Author: Head Nut

Another Kind of Bifurcation

Arnold Palmer-designed Florida public course converting to private: ‘Golf is as healthy as it’s ever been’

Serroka said that not everyone in Lakewood Ranch has the means to join the country club as initiation fees are tens of thousands of dollars, in addition to monthly dues. Now, he won’t be able to golf on the course he’s used for more than two decades and will see out his windows every morning, unless he joins the country club, which currently has a long waitlist.

Derek Gilliam, Sarasota Herald-Tribune

A Virginia-based company now controls four golf courses in Lakewood Ranch near Sarasota, Florida, including a public course which will shift to operating as a private club starting next week.

Heritage Golf Group announced the acquisition of the three private Lakewood Ranch courses — Cypress Links, Kings Dunes and Royal Lakes — that form Lakewood Ranch Golf and Country Club in a news release, but only sent emails to the annual passholders at the public course, Legacy Golf Club, offering refunds for members who had annual passes. The course was designed by Arnold Palmer and opened for play in 1997.

“Effective immediately, we have made the decision to reposition Legacy Golf Club to a fully private club,” the email provided to the Herald-Tribune said. “With this in mind, we plan on closing the club on Monday, March 18, to begin a comprehensive renovation to the Arnold Palmer Signature Golf Course.”

The transition of Legacy Golf Club to a country club model sparked some concerns among longtime residents of one of the fastest-selling master-planned communities in the country being over Lakewood Ranch without a public golf course.

Lakewood Ranch now has more than 66,000 residents living in the 33,000-acre development.

Heritage said in the email to Legacy passholders the “multi-million project will include rebuilding greens, tee boxes, fairways, bunkers and cart paths.

“We expect this restoration to be completed and the course to reopen in the fourth quarter of this year.”

Heritage also offered refunds to the annual members impacted by the course becoming private.

A representative of Heritage Golf Group was not available to comment by publication time.

“Lakewood Ranch Golf and Country Club is the crown jewel of the Lakewood Ranch community, and we are proud to become its new steward,” Mark Burnett, Heritage Golf Group CEO, said in a news release. “We are honored that SMR selected Heritage Golf Group to continue building on its noteworthy tradition and impeccable nationwide reputation as the premier country club and lifestyle community. The continued growth of our network of clubs will only further enhance the member and guest experience as well as offer additional career growth for our employees.”

Kenneth Serroka retired to Lakewood Ranch in 2001, purchasing a home on the Legacy golf course overlooking the 15th hole for $260,000, a fraction of what properties now go for in the area.

Serroka said that not everyone in Lakewood Ranch has the means to join the country club as initiation fees are tens of thousands of dollars, in addition to monthly dues.

Now, he won’t be able to golf on the course he’s used for more than two decades and will see out his windows every morning, unless he joins the country club, which currently has a long waitlist.

The 82-year-old has made friends that he would see on the course on a nearly daily basis in spontaneous encounters.

Serroka said he’s worried about Lakewood Ranch becoming a community of haves and have-nots as property values soar in the area. He said many people bought into Lakewood Ranch before home values increased.

Also, the development has been popular for people looking for a second home. He said few people maintaining two residences can afford the exorbitant cost it takes to join a country club.

“I feel like I’m losing the friends I made over the past 20 years,” he said. “I loved it there.”

Steve Ekovich, executive managing director and partner at Leisure Investment Properties Group, would not confirm information on the Legacy Golf Club. However, he did facilitate the transaction involving the private golf courses.

A purchase price for the three courses has not been disclosed and a deed has not yet been recorded for any of the sales as of Thursday afternoon.

However, Ekovich said that interest in the three private courses was high, resulting in a half-dozen offers to purchase the course.

Ekovich said there are plans to build another course somewhere in Lakewood Ranch given the demand for golf in the community.

“The interest we had was absolutely phenomenal,” he said.

The veteran commercial broker remembers when about 10 years ago magazine and newspaper articles proclaimed the decline in popularity of golf across the United States. Several accounts went as far as to say that golf was dead with new residential communities focusing on outdoor trails and healthy living as selling points.

However, Ekovich said, the COVID-19 pandemic helped golf rebound in popularity given the sport lends itself to open-air, socially distanced activity. He said from 2008 to about 2013 golf course values dropped by half.

“It’s just the opposite now,” he said. “Golf is as healthy as it’s ever been.”

*****

Golf is as healthy as it’s ever been?? For whom? The owners? The wealthy? Certainly not 82-year-old Kenneth Serroka.

The Head Nut

#0001

Shut Up, Rory

“It’s the biggest tournament outside of major championship and you don’t have all the best players in the world here, that’s a shame,” said McIlroy.

“If the fans are upset, then look at the guys that left,” said Scottie Scheffler.

Rory McIlroy has gone from being one of the most popular players in the game to one of the most divisive. His loyalty is not to the future of the game, but rather to Europe and to his Ryder Cup pals. With his recent comments he has made that eminently clear.

The Head Nut

#0001

Exclusive: PGA Tour players nearing secret meeting with Saudi fund boss

Eamon Lynch, Golfweek

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – A group of PGA Tour players are nearing a meeting with the head of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund as efforts continue to broker a deal between the Tour and the controversial sovereign wealth fund that has been disrupting men’s professional golf.

Six sources told Golfweek that the Tour’s player-directors are being strongly encouraged to meet Yasir Al-Rumayyan and that it could happen within days. Two sources said a meeting is tentatively scheduled for Monday at a private residence in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. The Players Championship concludes on Sunday at nearby TPC Sawgrass. Details of the meeting are being closely guarded and several insiders caution that it’s still unclear if the powerful Saudi investment chief will commit to attending or cancel at the last minute.

Five of the six player-directors on the Tour’s Policy Board — all of whom now also serve on the board of the new for-profit entity, PGA Tour Enterprises — are in the field at the Players: Patrick Cantlay, Jordan Spieth, Adam Scott, Peter Malnati and Webb Simpson. Only Tiger Woods is not competing. Joe Ogilvie, a retired veteran who was added to both boards last week as a liaison to player-directors, plans to arrive in Ponte Vedra Beach Sunday in advance of an Enterprises board meeting scheduled for Tuesday at Tour headquarters.

A meeting between Al-Rumayyan and the players would be intended as an informal ice-breaker in a bid to advance negotiations between the Tour and the PIF, talks which have been largely stalled since the June 6 announcement of a Framework Agreement between the parties. A faction of player-directors remains angered about the secretive process leading to that agreement and are known to be skeptical of a deal with the Saudis, who have poured billions of dollars into LIV Golf.

On Tuesday, Tour commissioner Jay Monahan confirmed that he met recently with Al-Rumayyan in Saudi Arabia and was accompanied by representatives of Strategic Sports Group. In January, SSG invested $1.5 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises, the vehicle through which the future of the sport will be shaped. “Our negotiations are accelerating as we spend time together,” Monahan said.

Under the terms of the Framework Agreement, the PIF could also become a minority investor in PGA Tour Enterprises, but last month one player-director was noticeably lukewarm when asked if a deal with the PIF was necessary after the SSG infusion.

“I just think it’s something that is almost not even worth talking about right this second given how timely everything would be to try to get it figured out,” Spieth said. “But the idea is that we have a strategic partner that allows the PGA Tour to go forward the way that it’s operating right now without anything else with the option of other investors.”

Those comments led to a public response from Rory McIlroy, who Spieth replaced on the Policy Board in December. McIlroy said reaching a deal with the PIF is in the Tour’s best interests and warned that Spieth’s implicit stiff-arming of the Saudis could complicate negotiations. McIlroy has also suggested that LIV golfers be allowed to return to the PGA Tour without sanction as part of a unity agreement. That’s one of the thorniest issues negotiators will face, and several prominent Tour loyalists immediately rejected McIlroy’s view, including Justin Thomas, Rickie Fowler and world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler.

When Monahan addressed the media on Tuesday at TPC Sawgrass, he repeatedly declined to offer specifics on the state of negotiations or on any areas of contention, but reiterated his belief that a deal with the PIF is the best outcome for his organization. Asked what the game will look like if a deal with the Saudis is not concluded, Monahan said, “I guess I’ll answer that question if a deal isn’t concluded.”

“However we end up, I think that we’re not going to be able to satisfy everyone, and that goes for both sides,” he added. “But what we’re trying to do is to get to the best possible outcome again for the Tour and for the game, and I do think that that’s achievable.”

*****

In other words, a majority of the player directors are strongly against the slime ball and his Public Investment Fund getting anywhere near the PGA Tour. Fireworks to begin right after the Players Championship.

The Head Nut

#0001

LIV Golf’s controversial growth raises questions over Saudi ‘sportswashing’

Compiled from multiple news sources by Joseph Michael

For the past three years, LIV Golf has taken the world of professional golf by storm. The newly formed professional league has already lured away superstars like Phil Mickelson and Bubba Watson with unmatchable salaries and a whole new attitude – turning golf tournaments into open-air parties. But not everyone is on board. Tiger Woods, who reportedly turned down $800 million to join LIV golf, and 24-time PGA Winner Rory McIlroy have been among LIV golf’s most vocal critics.

“What we’re doing here is incredibly additive to the sport,” said Monica Fee, Global Head of Partnerships at LIV Golf. “When you look outside and you see 20-somethings coming out to experience golf for the very first time, 30% of our fans have never come out to a golf event before. And they’re coming out to experience it through LIV. That’s good for the sport of golf.”

The country’s Public Investment Fund, or PIF, has reportedly poured more than $2 billion into LIV Golf, and billions more into other sports ventures as part of its plan to diversify the country’s economy beyond oil. The PIF, which also owns a minority stake in Disney, the parent company of ABC News and Hulu, has been rapidly increasing its investments into sports and entertainment businesses.

According to Global SWF, an organization that tracks sovereign wealth funds, the fund has invested $13.5 billion into sports alone, so all the money in the fund does not belong to the LIV Golf League since its inception. The fund’s expansion has been called out by human rights groups and Congressional leaders who point to the Saudi government’s human rights violations, its ties to the 9/11 attacks and the murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a vocal critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud.

Although the Saudi government has repeatedly denied allegations of its involvement in the 9/11 attacks, it has faced pushback from families of the victims through an ongoing class action lawsuit. When LIV Golf was first announced in 2021, Terry Strada, chair of 9/11 Families United, said she was outraged as PGA stars started to join the new league. “I wrote the first letter that went to Phil [Mickelson] and a few of the other players, and called them traitors,” she told “Impact.”

Former PGA pro Bubba Watson signed a multi-year contract worth more than $566 million with LIV Golf in 2022, telling “Impact” he has no regrets about joining the organization. “I’m doing something that’s fun, energetic, and new. And if you’re going to grow the game of golf, this is the way, I believe, to do that,” Watson told “Impact”. “And so for me, it’s all about me and my family.”

But in recent months, the investment group Strategic Sports Group, or SSG, announced it would invest upwards of $3 billion and more if needed into the PGA tour, creating a new for profit venture “PGA tour enterprises.” The investment could force PIF to be a minority investor in the PGA, according to experts.

Although the future of the PGA Tour and LIV Golf partnership is still uncertain, Saudi influence in the sports world continues to grow as it invests in profitable clubs, leagues and other sports groups throughout the world. Leaving LIV to turn things around quickly.

Ganji cautioned against letting these investments distract from the Kingdom’s human rights record. “Sportswashing is such an interesting word…the washing part at the end of it is what’s key. It implies that there was something stained, something dirty, fundamentally something problematic and wrong,” he said. “But here’s the thing: When you do something wrong as a political regime, you can’t just get rid of the stain. It’s a forever fact.”

*****

This is not good news…at least not to me. Here’s why:

(Click Image to read about the Tour’s New Leader)

The Head Nut

#0001