Golf Inc - March/April 2009 - (Page 20) average person goes to play golf and recharge his soul, if he can leave and say I played golf today, so I’m ready to go to the office tomorrow. It’s got to recharge the soul. [The golf course] doesn’t have to be tough, and it doesn’t have to be easy. Q With development down in the U.S., it must be difficult for a golf course designer these days. A I reckon 70 percent of the designers are going [to go] out of business. Now, mainly due to the economy, I can guarantee you they’re not going to get jobs in America. They’re going to fold. Now some will do some renovations, but 70 percent are going to go out of business. It’s because they don’t give an overall business plan – it’s “I’m a designer and this is what I’m going to do.” There’s not enough of the overall situation. We as a company are involved in over 20 countries, with 61 golf courses on our books right now. Why? Many architects say to me, “Gary, how can you go to India, China, Morocco, Cypress, Africa and Europe — how can you go all those places, you’re crazy!” Well, I like to work, I like to travel, I like leaving something around in the ground that’s going to give people a lot of pleasure. Q Is it difficult to design courses in countries where little or no golf is currently played by the local populace? A Actually it is a wonderful challenge to go to countries where golf is not a household word. What I like do is get some of young people in schools and say, “Look, we’re designing a course out here,” and what they’ll do is come out and start looking at this, see what we’re doing. Then maybe I’ll hit a shot, and they’ll say, “Hey, let me try that.” Then they hit a few shots and all of a naments, there might have been 20 won by international players. Of course that’ll come back to America, it goes in a cycle, but it came at the right time. These international players are doing well here and around the world, so obviously that got people excited. There’s nothing like having a Tiger Woods. When you’ve got a Tiger Woods, I think of a country like Bulgaria where I’m doing a golf course, or Morocco, or Mexico. If they had a Tiger Woods, you’d have another 30 golf courses! That’s very important to give the exposure that they’ve had all these champions playing around the world, so they’ve had the exposure, and young people are starting, so that got golf going internationally to a great degree. Q What are the keys to growing the game globally, in terms of both new players and player retention? A All these groups, Golf 20/20, World Golf Foundation, etc., are doing a wonderful job worldwide, but I think golf really needs Tiger Woods back quickly. This man is such a dynamic golfer and we need him more than ever. We need him more than the Tour’s ever needed anybody. For future economic circumstances, we’ve got to make sure we put a great emphasis on our youth programs. Winston Churchill, my all-time hero, said the youth of a nation are the custodians of our prosperity. We need a tremendous effort from all these organizations [aimed at] young people. Look at Lorena Ochoa in Mexico. I mean, here’s the best lady golfer in the world, and she’s on her way to becoming maybe the greatest who ever played. She came out of nowhere. We’ve got to start earlier, we’ve got to get golf in schools and we’ve got to give young people incentives to play. That’s the whole sudden, they’re hooked. The easiest way is to get that child started, then they get their parents started. Of course today, one of the good things about it, if you’re in Timbuktu, you can turn the TV on and you can see the Masters or the British Open. Then you invite government officials to come out, and businessmen, and then you invite women and you get them started. Q Why the boom in international golf development in recent years? A First of all, what’s happened in the last two decades, take the majority of Tour events, and I saw it mentioned the other day how many tournaments have been won by international players. If you take 30 tour- 20 Golf Inc. March/April 2009 PHOTO © RYAN FIELD
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