California Golf Club of San Francisco
San Francisco, California
In 2007 the California Golf Club of San Francisco, one of the Bay Area's oldest and most respected private clubs, was completely renovated under the direction of Kyle Phillips Golf Course Design. The original A. Vernon Macan design was architecturally restored within the current property boundaries, using 1927 as a benchmark, when Dr. Alister Mackenzie re-bunkered the course.
Del Paso Country Club
Sacramento, California
Del Paso Country Club celebrated its 90th anniversary when the new course redesigned by Kyle Phillips opened for play July 2006. Founded in 1916, Del Paso once hosted tournaments that included legendary players such as Sir Henry Cotton and Tommy Armour, as well as the 1982 US Women's Open. The architectural personality of the original course designed by Scotsman John Black has been maintained while regaining its championship status.
Dundonald Links
Loch Lomond Golf Club, Troon
This Kyle Phillips link course can be added to the list of Royal Troon, Prestwick and Western Gailes, all connected by the historic Ayrshire rail line. Making its debut when the world of golf comes to Troon for The Open Championship in 2004, Dundonald has already been mooted as the future venue for the future venue for the Scottish Open.
Golf Eichenheim
Kitzbuhel-Aurach
The majestic Wilder Kaiser or "Wild King" mountain range serves as the backdrop for the Par Five, Tenth Hole at Golf Eichenheim. This Kyle Phillips design is the site of the Austrain Masters and is already one of the top-rated courses in Austria.
Kingsbarns Golf Links
St. Andrews
Near St. Andrews, Scotland, Kingsbarns is a magnificent seaside links course ranked among the Top 50 courses in the world by Golf Magazine 2001. It also received Golf Digest's Best New International Course in February 2001. Kingsbarns opened July 2000 and began hosting the Dunhill Links Championship in 2001.
The PGA of Sweden National Golf Resort
Troup
Only 30 minutes from Copenhagen, Denmark and 15 minutes from Malmo, Sweden, this scenic southern location offers players a longer golf season. This spectacular facility features the highest quality golf and training experience in Scandinavia, consisting of two new Kyle Phillips Golf Course Design championship courses and a nine hole short course. The Links Course, with its classic links-style architecture and traditional fescue grasses opens for play in May 2009.
The Grove
London
Beautifully situated along the Grand Union Canal on the site of a 17th Century English Estate, this Kyle Phillips course has been designed in a traditional English style. This course is part of a 300 acre five-star country estate located within 40 minutes of London's West End.
Incline Village Championship & Mountain Course
Lake Tahoe, Nevada
Located on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe, Nevada. The Championship Course at Incline Village enjoys views of Lake Tahoe and the majestic Sierra Nevada Mountains. Originally designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr. in 1964, the course was completely remodeled by Kyle Phillips and reopened in the fall of 2004.
Friday, October 16, 2009
So much has been said and written about the transformation of Kingsbarns in Scotland from ploughed fields into stunning linksland, that the development team at PGA of Sweden National could have identified architect Kyle Phillips with a Google search for ‘turning featureless farmland into great links golf.
However, we can be pretty sure this wasn’t the case, as it was only after Phillips had been engaged that a plot of featureless farmland near Malmo in the south of Sweden was chosen as the site for the PGA’s impressive new golf facility. Identifying an architect early in the development process is an approach that Phillips has championed in a previous edition of Golf Course Architecture (see GCA 2, p52), arguing that the architect’s expertise can be employed for identifying the site’s suitability for development, with a view to saving costs and minimising development time.
Phillips’ Kingsbarns has been one of the success stories of modern golf development. High rankings aside, it is an aesthetic delight. There are few better examples of a course that appears to have been crafted by nature, whereas every contour was in fact the work of architect and construction team.
READ MORE
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Kyle Phillips is the creator of Kingsbarns, The Grove and many of the world’s finest golf courses in 20 countries. Writing here for GBD, he believes the golf development industry has only itself to blame for many of the current ills, but feels with the right development model, the golf business can still succeed in a challenging environment.
While historians will describe autumn 2008 as the beginning of the current economic crisis, they will only be describing the moment in time when we realized that we were sick. The virus was in our system long before. Sure, we were warned by a brave few that we were on the brink, but we did not want to believe them. Only after several “too big to fail” companies failed, and the markets tumbled, did we realize we had all caught the flu.
The golf industry is not immune either. Alarming numbers of “too big to fail” residential golf communities are on the ropes, being taken over by banks, or being ploughed under. In Dubai, not even the marketing brand of Tiger Woods has been enough to make the development sell.
But the problems we face today within the real estate development sector of the golf industry did not begin recently. This virus has been building up in our golf industry bloodstream for over four decades. It was in this period that golf started to become more incorporated in residential communities. Often the developers did not play or understand much about the game, but they did know that with a golf course, they could sell real estate for a premium. Unknowingly at the time, the real estate development industry began redefining the ‘essentials’ of the modern championship course for the golf industry.
READ MORE
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
“…AI Maaden, a high-end developer of golf resorts, who have commissioned Kyle Phillips, arguably one of the hottest designer of the modern era to take on the task of making their course a Moroccan star.”
THE FIRST PORT OF CAll FOR OUR BYE-DAY MOROCCAN golf trip is the Palmeraie Golf Palace & Resort, an oasis of luxury and refinement nestled in the heart of a lush, cool palm grove ten minutes from the hustle and bustle of Marrakech. This exquisite property is richly decorated in intricate Moorish designs that feature large archways, opulent furnishings and a decor in rich earth tones. After checking in we are asked to make ourselves comfortable on a collection of carpets and cushions by a water fountain in the tiled foyer area.
Before long, resident tea-maker Mr Aziz Igouzoulen appears through an archway wearing a flowing white robe and a maroon fez hat, carrying a silver tray with an elegant metal teapot packed with fresh mint leaves, tea and sugar. After the tea has brewed for a few minutes, Aziz makes a spectacle of pouring the fragrant golden liquid from a great height into the small decorative glasses. With a grin wider than Tiger Woods after winning a major, he hands us the tea, overflowing with the delicious aroma of fresh Moroccan mint and says, “Welcome to Marrakech and I hope you play some good golf.”
READ MORE
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Corporate Golf World
So, who should design your golf course…Signature designer or course architect…A Nicklaus or a Kyle Phillips? James Norman investigates the very different benefits each brings to a course design project.
When Mark McCormack started to turn Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player into major companies in their own right, one key element of that strategy was a golf design division. It started a trend that today means you can play a Ballesteros, an Els, a Faldo, a Norman, a Montgomerie and even a Woosnam design. Tiger’s first course is only a few years away in Dubai. READ MORE
Tuesday, January 1, 2002
Golf Course News International 2002-2003
By Trevor Ledger
Kyle Phillips spent 16 years with Robert Trent Jones II before creating his own practice. His first course in his own name is the highly acclaimed World Top 50 course, the Kingsbarns Links near St Andrews. This summer he opens another spectacular new layout: The Grove in Hertfordshire. Trevor Ledger talks with him.
GCNI: 16 years with RTJII. What prompted you to branch out on your own?
KDP: Working with Bob and his team was really great and I could have stayed there forever. I just felt the time for me to start my own firm was right. I was 39 and our children were 9 and 12 years old. If I had waited, it would have become more difficult for them to relocate.
GCNI: Kingsbarns was a great opportunity for you, wasn’t it?
KDP: Indeed it was. To have such as strong location as St. Andrews and the natural coast line along the North Sea provided a good foundation. My good friend, Richard Wax, with whom I had worked closely during our years with RTJII, introduced me to the site. The original developers were looking to sell. I was then able to bring together an American developer for whom I had already designed a course, his financial partner and Southern Golf, the contractor with whom I had an excellent relationship during the construction of the Wisley Golf Club. This formed a solid team.
READ MORE
Friday, June 1, 2001
Bunkered Magazine
By Brian Donald
Member of the American Society for golf architects and creator of the impressive Kingsbarns Golf Links near St. Andrews. Kyle Phillips is delighted to continue his working relationship with Scotland and Linkslands. READ MORE
Friday, March 2, 2001
Sacramento Magazine, March 2001
By Mike Bowker
If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to design a golf course, consider this. You are standing in the middle of a 300-acre oak forest , your view on all sides blocked by hillsides covered with poison oak and cut through by a half-dozen streams choked with blackberry bushes. If you can envision that perfect par 5 that runs up the glade, around the bend, across the creek and between the two big oaks to a perfect little green that slopes from left to right – not too severely, mind you, because this is a difficult hole to reach in two – then you might be cut out to be a golf course architect. READ MORE
