GOLF : Poellot Has Inside on Japanese Expansion
The recent purchase of the Pebble Beach golf courses and other Monterey Peninsula properties, for between $800 million and $1 billion, is the latest in a string of acquisitions of California golfing facilities by Japanese interests.
It comes as no surprise to J. Michael Poellot.
A golf course architect who has been designing and building courses in Japan for 20 years, Poellot is in a unique position to reflect on what led to the Japanese influx in California golf.
The acquisitions are considerable. The Monterey purchase includes the Spyglass Hill, Spanish Bay and Del Monte courses as well as the famed Pebble Beach Golf Links and the 17-Mile Drive. That follows purchases of Riviera, the crown jewel of Southern California courses; La Costa, one of the world’s premier resort courses; Valencia, a renowned public course that was turned private; Sierra La Verne, a refreshing San Gabriel Valley facility that also became private, and perhaps 15 others during the past five years.
Poellot has seen firsthand the growth of the sport in Japan, watching it become a national passion that has prompted the wealthy to expand their golfing horizons to the United States.
“To better understand the reasons behind the Japanese influx here, you need to know more about what it is like over there,” says Poellot, who is from Saratoga, Calif.
“For one thing, to build a course in Japan, where what little available land is mountainous and ill-suited for anything else, the costs range upward of $50 million, to as high as $250 million, just for course construction. That does not include the clubhouse. Expenses are 10 times what they are here.
“Courses in Japan are 99% private, and memberships cost from $500,000 to $2.5 million. A round of golf on a public course, if you can get a starting time, is $200 to $300. Driving ranges are as busy as a municipal course in Los Angeles is on a weekend.
“So, what Californians perceive to be outlandish prices paid by Japanese to obtain courses here are considered bargains in Japan. Riviera, for instance, went for a little more than $108 million, cheap in Japan.”
The point was emphasized in a recent Golf magazine article in which a member of Augusta National, home of the Masters, was quoted as telling a Japanese investor that “you couldn’t buy Augusta National for $500 million,” to which the would-be purchaser said the price was acceptable. However, like the reported $300-million bid for the Bel-Air Country Club, it was rejected.
Another consideration, says Poellot, is ego.
“The passion for golf over there is so intense it is hard to explain, and there can be no higher status symbol for a business executive than to have a portrait--not of his family or the founding father of the business--but of Riviera Country Club hanging over his desk. Wealthy Europeans may lean toward Rembrandts or Van Goghs. The Japanese lean toward prestige golf courses.
“And, the bottom line is that they have so much money to spend buying golf courses that they are like kids in a candy store with a fistful of dollars.”
Poellot, a graduate of the Robert Trent Jones Jr. school of golf architecture, has returned home to design courses in this country. One, approaching the production stage, will be located in Simi Valley.
“In the past decade or so, American golf architecture has been dominated by a handful of architects--(Pete) Dye, (Jack) Nicklaus, (George and Tom) Fazio, the Joneses and a few others--and unfortunately they have ended up competing with one another to create the ultimate expression of egos, such as sand traps that look like mermaids or the state of Texas, thousands of railroad ties, trademarks that have drawn away from the traditional look of a golf course.
“We hope to more meet the demands of the existing golf population, the vast majority of whom are not talented enough for the monster, or tricked-up, courses being built by the cult designers.”
What Poellot has in mind, perhaps, is something that will eventually be purchased by the Japanese for their high handicap golfers.
Golf Notes
Tijeras Creek, a Ted Robinson-designed public course, opens Monday in Rancho Santa Marguerita. . . . Frank Miller of Los Angeles, Jerry James of Orange and Mike Gorton of Santa Barbara are among 38 finalists who will compete in the Chrysler National Long Driving championship Sunday at Boca Raton, Fla. Miller qualified with a 346-yard drive that won the district finals at Albuquerque, N.M., and James won at Tumwater, Wash., with a 348-yard drive. Gorton was exempt from qualifying because he was 1987 champion.
Sectional qualifying for the U.S. Senior Men’s championships will be Monday at Arrowhead CC in San Bernardino. The tournament is Oct. 15-20 at Desert Forest GC in Carefree, Ariz. . . . The Steve Van Horn memorial tournament will be played Wednesday at the Costa Mesa public course. . . . Lou Salem and Bill O’Connor defeated Steve Henry and Chris Carlson, 3 and 2, to win Riviera’s better ball match play championship. Andrew Bullians-George Dergiman defeated Brad Stallard-Gerald Isenberg, 5 and 3, to win the net flight. . . . The $350,000 PGA Club Professional championship will be played Oct. 4-7 at the PGA West, La Quinta Hotel and Mission Hills courses. The winner will receive $30,000 and an exemption in the 1991 PGA and World Series of Golf.
Jack Nicklaus has been hired to help prepare Pebble Beach for the 1992 U.S. Open. His first step will be to face the drought problem that has plagued the Monterey Peninsula as well as the infestation of kikuyu grass. . . . Five Southern Californians are among 93 apprentice professionals who have been awarded golf school scholarships by the Taylor Made Golf Co. They are Jeffrey Crawford, La Quinta Hotel; Lynda Jensen, Rancho Las Palmas; Matt Kayson, Santa Barbara Community; Andrew Ogino, Los Verdes, and Douglas Wicks, Yorba Linda.
The 13th hole at Bakersfield CC, which plays to about 210 yards, has been named one of the 10 toughest holes on the Ben Hogan Tour. . . . Producer Ken Horton shot a net 66 to win the Hollywood Hackers mid-year tournament at River Ridge GC in Oxnard.
The deadline for applying for a PGA Tour qualifying tournament is Friday, with the first stage qualifier Oct. 9-12 at Fort Ord GC and the second stage Nov. 6-9 at Rio Bravo Resort course in Bakersfield. Survivors will play off Nov. 28-Dec. 3 at La Quinta on the PGA West’s Nicklaus resort course and the La Quinta Hotel’s Dunes course. The low 45 will join the PGA Tour with the next 70 becoming members of the Ben Hogan Tour.
