“The return of golf to the Olympic Games will play a very important role in the growth of golf in the world and also in Spain”. This is the opinion of Jack Nicklaus, considered the best golf player in history and currently one of the world’s leading golf course designers, in an interview granted to the official magazine of La Moraleja Golf Club. Nicklaus has designed the four courses at the Madrid club.
“Golf,” he continues, “should grow more in Europe than in the United States, because that is a more mature market, which already has some 16,000 golf courses, almost 10,000 more than Europe has.”
New golf markets
China, Russia, and parts of the Middle East are becoming new and thriving opportunities for the golf industry, along with Southern Europe and North Africa, where, in Nicklaus’ opinion, golf still has many possibilities: “I believe that in the next few years we will see a large number of good Chinese players emerge and that the Chinese government will realize the jobs that this sport provides. Just look at the United States: golf contributes about $70 billion to the economy and two million jobs. So, considering that China’s population is four times that of the United States, the potential is immense. […] As for other countries, Russia intends to develop a good number of golf courses and, as a design company, we are very active there. In addition, I believe that countries with good climate, such as Spain, Portugal or Morocco, will continue to look towards golf as a development factor and an attraction for tourism. In my opinion, we will also continue to see golf grow in some areas of the Middle East,” he concludes.
Jack Nicklaus -according to the interview published in the magazine Golf La Moraleja– believes that golf, despite the economic crisis in Western countries, is in good health. “I see a lot of positive indicators,” he says. Indicators such as the number of junior players (3 million in the United States, the highest figure of the decade) or the record amounts obtained from the sale of the rights to some professional championships. Even so,” he continues, “we know that we have to invent new experiences and alternatives. golf for the sport to grow. Create, perhaps, courses that can be played in 30, 60 or 90 minutes, that is, in the time available to the user. We just need a product to offer. Our sport is trying to be innovative, to come up with ideas and new reasons for people to leave the couch and go out and play golf.”
About golf course design
Nicklaus is currently one of the most valued golf course designers and his company, Nicklaus Design, has created golf courses all over the world and has offices in 14 countries. But he has a very special relationship with Golf La Moraleja: “Course 1 was my first design in Europe. We opened that course in 1976 and I’m still very proud of it,” he says.
And now he is also proud of Course 3 at the same club: “It offers very good, solid golf; the layout has great variety and is aesthetically very beautiful. It’s a course that plays very differently depending on the wind conditions. No one will get bored playing this course.
It is also a course built to facilitate environmentally friendly maintenance: “In today’s age, there should be no excuse for not properly building a golf course that can be easily and properly maintained, because we have all the knowledge and technology that we didn’t have 30 or 40 years ago”.
The last edition of the Ryder Cup, last September, was held precisely on one of its most praised layouts, the PGA at Gleneagles. “I don’t think the course had anything to do with the outcome of the competition,” he says, “the Europeans simply played better. They got around 110 birdies to the Americans’ 78.” But if he has to choose one of his courses, Jack Nicklaus sticks with Muirfield Village, because it is his contribution “to the place where I was born and grew up as a person and as a golfer.”
Photo taken by Guillermo Navarro
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