Course Design Work Keeps Norman Busy

By Alan Tays
Palm Beach Post

PARKLAND, Fla. -- They aren't building golf courses like they used to.

Specifically, they aren't building as many golf courses as they used to. According to the Jupiter-based National Golf Foundation, the number of golf course openings has declined in each of the past two years after reaching a 15-year peak in 2000.

That's an unsettling statistic for golf course developers, but it wasn't on the mind of Greg Norman last week as he surveyed his under-construction Parkland Golf & Country Club in northwest Broward County.

"I can tell you it's been the opposite for us," Norman said. "We've been fortunate. My design business and development business is just starting to take the upswing."

The NGF attributes the drop-off in construction to a slowdown in development of public courses. But Parkland will be a private course, development of which, the NGF says, has remained steady.

In Palm Beach County, private courses are a booming business, as evidenced by recent developments such as Mirasol, The Bear's Club, Frenchmen's Reserve and Old Palm.

Golf courses -- especially those designed by "name" player/architects such as Norman, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer, are important selling points for gated communities.

Parkland Golf & Country Club will include about 700 single-family homes ($500,000 to upward of $3 million) and 120 condominiums ($350,000-$600,000).

As Norman, 48, continues to scale back his tournament appearances (he'll make his third start on the PGA Tour on Thursday in the Buick Classic in Harrison, N.Y.), business occupies an increasing percentage of his time.

His Jupiter-based Great White Shark Enterprises is involved in golf course design, residential development, turf growing, sportswear, wines, e-commerce, event management, yachts and a restaurant.

Norman said his golf course community development company, Medallist Developments, has benefited from the nature of the economy, with many investors preferring real estate to stocks.

"Everybody was taking money out of the equity markets and buying real estate or remortgaging their home or buying a second home," Norman said. "We've noticed of late that second homes used to be a luxury; now they're a necessity.

"Fortunately for us, our development business has caught on right at the cusp of the residential boom of the last couple of years."

Working Close To Home

Parkland, projected to open in December, is Norman's first course for WCI on Florida's east coast (his Tiburon course in Naples also was done for WCI) and his first in Broward County. He again will team with WCI for his first Palm Beach County course, a future project that for now is known only as Parcel 19, an 837-acre site on both sides of Indiantown Road west of Florida's Turnpike.

The Parcel 19 proposal, still awaiting review by the Jupiter Town Council, calls for 780 residences, a 230-room resort hotel and 36 holes of residential and resort golf.

"It's a great piece of land. I haven't got the start date exactly yet, but I'm looking forward to it because it's right in my back yard," said Norman, who lives on Jupiter Island. "Right in my back yard where I can drive there is a little bit different than getting in the chopper or flying the plane somewhere.

"That's where the whole development of urban sprawl is going. In 10 years time it'll be right in the middle of it. It's the time to get moving on it."

But first, Parkland. Striding through the shaped dirt with a posse that included Vice President Jason McCoy, senior design associate Chris Campbell and design associate Matt Dusenbery of Greg Norman Golf Course Design, WCI Director of East Coast Golf Construction Wayne Lovett and Parkland Director of Golf Dave Salerno, Norman reshaped a green here, redirected a fairway there.

"Considering what we originally saw when it was in its virgin state to where we are now, I think we're seeing a lot of character coming into this golf course," Norman said. "We're delivering what the developers want. They want a user-friendly, residential development (course) -- a little bit more expanse in the fairways, a little more character around the greens. That's what we're doing."

And when they're done, they'll move on to the next project. No matter what the numbers say, there is work to be had in the golf course developing business.