A
ttending the recent ASGCA
Annual Meeting in Georgia
and hearing a leading US
golf developer assert that golf and
real estate still belong together was a
lightbulb moment for me.
Ever since housing markets in
the US, Europe and many other
countries came under pressure in
2008, leading to a virtual halt in the
development of golf and real estate
projects, it has been fashionable to
assert that the business model that
sees housing intermingled with golf
holes is broken, and that we won’t
see many projects of this kind in the
foreseeable future.
I take a different view. To me, golf
and housing are natural bedfellows.
Since developer Walter Tarrant and
architect Harry Colt built the St
George’s Hill estate south of London
in 1912, we have over 100 years of
evidence that golf adds value to
homes, and vice-versa. The model, in
my eyes, is not broken. It might be
slightly battered, and it might be in
need of improvements, but essentially
it still works.
Some of the changes that
must happen are at the level of
masterplanning. Pretty much
everyone in golf now understands
that hole after hole lined on both
sides with housing may be a short
term win for developers, creating a
vast number of golf-frontage lots, but
longer term, it results in a golf course
that is doomed to mediocrity. Rather,
put the houses in clumps, which
will help create a community feel,
as well as making the development
more pedestrian friendly and, by the
by, making the golf course feel more
integrated. Keeping the footprint
of the golf course compact is good
for sustainability; it also encourages
people to walk the course, rather
than riding a cart, with obvious
benefits for health. It is good to hear
from architect Brian Curley, ASGCA,
that almost all his firm’s projects in
China are now focused on core golf.
But there need to be changes to the
type of golf design that is deployed
on real estate developments too.
Many developers believe homebuyers
like to see acre after acre of finely
maintained turf, but in a world where
water is precious and maintenance
budgets under pressure, reducing
the area of turfgrass that is mowed,
irrigated and fertilized is absolutely
essential. Moreover, much of the
push for longer courses–even on
developments that have no intention
of ever trying to host a professional
or leading amateur event–comes,
again, from the desire to maximise
golf frontage.
This is wholly understandable, but
the best advert for a development
is a golf course that is popular and
economically thriving. Advocates of
longer courses say that, as long as
there are sufficient forward tees, they
are playable by all, but this misses
the key point. Length is essentially
directly opposed to sustainability;
longer courses cost more to maintain,
take more time to play (even
from shorter tees, never mind the
inevitable tendency of golfers to play
further back than they really should)
and demand more land. What the
Tee it Forward campaign and the
work of activists like Arthur Little is
revealing is that 6,500 yards, planned
intelligently, is plenty of golf for the
vast majority of players.
Across the world, there are huge
opportunities for golf to support
the development of much-needed
housing, and for that housing to
support the growth of golf. In
countries such as India, Nigeria and
Brazil, where a huge emerging middle
class is looking for better, more
secure homes, golf estates will boom.
The game will boom with them, if
developers, masterplanners and golf
architects learn to work together
more intelligently and produce
projects that hit the spot for golf and
housing alike.
•
Golf and real estate
Natural
bedfellows
CLOSING THOUGHTS
Adam Lawrence
Adam Lawrence is editor of By Design
and Golf Course Architecture. He is also
a leading commentator on the global
golf development business.
18
|
By Design
Adam Lawrence says golf architects,
masterplanners and developers can find better
ways of integrating golf and real estate.
