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Officials: Trail addition sets state as golf desti 05/22/2005

Publication: The Birmingham News
Author: Kevin Scarbinsky and Doug Segrest

Put on your hard hat as you enter the lobby. Don't forget your protective goggles. The Renaissance Ross Bridge Golf Resort and Spa in Hoover isn't finished, but it had better be by Aug. 15.

A corporate event is booked at the hotel that day.

So hammers hammer away and saws buzz through wood to put the finishing touches on a luxury resort hotel/full-service spa/convention center at the heart of a first-class golf course that's ready for play.

The newest addition to the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail is a work in serious progress. It's also a radical departure.

A year from now, if the final details are settled, the Bruno's Memorial Classic will be played there at the first Trail site planned as a resort destination, on the first trail course designed primarily for tournament golf.

It's also the longest trail course at 8,200 yards from the tips and the largest at 325 acres.

Thirteen years after it opened as the largest golf construction project in history, they're still working on the trail.

But is the trail still working?

The 10-site, 432-hole Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail was conceived by David Bronner, chief executive of the Retirement Systems of Alabama, as more than a collection of upscale public golf courses.

Bronner saw the project as a vehicle to bring tourists, businesses and positive publicity to the state. It also was an investment for the state pension fund, which owns the trail.

Bobby Vaughan has worked with Bronner from the beginning. The former president of SunBelt Golf, which runs the trail, is spearheading the Ross Bridge project. He tried to capture the big picture.

``This isn't just about money," Vaughan said. ``This isn't about every last almighty dollar. Yes, it is the Retirement Systems' money, and yes, it does need to show a profit. But it doesn't have to have the return of every last dollar that was ever invented.

``There's an intangible here. Name something else in the history of this state that's had as much positive benefit. There are other things, but you'd have to put this right there at the top of the list.

``And if that's the case, didn't we do what we were supposed to do?"

Golfing destination:

In the past, golfers would drive through Alabama on their way to such established golf vacation destinations as Myrtle Beach and Hilton Head, S.C.

The Robert Trent Jones Trail has given those golfers a reason to stop, stay and play in Alabama.

``It's clearly made Alabama a destination for golf," said Bob Barrett, chief executive of Honours Golf, which manages a number of upscale courses in Alabama and beyond, competing with the trail for business. Barrett worked with Vaughan and Bronner on the trail for the first two years.

``It's amazing, when I travel around the country, how people talk about the trail," Barrett said.

Gene Hallman, executive director of the Bruno's Memorial Classic, was on a flight from Birmingham to Minneapolis in February when he noticed a group of men wearing sunburns and trail golf shirts. They were returning home to Minnesota after playing the trail for a week.

``I hear those stories all the time," Hallman said.

The view is similar from outside Alabama. Golf magazine called the trail "the golfer's equivalent of Disney World."

John Cannon, the current president of SunBelt Golf, said the trail, like many businesses, was affected by the terrorist attacks on New York City. Prior to 9/11, he said, 60 percent of the trail's players came from out of state. By 2004, less than 40 percent came from out of state.

That percentage matters, he said, because the trail charges higher greens fees for out-of-state players and ``we need those guys to pay the bills."

This year, Cannon said, the split is closer to 50-50.

The trail also has seen an increase in the number of rounds played on its courses. From an all-time high of 515,000 in 2000, rounds dropped to 468,000 in 2003. They increased to 484,000 in 2004, and Cannon projected that this year's total will set a trail record with the opening of Ross Bridge and a second course at The Shoals.

The trial continues to expand despite a nationwide saturation of upscale public golf courses. But that won't hurt the trail, Bronner believes.

"There is oversaturation nationally. But there's never been saturation in Alabama," he said.

Barrett suggested that Ross Bridge would take golfers away from the trail's Oxmoor Valley facility. Cannon said, with only one 18-hole course, Ross Bridge won't be able to satisfy the demand, and golfers who stay at the resort may not be able to play there three straight days. They then could travel the couple of miles to Oxmoor Valley.

Professional tournaments have been willing to travel to the trail.

It has hosted the LPGA Tournament of Championships since 1998 and the Nationwide Tour Championship since 1999. With the Bruno's Memorial Classic on the Champions Tour all but certain to move to Ross Bridge next year, the only major professional tour in this country that will not have visited the trail is the PGA Tour.

Playing host to tournaments shown on national TV works as a marketing tool for the trail. "Golfers love to be able to play a place they've seen on television," Cannon said. "It turns into sales."

Economic impact:

The true measure of the trail's impact on Alabama isn't tournaments or rounds played, said Steve Sewell of the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama. Instead, the true measure is perception.

``It has changed Alabama's image worldwide," Sewell said. When a group of economic development officials in Alabama was asked recently to rank the most important Alabama development projects in the 1990s, they put the trail in the top four - along with the Mercedes, Honda and Boeing plants."

Ross Bridge, added Sewell, takes the trail up another notch. ``It provides a true destination where we can host (business) prospects," Sewell. ``This place will be a showcase, perhaps the first five-star (hotel) in the state."

A 2002 Alabama Bureau of Tourism and Travel study, conducted by the Center for Business Development at Auburn University Montgomery, found that the trail has helped non-traditional destinations.

In Autauga County, where the Capitol Hill site is located, 94 percent of visitors made the trip primarily to play golf, spending 1.9 nights in hotels. In Butler County, where the Cambrian Ridge site is located, 100 percent of visitors made the trip primarily to play golf, spending 2.5 nights in hotels.

Since Cambrian Ridge opened, three new restaurants and two hotels have opened near interstate exits in Greenville.

Bates House of Turkey in Greenville has been a popular stop for beach-goers since it opened in 1970. Manager Rebecca Sloane said peak golf seasons bring more customers. "And the way they're dressed, you know they're not driving to the beach."

Another trend, Sloane has noticed, is the influx of Asian customers. ``Before the golf course here, we rarely ever had Asian customers," she said.

Bronner and others believe the trail has boosted economic development in the state in forms beside tourism. It has helped to attract the attention of major corporations looking for sites, he said.

Bronner remembers when Hyundai Chairman Chung Mong-Koo flew to Montgomery for the groundbreaking of the South Korean automaker's $1.1 billion plant. The two chatted about golf, which led to a tee time on the Capitol Hill facility's most demanding course, The Judge.

"Mung knew The Judge better than I did because The Judge was on Microsoft's computer golf game last year," Bronner said.
He added, "Companies aren't coming to Alabama to save (us). They want to make a profit. And they want a good quality of life."

Turning a profit:

While Bronner and others say the trail's benefits extend far beyond making some profit for the RSA, the trail does that too.

The RSA reported $2.5 million profit on the trail in fiscal year 2004 ending Sept. 30.

The RSA's holdings are widely varied, including the toney 55 Water Street building in Manhattan, RSA buildings in Montgomery, and investments in a newspaper chain and 64 television stations.

By comparison, the investment in the trail "is nothing more than a blip," Bronner said.

"In one day or two days, I can make more or lose more (in the stock market) than I have invested in the whole trail."

According to Bronner, all nine of the trail sites that are open make a profit or at least break even. The two most profitable venues are Birmingham's Oxmoor Valley and Prattville's Capitol Hill because of central locations and access to other tourist attractions, Bronner said.

The trail's greatest value, financially, may be on paper. According to RSA documents, the appraised property value of the trail stood at $136 million in 2004, an increase of 71 percent since 1997.

The unprecedented Ross Bridge development will add to that.

"We've done some crazy things but we've done some great things," said Cannon, the SunBelt president. "You don't have to be a golfer to totally appreciate what this (trail) has meant to the state."