Thoughts on the Open Championship
If Jon Mills weren’t in contention for his first PGA Tour win I probably wouldn’t have given a second thought to the US Bank Championship in Milwaukee this weekend. As it turned out, a Swede named Richard Johnson won and Mills faded to 19th.
Kenny Perry was the hottest golfer on the planet heading into the tournament and perhaps the biggest story in golf for his decision to skip The Open Championship to play in Milwaukee. But by Friday night you couldn’t find a wire reference to Perry anywhere as Greg Norman, Padraig Harrington and Royal Birkdale took centre stage to remind us that, despite what Tim Finchem and his band of merry marketers in Ponte Vedra would have you believe, the best golf and the best golfers in the world aren’t always on the PGA Tour.
That goes double for the stories. There were so many compelling features to come out of this year’s Open Championship it’s hard to know where to start. How do you explain David Duval – missing in action and rumoured to be doing a Vulcan mind-meld with the Dali Lama – popping up on the leaderboard and being grilled about his chances to win? Duval showed that his time off didn’t help him master the 30-second sound bite as his answers to even the most inane questions still sounded like a Philosophy 101 class. Time in the spotlight has never been good for Duval and his third round 83 proved it.
Tom Watson looked for a while like a 5-time Open Champion in his prime after an opening 74 but his second round featured some really frightful putting that reminded everyone that he’s close to 60 and not 30 anymore. Recent flavour of the month Rocco Mediate took another run at another major before he too remembered he’s 48 years old and not supposed to contend in these things.
So how to explain the surprising performance of part-time golfer, full time globe-trotting business tycoon, wine-maker, course designer and honey-mooner Greg Norman, at the age of 53, taking a 2-stroke lead into the final round of a major championship. Talk about turning back the clock. Norman hasn’t lost a bit of the swashbuckling go-fo-broke style he epitomized throughout the 80′s and 90′s. Ultimately it was the driver off the tee that cost him in the final round but as he once said, “I didn’t come here to lay up.”
The bookies said Sairgeeoh was supposed to win this one. “Enough with the cocky little Spaniard,” said Norman. “I already ran him off my estate once for messing with my daughter.”
Where was World # 2 Phat Phil and his major championship brain trust and entourage? Whatever they came up with this time didn’t work either. Two drivers, no drivers. Maybe they’ll carry three putters and an extra baffler in the PGA Championship.
If Norman isn’t the story of this year’s Open, it’s only because Paddy Harrington managed to retain his Open Champion title with a brilliant 4-under par 32 on the back nine Sunday. His four shot win over English peacock Ian Poulter will keep the party going in Ireland for at least another year.
For Norman, this was supposed to be a tune-up for the British Senior Open. Now he’s in next year’s Masters. The mind boggles at the very idea.
One final thought on the 137th Open Championship. At no time in four days of watching the telecast did I hear anyone mention FedEx Cup points. They call them majors for a reason Tim. And there are only four of them!
Pssst! Wanna buy a golf course?
Last week I had a call from a business broker in Florida wanting to know if I was interested in buying a golf course. Very good cash flow, lots of real estate potential. Oh yeah, it needs a clubhouse.
I’m not in the golf course buying business but I was very curious how he got my name. According to the sales rep, it came up in some sort of Google search that I was in the golf business so I was added to the database. Apparently I can look forward to future calls of the same type now that it has been established that I’m a potential golf course buyer. I can hardly wait.
The irony here is that there are plenty (maybe dozens?) of golf courses for sale in Southern Ontario yet rarely does anyone hear about them until after the deal has been done. Case in point – Timber Ridge Golf Club in Brighton sold recently to Gerard Waslen (Launch, Markham Golf Dome) but almost nobody knew of it until well after former owner Aart Van Veld had decamped for greener pastures.
According to Paul Martin, a real estate and business appraiser in Aurora, most golf course transactions are done quietly because there is such a small nucleus of buyers around that anybody on the sell side already knows who to call. Once you get past ClubLink, GolfNorth and a few private investors who currently own courses, there really aren’t a lot of serious players.
ClubLink’s Charles Lorimer indicated recently that their phone is ringing as much now as it did in the late 90′s when they were most active with acquisitions and development. The big difference he says is that courses here haven’t felt the pinch enough to make the purchase price attractive enough – yet.
So we know that there are golf courses for sale and there are serious buyers looking. When can we expect a few more deals to get done? Both Lorimer and Martin are hesitant to predict but in agreement that this fall and winter will be a major hurdle for local owners. That’s the time they get to tally this year’s results and see what’s left over to invest in next year’s operations, course improvements etc. For some it will also be the time to decide that enough is enough.
Don’t expect to hear about too many deals on this side of the border though. The market is like a private club. If you’re on the inside you’ll know what’s going on and if you’re not, then you’ll only know when a new face appears behind the counter at your favourite course.
Meanwhile, now that I’m on the “inside” as a potential buyer in the American market, I can let you know the next time a hot deal crosses my desk. Stay tuned!
Peter Mumford is the Editor and Publisher of Fairways Magazine in Toronto. Fairways is intended for avid golfers and this blog site is an extension of that same philosophy - we don't dumb it down for the uninformed!