Brutal, cutthroat, risky and sad – those are among the words that characterize the current state of Australia’s golf design business, according to Darius Oliver.
“It would be fair to say that making a living from course design in Australia has never been more difficult,” writes the architecture editor of Australian Golf Digest.
Citing data provided by Jeff Blunden of Sandringham, Victoria-based JBAS, Oliver reports that roughly 80 new golf courses opened Down Under during the 1980s, 61 in the 1990s and 49 between 2000 and 2009. He believes that “there may be fewer than 25 new courses built this decade.”
And with the pipeline running ever drier, the nation’s increasingly pessimistic architects don’t expect a recovery anytime soon. “I can’t see a boom in golf construction like we saw 10 to 15 years ago happening again for a very long time,” said Ben Davey, who, like many of his Australian colleagues, has focused his marketing efforts on China. The grass is still a little greener there.