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Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player produced rousing peformances to bring down the curtain on the third edition of the Asia Pacific Golf Summit (APGS).
Even though he received $3 million before he arrived in Melbourne, Australia, Tiger Woods was not just going to make a token appearance in the Australian Masters.
In a thoughtful piece rebutting some of the claims made by in an International Herald Tribune article that golf in Vietnam is a destructive force, Jim Sullivan of Mandarin Media claims just the opposite is true.
It was Pacific Dunes in the northwest corner of the United States that got Tom Doak noticed as a golf course architect, but it was Cape Kidnappers in New Zealand that put him at the top of his profession.
With just over one week to go, the 2009 Asia Pacific Golf Summit looks set to smash past attendance records as the movers and shakers of the global golf industry head to the Malaysian capital city of Kuala Lumpur for one of the most important golf business conferences in the world.
Out on the Nullarbor Plain, daytime temperatures can soar above 50C, yet plummet well below freezing at night. And rainfall, well, let's just say there isn't much.
Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh Golf Trail, perhaps the world's most exotic golfing itinerary, has added to its appeal by admitting Central Coast tourism bastions Montgomerie Links Golf Club and Nam Hai Resort to its list of offerings.
While there has been - deservedly - a lot of hubbub over Arnold Palmer's 80th birthday on September 10th, clear over on the other side of the globe another golf great has already matched that milestone.
Four of the best young golfers on the PGA Tour will travel half-way around the world in mid-November, chasing a winner's check for $1 million in the second annual Kiwi Challenge, a made-for-TV event sanctioned by the PGA Tour.
John Daly will return to Australia later this year to play in the 2009 Australian Open. Daly will return to the Open at New South Wales Golf Club, also known as La Perouse, in Sydney from December 3-6 and expects to be near his best after a year of physical transformation.
An Australian study has found that the smell of freshly cut grass reduces stress and protects nerve cells from the damage that stress causes. The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Queensland who have bottled the chill-out fragrance.
The new World PGA Alliance includes organizations representing 56,000 PGA professionals and more than 22,000 PGA-member golf facilities worldwide. The group was formed to establish and guide teaching, playing and educational standards for the golf profession in developing golf territories, and shared best practices in player development for adults and youth.
A recently concluded Australian Golf Industry Council (AGIC) Forum at Sanctuary Cove on the Gold Coast has provided hope for the Australian Golf industry to collectively work towards unity.
The comparisons aren't accidental. The names make this fairly clear, and those fortunate enough to have visited Golfplan's new seaside tour de force believe that Pine Beach Golf Links in Haenam, South Korea, more than measures up to its inspiration and mirror image - Pebble Beach Golf Links on the other side of the Pacific.
Golf is fast becoming Australia's most popular pastime as shown by a significant increase in the latest participation figures. The data, released as part of the Australian Sports Commission's annual Exercise, Recreation and Sport Survey (ERASS), ranked golf as the most popular club-based activity in 2008, overtaking tennis.
Schmidt-Curley Design has announced that Golden Mountain Golf Club in Qingdao, China, has opened for play.
Nullarbor Links Golf Course is open and ready for play, but only for those with the time. Officially opening in October and playable in July, the longest course in the world is an 18-hole, par-72 golf course spanning 1,365 kilometers.
Golf and government go way back. According to the book "How Did Sports Begin?," the earliest reference to the game was in 1457, when the Scottish parliament moaned it was keeping people from worthy pursuits such as archery and ordered that golf be "utterly cryit doun, and nocht usit."
The Asian Tour has banned four Australian golfers for playing on the rival OneAsia Tour at the Volvo China Open. Jason King, Chris Gaunt, Brad Kennedy and Ashley Hall had their appeals rejected and were banned for the rest of the season and were hit with a maximum $6,377 fine.
May 10, 2009. Golf Industry Central has launched a new staff recruitment service specializing in seeking positions for the Australian and New Zealand golf industry. Specialist consultants are being used with decades of club operations and golf management experience in recruitment of various positions- from supervisor and departmental manager up to General Manager, Financial Controller, and CEO. This type of relevant club operations and golf management experience brings the invaluable insight needed to recruit the best and most importantly the "right" person for the role. "We know what to ask and look for, since we have actually been involved in the hiring and managing of these specific roles," says Golf Industry Central's Director Mike Orloff.
Reigning U.S. Amateur champion Danny Lee of New Zealand, who's now a budding professional, has parted company with his coach. Steve Jessup, who has coached Lee since 2006, will no longer help guide the development of the gifted 18-year-old.
Four Australian members of the Asian Tour have been informed they will be fined and suspended after playing on the controversial and rival OneAsia Tour at the Volvo China Open. The players - Jason King, Chris Gaunt, Brad Kennedy and Ashley Hall - are understood to be facing the maximum fine of $5,000 and suspension from the Asian Tour for the rest of the season.
According to Sydney's Daily Telegraph newspaper, Australia's three commercial television networks have turned their backs on Tiger Woods, saying he's too expensive.
April 24, 2009. PGA of America member Jeff Puchalski, who spent more than a dozen years directing the Dalat Palace and Ocean Dunes golf clubs, and stood at the nexus of a dozen more development projects during his 13 years in Asia, has formed FORE Golf Asia, a management and consulting firm specializing in matters key to the successful development and operation of a golf facility.
After more than one year in planning, the Asian Golf Industry Federation (AGIF) has been formed. This is widely considered to be a milestone development especially when one considers that, unlike the United States of America or Europe, there is no effective and structured trade organization to represent the multi-billion-dollar golf-trade industry in Asia.
The group behind getting golf into the 2016 Olympic Games, the International Golf Federation, has received backing from some of the game's biggest names. No. 1-ranked Tiger Woods, Padraig Harrington and Colin Montgomerie are among the 18 players who have voiced their support for the effort.
The second event on the controversial new OneAsia Tour, the Pine Valley Beijing Open, has been scratched. The event, slated for May 7-10, had previously been co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour and Japan Tour but for the first time this year had become part of OneAsia Tour's "super series."
Asian Tour members who opt to play in next month's Volvo China Open without an official release will face a fine of $5,000 and a suspension of membership for the remainder of the 2009. That was the verdict of Asian Tour executive chairman Kyi Hla Han following a meeting of his members at this week's Black Mountain Masters in Hua Hin, Thailand.
Robert Allenby said he is unlikely to again play golf in Australia after launching a scathing attack on the local tour, its fans and the media. Allenby's latest attempt to win on the PGA Tour for the first time in eight years faded in last weekend's Arnold Palmer Invitational, but he said returning home for anything other than a family visit held little appeal.
The developer that built Malaysia's Sutera Harbour resort plan to build the first luxury resort in East Timor. Edward Ong, the principal of the Singapore-based Ock Group, will build the soon-to-be-named resort on a coastal setting outside East Timor's capital of Dili. The resort will consist of a 350-room hotel (the nation's first five-star hotel), a business park, and a 27-hole golf complex.
A new par-72 golf course that promises to be the pride of the South Pacific will officially open on June 1, alongside the new InterContinental Resort at Natadola at the western end of Fiji's Coral Coast.
The fifth year of the China Tour will not expand to 10 events as planned, but organizers say that given the global economic downturn just maintaining the schedule at eight tournaments should be considered a success.
On March 12 from Singapore, Asian Tour chief Kyi Hla Han severed ties with the "super series" of Asia-Pacific golf tournaments, accusing organizers of being "unprofessional and unethical."
Schmidt-Curley Design has announced that Clearwater Bay Golf Club in Lingshui, China, its first golf course on Hainan Island, will open at the end of March.
The tropical island paradise of Bali, known worldwide for its exquisite dancers and world-class surf, is set to make waves of another sort when the Tournament 18 at New Kuta Golf & Ocean View in Dreamland Beach welcomes the best players from two separate tours.
The Asia Pacific Golf Confederation (APGC), the Masters Tournament, and the R&A have announced the creation of the Asian Amateur Championship. The tournament is a move by the partnership to promote golf in the Asia-Pacific region.
Oh Su-hyun made history this week by becoming the youngest golfer ever to play in the Women's Australian Open. The 12-year-old from South Korea, who now lives in Australia, earned her spot in the event by winning the qualifying tournament Monday at Kingswood Golf Club in Melbourne.
by Dave Andrews
LPGA Tour player Anna Rawson finds herself in damage control mode this week after making some controversial comments about lesbianism in women's professional golf. The Australian native has caused a big stir in her home country where she made her remarks.
LPGA Tour player Anna Rawson finds herself in damage control mode this week after making some controversial comments about lesbianism in women's professional golf. The Australian native has caused a big stir in her home country where she made her remarks.
On Tuesday, the Japan Golf Tour pulled out of this year's controversial PGA of Australia-led "super series" of Asia-Pacific tournaments, saying there were too many unresolved issues.
The PGA of Australia and Network Ten has announced that domestic and international golf will be broadcast into millions of homes across Australia over the next five years. The agreement will combine marquee golf tournaments from Australia, Asia and the U.S. on a single network.
The Asian Tour has condemned organizers of a rival continental golf series and will seek clarification on the involvement of Chinese events it sanctions. The Asian Tour released a statement Sunday saying it "strongly condemns" moves to set up the six-event series in 2009 - three in China, two in Australia and one in South Korea - with plans to expand further in 2010.
Schmidt-Curley Design is opening a second office in China in Kunming. The Arizona-based golf course architecture firm, which designed 10 of the 12 courses at China's Mission Hills Golf Club, the world's largest golf facility, opened its first Asian-based headquarters in Haikou on Hainan Island in November 2007.
Mission Hills Golf Club in Shenzhen, China, will host Asia's top amateur tournament, the Asia-Pacific Open Amateur Championship, January 13-16. The event will be held on the Jack Nicklaus-designed World Cup Course at the resort that features a dozen regulation-length layouts.
There has been a lot of talk about a golf revolution in ancient India. Visitors to the nation have come away with reports of mega-golf projects sprouting up all over the sub-continent, a situation that augurs well for the growth of the game in India.
Over 270 delegates representing 27 nations attended the 2008 Asia Pacific Golf Development Summit at the world's largest golf complex - Mission Hills China - in early December. The high-level conference involved more than 60 speakers and panelists from virtually every area of the golf industry.
China has become one of the most expensive places in the world to play golf, surpassing even the Middle East, according to a report by KPMG Golf Advisory Practice.
The costs to develop an 18-hole golf course in Europe, the Middle East and Africa has increased by more than 20 percent in the past three to five years, KPMG Golf Advisory Practice's latest Golf Course Development Cost Survey revealed.
by Mike Orloff
The PGA of Australia announced that the upcoming 2008 Cadbury Schweppes Australian PGA Championship, being played at the Hyatt Regency Coolum on Queensland's Sunshine Coast from 4-7 December, will be a "carbon-neutral" event.
The PGA of Australia announced that the upcoming 2008 Cadbury Schweppes Australian PGA Championship, being played at the Hyatt Regency Coolum on Queensland's Sunshine Coast from 4-7 December, will be a "carbon-neutral" event.
Amata Spring Country Club in Chonburi, Thailand, will be showcased during the Royal Trophy 2009, January 9-11. The course was the creation of Schmidt-Curley Design, Inc.
Architect Rick Jacobson has signed on to design his third golf course on the Chinese mainland north of Hong Kong. The Si Hui Golf Club will be a 27-hole destination course located in the Guangdong province near the city of Guangzhou (pop. 11 million), better known to the western world as Canton.
Dr. David Chu, chairman of Mission Hills Group, has been ranked No. 9 on Golf Inc.'s list of the "Most Powerful People in Golf."
by Rob Jenkins
As a lover of great golf courses, I now have a few notches on my belt having seen some of the most beautiful and famous courses around the world. There are the old greats in Scotland, and the mind-blowing courses in America. But there will soon be another great golfing destination, New Zealand.
As a lover of great golf courses, I now have a few notches on my belt having seen some of the most beautiful and famous courses around the world. There are the old greats in Scotland, and the mind-blowing courses in America. But there will soon be another great golfing destination, New Zealand.
Nine leading golf bodies have joined forces with KPMG's specialist Golf Advisory Practice to publish a report that is set to reveal the economic value of the golf business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
PGA Tour player Adam Scott has announced the launch of his charitable organization, the Adam Scott Foundation Asia. The organization will support and offer opportunities to young people in Asia. Based in Singapore, it will be an extension of his Australian Foundation founded in 2005.
The championship course at the Karnataka Golf Association in Bangalore, India, is due to reopen in November after a two-year renovation. The original Peter Thomson course, redesigned by architect Howard Swan and his Swan Golf Designs firm, is being rebuilt to contemporary standards.
by Nancy Berkley
Responding to wide-spread criticism, LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens, retracted the policy requiring Tour players to effectively communicate in English.
Responding to wide-spread criticism, LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens, retracted the policy requiring Tour players to effectively communicate in English.
Though a slumping economy has stalled construction in the U.S., golf development is flourishing in many parts of the world, in destinations as diverse as Dubai, Moscow, China and the Dominican Republic.
by Nancy Berkley
The August 20th announcement by the LPGA Tour's deputy commissioner Libba Galloway that the LPGA will be requiring better English-speaking skills from its players was a badly-managed communication. This has not been a good year for women's golf: the death of Golf for Women magazine, the stalled career of Michelle Wie, the retirement of Annika, and now this.
The August 20th announcement by the LPGA Tour's deputy commissioner Libba Galloway that the LPGA will be requiring better English-speaking skills from its players was a badly-managed communication. This has not been a good year for women's golf: the death of Golf for Women magazine, the stalled career of Michelle Wie, the retirement of Annika, and now this.
The ASEAN Golf Federation (AGF) is up and running and well on its way to launching the golf industry in the region on a path towards growth and progress. The charter for the new body, which promises to become a major powerhouse on the golf landscape of Asia, was announced at the AGF's 1st Annual General Meeting in Singapore in conjunction with the PUTRA Cup tournament, an annual championship started 47 years ago by the first Malaysian Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra.
The highly-regarded Barnbougle Dunes complex in Tasmania's northeast end has begun work on a long-awaited second course, to be known as Barnbougle Lost Farm. Almost $12 million is expected to be invested in the facility over the next two years. The project involves a new layout designed by golf course architect Bill Coore, an eco lodge with up to 80 rooms, a new clubhouse and a restaurant.
The PGA of Australia, the most powerful golf organization in the South Pacific, has entered into a special arrangement with Asian Golf Monthly to promote the game of golf in their respective markets. The arrangement is hoped to expose golf developments in Asia to the Australian market and bring current news developments from Australia to Asia.
One of the most significant events on Australia's golf calendar has been announced for the Gold Coast later this year. The inaugural $100,000 Greater Building Society's Australian Masters Invitational will be held at Emerald Lakes Golf Club November 5-8 and will feature high-profile Australian players Ian Baker-Finch, Graham Marsh, Rodger Davis and Bob Shearer.
by Bruce Babbitt
There's much to do in Melbourne besides golf. There is the Melbourne Cricket Grounds where, as part of a tour, one is allowed to stand on the hallowed grass - just not for too long. The Museum of Cricket is like a more compact version of baseball's Cooperstown with art, tapestries, cricket bats and memorabilia dating back to the 1830s when it was founded by four Aussies who contributed about 10 pounds Sterling to buy the material on display.
by Bruce Babbitt
Melbourne was the first capital of Australia and has been traditionally considered more "British" and refined than the New South Wales' capital of Sydney. The difference may be whether or not the region was settled by convicts, as was much of Australia.
by Bruce Babbitt
The flight, which included going from Seattle to San Francisco to hook up with Qantas, to Sydney and thence to Adelaide, is 18 hours. The SFO-Sydney leg is not as bad as I feared, even in economy as I had an empty middle seat. The other seat on my row was occupied by a young lady from Seattle who was off to Notre Dame University in Perth. Since her mother is Australian, the cost, including two trips a year to and from Seattle, is less than her UW tuition.
by Allen Schauffler
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen of the I.O.C.,
Wake up and smell the Hybrids, folks, it is time to play golf. Time to put this sport back on the Olympic list, to tee it up with the trumpets blaring and the flags flying and the medals-podium looming and nationalism bleeding and braying all over the course. The Olympic credo, "Citius, Altius, Fortius" should be cheerfully expanded to "Citius, Altius, Fortius, Birdius," or loosely translated: "higher, faster, stronger and who has the balls to go for the 18th green in two with the world watching and a gold medal in the balance?"
Five-time British Open champion Peter Thomson marveled at the burgeoning world-wide popularity of golf on the second day of the inaugural GolfEx Dubai, but also lamented the decline of the Australian tour. The 75-year-old is considered the greatest Australian golfer of all time thanks to the championships he won in the 1950s and '60s, but fears for the future of major tournaments in his homeland.
Steve Williams, Tiger Woods' caddie, is happy his loop isn't attending the PGA Tour's season-opening Mercedes Championships in Maui this week. A race car driver when not toting the golf bag for the world's No. 1-ranked player, won the New Zealand Super Saloon Championship this week.
In mid-November, Australian authorities unveiled plans to open the world's longest "golf course" alongside a desert highway. The project involves converting the Outback's Nullarbor Plain into an 868-mile golf course. Local councils along the Nullarbor have approved construction of the project, hoping it will induce tourists to slow down and appreciate what is generally regarded as one of the most desolate environments in Australia.
by Allen Schauffler
Between the first tee and the 18th green at The Grange Golf Club, there is a simple, weathered plaque set into a chunk of rock. It reads:
"This tee and plaque is a tribute in memory of the late W. Bill Coates
Life member 1979-85
For his contribution towards the beautification of this golf course
Erected 18-10-1986"