Wentworth Sold!

[David_Tepper]

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/sep/12/wentworth-golf-course-sold-to-china-based-company

[Duncan Cheslett]

"Caring, a keen golfer and friend of Sir Philip Green, said he had been inundated with offers to buy the club during the nine years it had been in his possession but had held out for the right one. "I have always looked for an owner with integrity... an understanding of the special place it holds in so many people's hearts; an owner who wants to develop the Club ever further, improving on what is already a masterpiece." "


Sounds to me that he's delighted to get out with his shirt still on!

[Martin Toal]

"Caring, a keen golfer and friend of Sir Philip Green, said he had been inundated with offers to buy the club during the nine years it had been in his possession but had held out for the right one. "I have always looked for an owner with integrity... an understanding of the special place it holds in so many people's hearts; an owner who wants to develop the Club ever further, improving on what is already a masterpiece." "


Sounds to me that he's delighted to get out with his shirt still on!

And what a load of crap. Integrity wouldn't have tarted up the 18th and other holes with his ghastly vulgar Sawgrass inspired touches. If you have ever seen Caring, he is a man of about 60 with teeth and skin that are clearly altered by redesigns and not to the original specification. So too was Wentworth West. None of the work, on him or the course, was subtle or sympathetic.

[Jon Wiggett]

Hopefully the new owner will get a GCA who understands the trade to restore this classic back to how it should be. I won't be holding my breath though.

Jon

[Adrian_Stiff]

Better now than before in most peoples eyes. One of the few clubs that really makes some serious money. Wentworth always had troubles from the early 80s agronimically they talked about rebuilding the greens back then.

I don't see them taking the golf course atlas route.

[Duncan Cheslett]

One of the few clubs that really makes some serious money.

So why is he selling it for pretty much what he paid for it nine years ago?

[Paul_Turner]

"Caring, a keen golfer and friend of Sir Philip Green, said he had been inundated with offers to buy the club during the nine years it had been in his possession but had held out for the right one. "I have always looked for an owner with integrity... an understanding of the special place it holds in so many people's hearts; an owner who wants to develop the Club ever further, improving on what is already a masterpiece." "


Sounds to me that he's delighted to get out with his shirt still on!

And what a load of crap. Integrity wouldn't have tarted up the 18th and other holes with his ghastly vulgar Sawgrass inspired touches. If you have ever seen Caring, he is a man of about 60 with teeth and skin that are clearly altered by redesigns and not to the original specification. So too was Wentworth West. None of the work, on him or the course, was subtle or sympathetic.

At least he left the East alone (I think)....the West was an important lesson on how easily it is to tear up an old famous club.

The West had been neglected but I get the feeling that the club had no clue of how it was originally.

The East would be a great candidate for a restoration.  The original scale of the course with its width and huge bunkers!  Would be a fine contrast the "tarted up" West.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Duncan - I have no idea. All sorts of personal reasons get factored for anyone buying or selling. My personal opinion is some of the renovation is good and some of it is horrible. I think Frank Pont would have made a better job of it, it is right up his street, but that's always been the problem with name association and money, the masses want a Nicklaus, Palmer, Player or in this case Els. At £360 a pop its pretty busy, I would imagine on a good day Wentworth is taking upwards of £70,000, thats 10/15 times most courses take on a very good day. It has similar rounds to pre the change apparently so the redo at the £150 hike has been a huge financial success.  Maybe he would only have gotten £60-£70,000 without getting the profits and PE ratio up. One thing to remember is golf courses are not worth as much as they were 10 years ago. So to get out level is decent.

[Scott Warren]

My personal opinion is some of the renovation is good and some of it is horrible.

I'm once bitten, twice shy after the Portrush thread -- have you at least played the course you're pontificating about in this case?

[Mark Chaplin]

Duncan he can easily have sold a few acres for building at £5m an acre and taken profit out of the place.

Adrian there is a large amount of member/guest play on the West at £90 a pop, seriously reducing the revenue per round.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Duncan he can easily have sold a few acres for building at £5m an acre and taken profit out of the place.

Adrian there is a large amount of member/guest play on the West at £90 a pop, seriously reducing the revenue per round.

Mark - Yes the majority of rounds will not be at full whack obviously, but they will have some days of massive revenue. There is a €100M club in southern Spain that takes €50,000 on an average good day with green fees and buggies. If you can fill start sheets at £100 per round average and you have three courses, with buggies and food golf can be commercial.

[Mark Chaplin]

Wentworth will always be a trophy business but it does have some serious revenues and a large membership, those who say it isn't a members club probably haven't played there.

My only objections to the West renovation is the greens are appalling and taking a long time to settle and it's now a competition course and too damned difficult for me!

[Ian Mackenzie]

Sad state of affairs indeed when one breathes a sigh of relief that Trump did not but something else, but the Chinese did...;-)

[Paul_Turner]

Adrian

I remember the green fee being close to 300 quid before the Els redo?

[Frank Pont]

I half jokingly tweeted that I wondered if the Chinese woul restore the East back to its original state.

Would cost less than 1% of the purchase price...... but unfortunately I'm pretty sure it won't happen

[Adrian_Stiff]

Adrian

I remember the green fee being close to 300 quid before the Els redo?
[/quote{]Paul, I think you are right, 290 rings a bell now, perhaps the big hike was in a couple of goes. It certainly never used to be astronomic. I would imagine it is the most expensive in the UK by quite some distance at 360.

[jeffwarne]

I half jokingly tweeted that I wondered if the Chinese woul restore the East back to its original state.

Should be good news for the signature architects
or Curley-maybe a green in the shape of a steak and kidney pie

[Frank Pont]

I half jokingly tweeted that I wondered if the Chinese woul restore the East back to its original state.

Should be good news for the signature architects
or Curley-maybe a green in the shape of a steak and kidney pie

Sorry typo, obviously meant the West course....

[Jon Wiggett]

I've played the West course twice. Once a few years before the "renovation" and once after. One of the bright ideas of the renovation team was to rip up a load of heather and replace it with tree saplings - another one was to construct two TPC Sawgrass style water feature greens. The course still manages to be good inspite of the utter bastardisation by the team who worked on it. It's still a very good layout on a lovely site. I doubt it was ever in the league of Sunningdale down the road, though. I imagine they are charging silly money to play there. No doubt they will get the custom from the hoi polloi but I won't be returning anytime soon.

Brian,

the Burma Road was at one time (mid 80's) when I played it a couple of times a really good golf course. It had a lot of character and present a tough yet fair challenge. Whilst maybe not having the charm of Sunningdale I would still have placed it in the top tier of heathland courses.

Jon

[Michael Goldstein]

Now Reignwood own Wentworth and Pine Valley 

[Howard Riefs]

One year later...

"Wentworth Golf Club’s members have been asked to pay an extra $167,000 just to keep their membership at the prestigious West of London club, home of the European Tour and the tour’s flagship BMW PGA Championship."
http://golfweek.com/news/2015/oct/21/golf-wentworth-club-membership-cost-fee-increase/

[David_Tepper]

http://www.geoffshackelford.com/homepage/2015/10/18/new-wentworth-owner-hoping-to-run-off-most-members.html

[Jonathan Mallard]

Not going digging for a link, but, isn't this the same story we heard about Pebble Beach back in the day?

[Paul Gray]

Better now than before in most peoples eyes. One of the few clubs that really makes some serious money. Wentworth always had troubles from the early 80s agronimically they talked about rebuilding the greens back then.

I don't see them taking the golf course atlas route.

Which isn't actually a good thing, architecturally speaking. Well, not unless anyone wants to argue that Ernie Els is a better architect than Harry Colt. Please note that I said better, as opposed to commercially viable.

[Chris DeToro]

I wonder how this is going to impact the ability for visitors to play Wentworth...