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There are run-of-the-mill "exclusive" private golf courses. There are extremely small-membership clubs that few people know about and even fewer play.
Then there's a true one-off oddity of 21st-century golf development: the golf property known as gWest, built in 2009 by architect David McLay Kidd but never officially opened, despite being maintained in pristine playing condition for the better part of 20 years. Articles have referred to it as a "ghost course."
gWest sits practically next door to Scotland's famed Gleneagles Hotel, a historic luxury golf resort property roughly 45 miles northwest of Edinburgh and a similar distance northeast of Glasgow. It is owned by Mahdi al-Tajir, a billionaire businessman from the United Arab Emirates who owns, among other concerns, Scotland's Highland Springs bottled water company. It is believed that al-Tajir has elected not to further develop gWest due to factors including the late-2000s global recession, uncertainty around Scotland's 2014 independence referendum and the more recent Brexit movement.
As the BBC reported earlier in September, the 639-acre gWest property is now up for sale at an undisclosed price. It includes the golf course, as many as 170 permitted surrounding residential lots, plus permitting for hotel and spa resort facilities. According to a lengthy article on gWest's history by Bunkered, its visually striking clubhouse building, finished in 2012, is said to be inspired by an English country house by architect Colen Campbell. All of these factors and unusual circumstances add up to one of the most fascinating turn-key golf properties in the world.
Amid golf's recent boom, particularly around private clubs and destination resorts marketed to high net-worth individuals, gWest would seem to be a perfect opportunity for a deep-pocketed and enterprising developer to add to the field of highest-end golf experiences. In contrast to its history as the cradle of the game, full of ancient links and affordable golf experiences, Scotland has seen its fair share of modern private golf development in properties like the private Loch Lomond Golf Club, the luxury Carnegie Club at Skibo Castle resort and the Ardfin estate, which can be rented out in its entirety at the approximate cost of $80,000 per day. A fully-realized gWest would figure to fit in with those other exclusive golf retreats.
Other golf course news and notes
TO SOUTH FLORIDA, WITH LOVE - The latest step in the upscale overhaul of PGA National Resort & Spa is the reinvention of the club's satellite Estates course into Triple Stick Golf Club, a reimagined golf course by Davis Love III's Love Golf Design firm. The name "Triple Stick" is an homage both to Love III and architect Pete Dye, whose work inspired the redesign. Instrumental to that effort is longtime Love associate Scot Sherman, who has extensive experience with Pete Dye designs. [LINK: The Golf Wire]
CT CLUB GOING PUBLIC - Chippanee Golf Club, a 103-year-old facility in Bristol, Connecticut that has operated as a private club, has been purchased by the city for $4.75 million and will transition to municipal control, staving off a plan for residential redevelopment. [LINK: Hartford Business Journal]
TEE TIME TWINS' TROUBLES - Steve and Ted Kim, who for years blockaded fellow Los Angeles golfers from booking rounds directly with courses, face multiple-year federal prison terms for evading taxes on more than $1.3 million gleaned from their tee time brokering scheme. [LINK: CBS News]
STRIKE UP, PIPER! - Myrtle Beach's new 9-hole par-3 course at Legends Resort, which we reported on earlier this summer, has officially opened for play. [LINK: Myrtle Beach Sun News]
GOLF-ADJACENT - Arrays built across several shuttered Japanese golf courses now account for 9 percent of the country's solar energy capacity. [LINK: Yale School of the Environment]
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