about Russia is from, like, hiding under desks. They’re scared to
death. They think they’re going to prison. They’re cursing, they’re
yelling, they want to go to the Embassy. I’m trying to calm them down.
Bobby, in his inimitable way, gets out of the car and starts talk-
ing to four Russian police officers in English, thinking they’re going
to understand him. They’re looking at him like, “Who is this guy in
the baseball hat?” One of the cops shines his flashlight in the car, and
he sees these golf clubs. Of course, he’s never seen a golf club before
in his life. They take these things out, they’re looking at them, they
don’t know what the hell they are. And Bobby proceeds to give one
of the cops a lesson in how to swing a golf club, in the middle of the
night in Moscow.Peltoniemi: Because Star Wars [the Strategic Defense Initiative
program] kind of ended during the Reagan time, one of the super-
intendents on the golf course was a cosmonaut. He was a guy who
was supposed to go to space, but then because the program fell away,
he came to work on the golf course. We trained him in Finland, and
Bobby trained him in the United States. So that was interesting.Jones:When we were clearing the forest, we came upon, literally,
a bunker that you could see had been shoveled out, and the trees
had grown up around it. I asked, “What’s this feature?” They said,
“Oh, that’s where we stopped the Nazis, right there,” as they were
marching toward Moscow. We left it as a symbol of turning swords
into plowshares.Challenging weather and financial problems posed significant hurdles,
but it was political unrest that nearly did the project in.Jones:We had nine holes that were just grown in when the Soviet
Union collapsed in 1991—and then nobody came to work, nobody.
Antti got his Finnish guys, and I got one of our guys, and we main-
tained the course for them for about a year for nothing, just to keep
it alive. We always felt that if the course ever stopped, the new man-
ager would let it go back to nature.Copetas: Bobby saw it as his patriotic duty to bring Nakhabino to
completion. And he had a lot of friends in Russia, too. Because of
this, he showed a patience that very few others ever did when deal-
ing with the Russians... When Bobby came to Moscow—and I saw
him on just about every trip—the officials at UPDK, who were dyed-
in-the-wool Soviet apparatchiks, treated Bobby with a courtesy and
respect and curiosity that I can honestly say I never saw with any
other American there doing business.Peltoniemi: Before you start seeding, there are small rocks or
stones on the ground. You have to pick them up, so that when you
start mowing and are cutting the grass the blades won’t get ruined.
At the end of finishing the course, our boss, the site manager, wentBill Pollak, a friend of Jones, and a lawyer and sports agent: The Rus-
sians came to Washington a week before Thanksgiving. I asked
them how familiar they were with the traditions of Thanksgiving,
and it was very little. They wouldn’t still be here for the holiday,
so my wife and I did a complete Thanksgiving dinner for them a
few days early. It was wonderfully colorful and joyful. They com-
bined our Thanksgiving traditions with Russian traditions—sing-
ing and drinking and just thoroughly enjoying eating turkey and
all the trimmings. I’ve never seen Thanksgiving with more drink-
ing festivities.Jones: All but one of them had never been out of the Soviet Union.
They were amazed. When they went to Spanish Bay, which had just
opened, they said, “My gosh, these rooms are so big. Shouldn’t we
invite some homeless people?” And those little vodka bottles in the
minibar, they were all consumed. I said, “Listen, don’t use those lit-
tle ones. That’s expensive. I’ll get the big one.”
We went to a football game, Cal versus Stanford, big game. The
Russians said, “Oh, we’re going to be for the [Cal] Bears, like the Mos-
cow bear.” I said, “I’m a Stanford guy. You can’t be for the Bears.”
“No, we’re going to be for the Bears.” Then one guy kept saying, “I
don’t know anything about this game, but I really like those dancing
girls”—the cheerleaders. It was a very big deal, in terms of détente,
and cultural and sport exchange at the highest levels.Stafford: There were a lot of really, really fun times, and the Rus-
sians we dealt with were completely enjoyable people with very sim-
ilar senses of humor.- BREAKING GROUND
1988-1993
The course building began in the winter of 1988; Jones invited Antti
Peltoniemi, a Finnish golf course contractor he’d worked with previ-
ously, to join the project the following year, in part because he could
import a needed bulldozer.
Antti Peltoniemi: When we first started construction, we had
mainly Finnish and other experienced foreign workers building the
log houses, the clubhouse and the golf course. There were 22 nation-
alities represented on the workforce, including somebody from Ecua-
dor, who was the farthest away. I think it’s pretty much the same in
every country where you haven’t had golf courses. The local work-
ers or contractors think that they’re just moving dirt, then you seed
it, and that’s the golf course. But throughout the years, we were able
to train and teach those Russian nationals to build and eventually
maintain the course. We started cooperating very well. They were
willing to learn and are quite quick to learn if you explain what you are
doing. By the end, we had only a couple of supervisors from Finland.Copetas: I vividly remember one evening, long before the course
was completed, we were in my car, along with two American golf-
course shapers. For some reason, Bobby had all these golf clubs on
the floor in the back seat, and there were more in the trunk. We’re
driving, and two Russian cop cars stop us. What the shapers knew<< Early in the construction phase, workers prep for proper drainage on the
course’s fourth green. The crew, made up of 22 nationalities, arrived in
Moscow from as far away as Ecuador. Eventually, Russian nationals were trained
to maintain the course themselves—with a little extra help from the Finns.Co
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