09
The Cliffs at Mountain Park in South Carolina,
designed by Gary Player with architect
Jeff Lawrence, ASGCA, opened last year
F
or golf architects, the years
since 2008 have been mostly
filled with renovation work.
Helping golf clubs improve their
courses, making them easier to
maintain, more fun to play and
more environmentally sustainable is
important work, but it’s not, generally,
why most golf architects chose their
profession. The reason young men
and women dream of being golf
architects is simple; they want to
design and build their own courses.
Now, there is evidence this is
changing; new golf construction
is starting to move at a pace we
have not seen since the economic
crash. Tentatively, we can assert that
developers are regaining confidence,
and are recognizing that the
fundamental reasons that make golf a
potent asset to a larger development
remain intact. Better still, we can
observe a wide range of different
business models behind the projects
currently in progress, implying that
different parts of the development
community now see the appeal of
new golf. Best of all, a number of
these business models are new, a
direct response to the economic
changes of the past six years.
The high profile, high end remote
retreat has been one of the most
successful leisure and property
business models since the 1990s.
Both in golf and other sectors,
developers have proved that affluent
clients will pay well to visit—and to
Image: Steven McBride
