Clearly, we have come a long way in recovering from what definitely didn’t look like it would be too promising of a 10-year period back in 2010.
The ambitious plan for Bluejack National described in February’s cover story (“Major Aspirations”) is just one of many such projects that promise to come on stream in the club and resort industry in the last part of this decade. Our news section touches on some others (see “$14 Billion Lifestyle Resort Planned for Western North Carolina,” and “Mike Keiser Sets Sights on Oregon Coastal Strip”) that are equally impressive in their scope and vision—and typical of announcements that our daily e-newsletter and online news postings have been including on a pretty regular basis for some time now.
Clearly, we have come a long way in recovering from what definitely didn’t look like it would be too promising of a 10-year period back in 2010.
What’s really been interesting for me in talking to the people behind these projects (and we will have more in-depth features about other ones that are in development as 2016 unfolds) is how many of them readily admit that their approach to creating appealing club and resort properties is now quite different than it would have been five or 10 years ago, because of the wake-up call that the recession sent to everyone. It took that period of jarring reality to really hammer home an understanding of all that being family-friendly and providing real membership value truly mean.
Just as interestingly, the shift in how developers and investors now “get it” in this way has spurred some top talent in the industry to make surprising career moves that they themselves never anticipated.
At Bluejack National, Director of Agronomy Eric Bauer left what he describes as a “very stable job” he’d held at a respected club for 14 years to help bring the new course online. Sure, the opportunity to help Tiger Woods design his first U.S. course was attractive—but Bauer had already built three other courses in his career, so that alone might not have enough of a challenge, he says, without the assurance that this would truly be a new type of golf course that was better-suited for the times, and the future.
“I wouldn’t want to have been involved with any place that would have been too stuffy or exclusive,” says Bauer, who now has a strong social-media following among fellow superintendents who have developed great interest in his project. “What was really attractive was that this was such a modern approach to course development, and a chance to work with people who are serious about making golf more fun and enjoyable and faster-paced.”
Later this year, we’ll report on a new private club that had many top managers who were very comfortable in their positions vying to become its General Manager, also because of the owners’ refreshing approach to management and operations (in particular, no member committees).
Casey Paulson, co-founder of the company developing Bluejack National, says that he and his partners have plans to “do eight or 10 more” of the same type of projects in the “next 10 to 12 years.” And if the industry resurgence that he and others have jump-started is sustained for that long, many more careers may be reinvented, too.
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