As of last Friday, Hawaiian Golf Properties LLC owned three golf courses in Hawaii and another at Lake Las Vegas, all purchased or leased in the last seven months. The face at the front of the Canadian investment group fueled by Chinese money is John Harman, who left one of Hawaii golf’s best jobs last year to become the company’s Vice President of Golf Operations.

Hawaiian Golf Properties bought Kapolei Golf Course Sept. 10 and the Golf Club at SouthShore in Henderson, Nev., Feb. 17 — both with cash. On March 1, it started leasing Luana Hills and almost immediately changed the name back to Royal Hawaiian Golf Club. Friday, it took over Makaha Resort and Golf Club, more commonly known as Makaha West.

According to Harman, who resigned as head pro at Waialae Country Club last summer to take the new assignment, it hopes to own a "cluster" of four to six — or more — courses. Each will be designed to complement the other. The quantity will let the company share resources and increase its buying power.

In this economic climate, there apparently is no shortage of courses available, many at the right price.

"You’d be very impressed if I told you how many people called me up and said ‘we might be for sale,’ " Harman said. "Once they found out we were buying, people were calling. We’re picking and choosing which ones we want at the beginning."

Those above Harman are passionate about golf and find Hawaii unique, he says. They believe, as most in the golf industry do, the next big market is China. When they offered Harman the position it appealed to him for more than the financial benefits.

As vice president of the Aloha Section PGA, he saw a way to get more trained PGA pros in positions. And …

"I don’t want sound out of my range, but China is our last big push in the tourism industry," says Harman, who is half Chinese.

"I live in Hawaii. I enjoy Hawaii. I want to live here hopefully the rest of my life and bring my kids up here. If we want to stay in Hawaii we have to make sure we take care of this next stage."

All the courses will be tweaked, Kapolei the least and Makaha the most.

Some could go private, though Harman says that wouldn’t happen for at least two years. His company is eventually interested in bringing back events, such as the LPGA’s Hawaiian Ladies Open, which was at Kapolei from 1996 to 2001.

Harman hired former Waialae food and beverage manager Darren Yasui, most recently of Macaroni Grill, to oversee that side of the business.

They hope to have Royal Hawaiian’s food and beverage business back up and running by the end of the year, and bring big parties back next year. The goal is to standardize all food and beverage, and everything else.

"When you go to Kapolei you will see workers in red outside in guest service," Harman says.

"Eventually you will see the same thing at Royal Hawaiian. Food and beverage workers will be in black shirts, We’re trying to standardize it so when people go to the courses they will recognize the uniform and know we’re related.

"If someone wants to play, but we have a tournament, we can tell them you can go to Kapolei and I’ll give you a discount. We’re going to share our customers because we want to share our customers."

The company will start running Makaha next month and Harman wants "to make it the best course on Oahu." 

That would involve major renovations for a course that was one of Oahu’s best, many years ago. The talk at Makaha earlier this week was that the course would close for an extended period. Harman won’t confirm that, saying nothing will be decided until next month at the earliest.

"We like the scenic portion of it," he says. "You get the beauty of the Makaha coast on almost every hole. We want to bring that back to life. The owners of our company have an eye for beauty. They want to see the island’s beauty."

Much of Kapolei’s popularity has been because of the quality of its maintenance. Changes there will be more in terms of fine-tuning the course and service. Changes at Royal Hawaiian, one of Hawaii’s most dramatic layouts, will be somewhere in the middle.

"There is not that type of course anywhere else on the island or in the world," Harman says of the Kailua course. "Makaha has that same unique quality to it."

There are others. Harman won’t talk about them now.

"There are a few more on our list," he says. "Unfortunately I can’t share. There are a few on Oahu and a couple on the neighbor islands.

"The idea is they need to complement each other. Either we purchase it at a high-level standard, or at a moderate price and elevate it to our standard. That’s our goal. That’s what I want."