INVESTMENTS: Making a Hole in One

In golf-mad Japan, the biggest swinger of all may be industrialist Minoru Isutani, whose Cosmo World Corp. controls more than 10 Japanese courses and is rapidly developing sites in the U.S. and Europe. Last week Isutani scored the investment equivalent of a hole in one when he agreed to pay an estimated $900 million for the Pebble Beach Co., which operates four golf courses on California’s Monterey Peninsula that rank among the world’s most scenic. The deal makes Pebble Beach the jewel of Isutani’s international golf empire, which includes courses under development in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Hawaii and a new golf resort in Salzburg, Austria.

Even as Isutani expands his holdings abroad, he has become entangled in controversy at home. In one widely reported conflict, angry golfers have accused him of grossly overselling memberships in his Japanese courses and thereby making weekend reservations frustratingly hard to get.