distant future when there are less than 50 new courses opened in the USA, and numbers-wise, 50 isn't a very big number for China."

TomD:

My God, you sure aren't very optimistic on the future or America are you?

Should I cash out into gold or silver coins one of these days?

Do you plan to or are you going to just go and ply China architecturally?

I'll tell you one forecast about China I might make. If they don't revalue their own currency one of these years they're liable to have a full-blown social revolution on their hands.

[Adam Clayman]

Re China news;
Yesterday it was announced that some of China's bigger city's "downtown" areas will no longer be open to automobile traffic. Interesting phenomenon I first heard about during High School Chemistry class 30 years ago.  Will NyC be next?

[Wayne_Kozun]

Strong economic growth and a wealthy population are not the only things required for courses to be built.  How many courses were built in Japan during their boom period from the 50s through 1990?  How many of them were great?  Same for (West) Germany during the same period?

It will not be Canada as Canada already has a very high golf course/capita ratio.

Eastern Europe is possible but why would it be much different than western europe?

One note on the Ukraine - it appears to be the largest country (at least in terms of population at 49 million) without a golf course.

Can anyone think of a more populous country without a course?  Would there be courses in Iran, Ethiopia, or Congo (all with over 50 million people)?

[Gib_Papazian]

Tom Paul,

If you are right, then hope for a full-blown social revolution - that nation is not going to go backwards, but forwards. Remember, we are talking about fifty years, not next Tuesday afternoon.

I am gong to stick by my guns with such a long time horizon. Fifty years from now, commerce is going to be the driving force for every single government except places like Africa.

I've no hope for Africa in 50 years. Their only salvation will be an enormous influx of investment and for a continent-wide insurrection. Perhaps it begins with one country - say Zimbabwe, but if the uprising does not spread, the crazies with the guns will squash the revolution like a bug and it will be back to starvation, pillage and violence. That is an argument for another day though.

Everybody else is going to be more interested in trade, commerce and technology than regimes. The day of *us v. them* will be done in fifty years. The banks in all these countries are already thick as thieves and make no mistake, that is who pulls the strings in the political system.

As stated above, transportation will be nearly irrelevant. Maybe China does not have a lot of cheap property right now, but I looked at a map of that country and there is so much land I could hardly grasp it.

Years ago, I spent an afternoon with Phil Mc Gleno, just him and I. He expounded on every imaginable subject from the Yips to why he changed his name to Mac O'Grady.

At one point he told me that he had uncovered evidence that golf began in China, with the implements being carried along the Silk Route by traders, eventually ending up in Scotland.

If you think about it, Golf is the perfect sport for the Asian mentality. Cliche' I know, but that does not make it less so. It is inconceivable - especially if golf ends up in the Olympics in 50 years - that China will not take it up with a vengeance.

Where can you imagine it be harder for golf to take root than Japan? There are so many land constraints I find it astonishing that anybody ever took it up - let alone the golf craze that continues today.

China already went through the Ping Pong phase . . . . . and Tennis is nothing more than Ping Pong in white shorts with bigger balls.

No, it is only a matter of time before they swallow the hook. It may begin with Japanese businessmen or other foreigners looking for an affordable resort to play, but once the money starts to flow and the wrinkled prunes in the wool coats drop dead off their pedestals, there will be Nike ads on every billboard in China.

 

[RJ_Daley]

Gib,

whether the old guard 'likes' golf or not, if as someone pointed out, golf becomes a sport on the world stage that they perceive as a validating endeavor like an olympic sport, they will go for it head long in the old commie way.  They will displace a couple of million people for a dam, they will build a couple hundred golf courses without any profit motive to create an instant training ground for their youth, and declare their methods, superior.  Environmental considerations?  Stroke of the pen...  That could happen before the old guys die off.  But, if the old guys die off first, then the process you describe will still take place, IMHO.  So, China could go golf goofy, either way.  

But, I still like the dark horse Balkans.  It really looks like some interesting golf terrain and climate around the Black Sea.  I don't know if they would make it hard or easy for environmental hurdles or if such a thing as permitting would be an issue.  I don't know what sort of land packages can be assembled.  But, permitting and land packaging is why the EU countries won't see very high growth.

[Brian Phillips]

India--not a chance in hell (or whatever counts for hell in India--reincarnation as an internet GCA geek, maybe?).  Too few golfers, too little demand for the tri-tip sandwich in the clubhouses....

China--biggest by far in volume, most ostentatious in terms of infrastructue, most underwhelming in terms of quality.  Kinda like a maxi-Florida.

Brazil--fuggedaboutit!  Sitting on Ipanema watching the girls go by vs. 5-6 hours playing a game which you will never master with your fat arsed friends?  No contest!

The winner?  USA.  Got the market, got the land, got the money, got the imagination, got the volume.  Same old, same old....

Surprise runner-up? UK and Ireland.  Still huge amounts of incomparable virgin golfing land.  Just at the tipping point of having the locals finally understand that upmarket golf is good for the economy.  If Trump's Aberdeen project gets final approval, it wil be Katy bar the door.

Dark Horse--Eastern Europe.  Some great land, some great climate, huge amounts of dodgily obtained money looking for places to invest, close to and familiar to significant golfing markets (US, UK).  The Flordia/Spain of the 21st century.

IMHO, of course.

Listen to this man....Rihc I think you are spot on.

The biggest problem with the Balkans and Eastern Europe is flights.  By that I mean secure guaranteed regular flights from the UK and Scandinavia to these areas.

There is a lot of money about wanting to be invested into these countries but the clients that I have spoken to are still worried about consistent support from the cheap airlines.  It is the usual cart before the horse theory.

Cheap airlines will not take a risk in an area until they are sure that there will be a guaranteed volume of traffic to an area but no one will invest unless there is a guaranteed transport infrastructure.

We have been working on a project in Romania and it is a 3.5 hour drive from the capital.  The government keeps promising a new airport right by where the project is based but it is still not built.  No airport....no hotel, no Spa no golf course....no new jobs...catch 22.

One other problem in Europe is the number of land owners there are to each project.  It is ridiculous!!  Especially in places like Romania, at the last count the project we are involved in had over 100 land owners.  This was taking more time to sort out than the red tape of getting planning permission.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Seems to be a focus on global economics.... rightfully so.

Could an individual architect change a country's landscape?

If Tom D. moved to Bulgaria, for some reason, would that impact the countryside?
Is Norway much better of with Brian working there - among other places?

Or would it need to be a phenom golfer that came from an undergolfed nation?

P.S.   Did the yanks win the pennant yet?  

[Tom_Doak]

Mike:

Absolutely, a single designer could change the golfing landscape of a country.  Look what Dr. MacKenzie did for golf in Australia -- not just by himself, but by passing on his knowledge to Alex Russell and Mick Morcom and others, and setting a very high standard for everyone else to follow.

But that's true for any country, so it is much more likely to happen in a country with plenty of good, cheap land, or one with a booming economy.

I don't think I'm going to move to Bulgaria to prove it, though.

[RJ_Daley]

All you have to do is get two wild and crazy guys like this interested in golf in the Balkans and your in...
Georg and Yortuk Festrunck


They already seem to have been enamored with Johnny Millers clothing.  

[Ben Cowan-Dewar]

This is a great question Tom.

The thread has gone all over the place, but there are a few surprises.

First, China has a moratorium on golf construction, which can be worked around, but unless things change dramatically, 50-100 courses are not going to be built per year in the near future.

Furthermore, Chinese courses are not making money on the whole. In fact, many are losing money. I am not sure this is a strong indicator for the future development. China's other major problem is water. In areas that are fertile, farmers object to golf courses using water for irrigation (part of why the moratorium exists in the first place). Given that 5-10% of China's land is responsible for feeding a massive amount of the world's population, this is a major obstacle. Furthermore, with roughly 20% of its landmass desert, golf will be limited. However, 50 years is a long time, so who knows.

I like Wayne Kozun's assertions and given that is his job, I place even more value in them.

I think Africa will be far ahead of Australia & NZ in terms of development, due to cheap land, relative closeness to major population, climate, etc. Egypt is growing the game currently and southern Africa (with the exception of S.A. has yet to see the boom).

I presume it is the American-centric view of this website that no one has mentioned the Middle East. Here is a region where golf culture is ingrained, land is plentiful and most importantly it currently yields some of the most profitable courses in the world today. That is one indicator that I find promising.

Brian,
I do not think flight patterns will make or break Eastern Europe on a fifty year timeline, those flights could be sorted in 5-10 years. Dubrovnik was not much of tourist destination 16 years ago, but things change rapidly.

[PThomas]

Re China news;
Yesterday it was announced that some of China's bigger city's "downtown" areas will no longer be open to automobile traffic. Interesting phenomenon I first heard about during High School Chemistry class 30 years ago.  Will NyC be next?

Adam - if i remember correctly isn't NYC considering charging cars a BIG toll if they enter into the "downtown" area?  hasn't London recently started this, I beliebe....