PLATFORM:Golf is being used as a smokescreen to make a fortune in real estate all around the globe, writes Richard Gillis
JOURNALISTS SPEND a lot of their working life waiting in the lobbies of hotels and offices. It's where most of the work gets done. There and Starbucks.
This thought struck me when I was waiting to see George O'Grady, the European Tour's big cheese, in the lobby of the tour's Wentworth HQ recently.
Around me the business of professional golf was going on. Player agents, event promoters, sponsors and TV execs came and went, some looking hassled, others like they'd won the lottery.
Nick Faldo came in, wearing what can only be described as an upmarket shell suit, with matching trainers, waving his car keys around. He hadn't found a space outside and so put his £200,000 Maybach in the chairman's spot.
"He can move it if he wants to, I'm here all day," said our current Ryder Cup captain, handing the keys to the receptionist before heading off with a trademark flick of his fringe.
During my interview with O'Grady, he suggested I should pay close attention to a deal being announced the following day: Turnberry, next year's Open Championship venue, has been sold for £55 million to Leisurecorp, part of the Dubai World investment group, the same people who own the huge Jumeirah Golf Estate and who are staging the Dubai World Championship from 2009, the richest golfing event ever.
This means that next year Leisurecorp will own the venue of the game's biggest event, and its oldest Major championship, quite a coup.
The man in charge of the company is David Spencer, an affable and very well-connected Australian, whose job it is to mix the three most potent elements in today's sports marketplace: oil, real estate and celebrity.
I first met him during the South African Open at the Pearl Valley golf estate outside Cape Town, another of Leisurecorp's recent acquisitions. He was there with Greg Norman and Chris Evert, putting the final touches to a deal that sees Norman's Great White Shark Enterprises build another 18 holes at Pearl Valley to go along with the original Jack Nicklaus layout.
When I interviewed them, Evert showed off her new engagement ring for the first time - Norman had proposed on the way over from Florida on GN1, his private jet - and talked about a new Chris Evert tennis centre, again funded by Leisurecorp.
To emphasise the value of the people in the room, beside them sat a young man with a revolver attached to his chinos.
Their business model was summed up by Spencer's comment to me in South Africa: "We're not a golf company, we're a real estate company."
In short, golf is their way of selling houses and, in Turnberry's case, hotel rooms.
Meanwhile, on Scotland's beautiful Balmedie stretch of coastline, Donald Trump is waging a battle to build his own golf course, which again uses the sport as a smokescreen to make a killing in real estate.
It's ironic that the one man to have eluded Spencer's charm is Tiger Woods, an omission which may have greater significance to European golf.
Tiger's Dubai connections are not with Leisurecorp, but with another multibillion-dollar investment group, EMAAR, owners of the Emirates course, which hosts the Dubai Desert Classic, and pays Tiger a rumoured $3 million appearance money to ensure his involvement every March. And it is EMAAR who beat Leisurecorp to the deal to build and own the first Woods signature course, Al Ruwaya, for which he collected a designer's fee of about $20 million.
There is a subplot here. Tiger has so far been cool on playing the Dubai World Championship next autumn, which carries a potential prize of $20 million. He says the European Tour's minimum qualification requirement - to play 11 Tour events a year - is too much.
There are some who suggest it is Woods' alignment with EMAAR that is behind his reticence to play in Leisurecorp's event, which takes place on a new Greg Norman course.
With Tiger entering the top of the golf real estate market, why would he use his pulling power to plug a rival's work?
Sitting in O'Grady's office lobby the other week, another thought struck me. What else will Dubai's financiers buy?
Oil money is to fund the tour's most prestigious tournament. And the official money list will now be named The Race to Dubai.
Where are O'Grady's international expansion plans heading? What else does the tour have to offer that has not already been sold?
The appearance of Faldo in the lobby planted a thought, one that might prompt the punters among you to lay a small wager. What price would we get for Dubai to host the Ryder Cup, the next time it comes up for "sale", in 2018?
Get your money down. The odds are shortening.
