Virginia Golfer September / October 2014 | Page 33

One of Kubly’s and Landscapes Unlimited’s most
notable projects is Shanquin Bay Golf Club in China.

BRIAN MORGAN

China Sea. On Hainan Island, Kubly demonstrated his skill at connecting people, first by
recommending the architects to the developer
and then by supporting the renowned co-designers with some of Landscapes’ top experts.
“One of our guys, John Klinkerman, is one
of their favorite superintendents in the world,”
Kubly says. “As long as John was there, they
were willing to do it, [because] they knew he
could control the project.”
The result? Shanqin Bay debuted last year
at No. 78 on Golf Magazine’s ranking of the top
100 courses in the world.

A few designers don’t even use plans, which
demands an extra level of discipline from
Landscapes’ well-trained employees.
“We call them the ‘arm-wavers,’” Kubly
jokes. “But someone like (architect) Bill Coore
makes up for not having fancy plans by being
on site so often. Bill basically lives on the job,
and that works out great for us. We’ve built
eight or 10 courses with him over the years.”
Most recently, Landscapes teamed up with
Coore and Ben Crenshaw to build Shanqin
Bay, an elite private club that was the first
project in China for both companies.
“It’s a Pebble Beach kind of site, maybe even
better,” Kubly says.
He adds that Coore and Crenshaw initially
weren’t sure they could build a course there
unless they could get down to the South

w w w. v s g a . o r g

FAR-REACHING,
WELL-ESTABLISHED ROOTS
Depending on the property, Landscapes is
often involved in areas of golf operations that
go well beyond construction.
“We own a dozen golf courses, and are a
third-party manager or manager of 30 others,”
Kubly says.
The company is even capable of building
clubhouses and other ‘vertical’ architecture.
As George puts it: “He’s the one-stop shop,
if you will, for anything golf-related.”
These additional points of contact enable
Kubly to keep his finger on the pulse of the
industry, and he remains an optimist in spite
of all the doom and gloom that has surrounded
the game lately. Landscapes kept layoffs to a
minimum during the darkest years of the recession, which made it well poised to quickly
increase volume as the economy recovered,
without having to hire and/or train as many
new staffers.
“There aren’t too many industries that have
had the roller coaster ride that the golf industry
has had,” Kubly says. “I don’t see us going back
to the heyday of building 300 courses a year [in
the U.S.], but there’s a lot of pent-up demand

among clubs and municipalities that basically
put the brakes on spending in ’07 and ’08.
There’s a real backlog of work out there for
contractors, mainly in renovation.”
One such renovation project recently
took place at Independence Golf Club near
Richmond, where Landscapes and George
freshened up Tom Fazio’s design under
new owner Giff Breed. In the past, Breed
has witnessed first-time developers getting
intoxicated by all the bells and whistles a golf
course can have.
“It’s like going to the grocery store when
you’re hungry,” Breed says. “You can spend a
lot more money than you had hoped.”
He worked with George and Kubly to
develop a plan for the c