Sunday, September 7, 2008

So, who should design your golf course?

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.

Many traditionalists find the principle of the tour pro-turned-designer 'bad form.' In their eyes, it is just pure commercialism. The player gives his name to the project; a golf architect does all the work, the tour pro tweaks the design when he sees the project, often with the media in tow, only a couple of occasions before opening. Then when the course opens for the public the pro gets an Oscar for the best impression of a golf architect and receives a big cheque in the process.

Mark Chapleski, who runs the Middle East Division of Troon Golf – the world's leading golf operations/management company with over 185 courses worldwide – sees it differently; "The debate will always rage on this subject. It's emotive for the architects. Tour pros have a major role in the development of golf as they are the 'face' of the industry to 97% of the golf market. It is highly appropriate for them to be involved with course design. However, the key is to get a good balance between the input of the tour professional and of the design team that works with him. If that balance is off, then some tour pro signature designs can lack quality.

"Because someone is a very good golfer it doesn't mean he can be a great designer. It takes time to learn the 'art' and that is why it is critical for the active tour professional to have a strong design associate working with him, especially when he is still active in his playing career. Having said that, some active players put a lot more heart and soul into the design aspect than others and ultimately that shows in the end product.

"Ernie Els is a great example of a player who is hands on. Here in Dubai, Troon has been working with Ernie Els Design for the past 18 months on The Dunes course at Dubai Sports City and it is turning out fabulously. The Big Easy has made six trips here in total and walked the entire course on several occasions. When course quality combines with a pro's name, it's a very strong mix as we have seen with the The Montgomerie, Dubai which is now one of the most popular Troon golf courses in the world"

The best of the tour pro designers is undoubtedly Jack Nicklaus. He has three courses in the Top 100 of the world rankings according to Golf Digest magazine's 2005 ranking. There is no Faldo, Player, Palmer or Norman in the list. The only other tour pro is Ben Crenshaw, who is widely regarded as a great architect following his work with partner Bill Coore. It is interesting to note that Nicklaus is a member of the Golf Course Architects Society of America, which requires a rigorous application process, and only a handful of players have earned that distinction. So in Nicklaus's case the line between tour pro designer and architect is truly blurred.

Today there are 255 Nicklaus golf courses worldwide where you can play. There are many more to come. Nicklaus has used his brand cleverly so that there are varying degrees of Nicklaus, from his own signature courses to those designed by his sons or his team. His company even worked in the past on course designs for the likes of Ernie Els and Sergio Garcia. The next "great" Nicklaus design is undoubtedly Monte Rei in Portugal, which opens later this year. It stands a very good chance of becoming one of Europe's top-ranked courses.

Golf architects are a funny breed; part golfer, part mathematician, part artist. Many are good golfers. Most are not good marketers. Some of them are not keen on tour pros and their involvement in their industry. They are usually the ones who feel that they have not received the recognition that they deserve.

Golf architects rely on the quality of their design for their brand recognition. In the last century, the British led the way: Alister Mackenzie (Augusta, Cypress Point, Royal Melbourne) and his partner Harry Colt (Wentworth, Sunningdale, Royal County Down) were at the fore of this movement. Today the Americans, Pete Dye, Tom Fazio, Tom Doak and Kyle Phillips are the elite. The former two are household names amongst golfers, particularly in the US. The latter two are the next generation who are looking to have a greater international reach than their elders. Amongst many great designers, Dye (81) is famous for his work on Whistling Straits in Kohler and the TPC as Sawgrass. Fazio (62) is famous for Shadow Creek, Pinehurst and Los Cabos, Doak (46) is known for Pacific Dunes and Cape Kidnappers (both in the Top 50 in the World), whilst Phillips (48) is renowned for Kingsbarns and The Grove.

A leading golf architect brings a special dimension to a commercial golf proposition. Put simply, it is all about the quality of the golf course. Yes, they do reach a tipping point where the architect's name brings certain expectations and recognition. But, at the end of the day, it is all about how the elite of the golf world interpret the design, which then leads to the rest of the golf world usually following suit.

Adds Chapleski: "The great modern course designers do not necessarily come from tour player backgrounds, however it is more difficult and takes them longer to establish themselves as their only avenue to the general public is quality golf design. However, a great golf course design can bring pure integrity to a development without the name of a well-known golfer. The high quality design increases the popularity of the venue and thus the perfect example of this."

So if you want to build a new course which route is best? Well, a tour pro definitely brings marketing to a design. The argument goes that they also bring incremental revenue. Indeed, according to independent reports, including the Golf Research Group and Norton Consulting, a Nicklaus course generate the greatest returns compared to other named designers, when all measurable aspects such as retail value, memberships and green fees are taken into account. A golf architect brings a pure golf experience which is more about the golf course itself. The golf course then shapes the commercial proposition. In simple terms, it depends on the project.

Labels: Kyle Phillips, Press

Thursday, September 6, 2007

R & A - Kingsbarns Deal to Benefit St Andrews Golfers

R & A Golf Club News Bulletin
By Kieth Mackie

A substantial interest free loan has been granted by the R&A to the developers of the new golf links at Kingsbarns. In return they will make a number of starting times available to local golfers in St. Andrews and north-east Fife.

The agreement has been reached after discussions between the R & A, St. Andrews Links Trust and local golf clubs identified the growing pressure for starting times on the St. Andrews courses.

There are clear indications that this pressure will continue to increase and the R & A's agreement will provide an additional course for local golfers at times when bookings for St. Andrews courses are strong.

Chairman of the St. Andrews Links trust, Bill Ritchie commented: "Last year, play on the links by local golfers jumped 16 percent to a record high of 122,000 rounds. The R & A's arrangement with the Kingsbarns golf development will certainly help towards relieving the growing pressure and provide local golfers with an additional option."

R & A Secretary Sir Michael Bonallack commented: "Kingsbarns might well be one of the last true seaside links sites capable of development in Scotland. It is an extraordinary setting and I look forward to my first round of golf there."

The high quality links course which is being constructed at Kingsbarns, just six miles to the south-east of St. Andrews , is based on the site of the nine-hole course which was the home of the Kingsbarns Golfing Society, established in 1793. The original course reverted to farmland after being used for military purposes during the second world war.

The new development is being carried out on a split level site which runs around the edge of a shallow bay towards Cambo Ness and covers more than one-and-a-half miles of sea coast. One hole is set spectacularly on a rocky promontory and there are uninterrupted sea views from every hole.

Prime movers behind the new course are American Mark Parsinen, who was responsible for the successful development of Granite Bay Golf Club in Sacramento , California , and Art Dunkley, a real estate developer with investments in North America and the United Kingdom. They share a great enthusiasm for links courses which dates back to the late 1960's when Parsinen was a student at the London School of Economics. He said of his project at Kingsbarns: "The site speaks for itself. I pray our hard work and commitment do it full justice."

Seeding of the site will take place during the summer of 1998 and the course will be open for restricted play in the year 2000.

Labels: Kingsbarns, Press

Monday, August 1, 2005

Back on Top at Tahoe

Fairways and Greens
By Vic Williams

THANKS TO AN INFLUX OF CASH, REDESIGN ACUMEN AND COMMUNITY PRIDE, INCLINE'S CHAMPIONSHIP COURSE HAS THAT CLASSIC GLOW AGAIN

If Kyle Phillips isn't careful, he'll replace Rees Jones as "The Open Doctor." He might even give modern design heavyweights like Jones and his brother, Robert Trent Jr., Pete Dye and the two Toms – Fazio and Doak – a run for their money.

In fact, most of the members at Incline Country Club in Incline Village, Nev., no doubt already include Phillips in that rarefied company. The proof of their praise is right outside their doors, high above Lake Tahoe, where the Championship Course at Incline Village has a bold and beautiful new look, a feisty yet friendly new feel and a much larger, more comfortable new clubhouse to complete the package.

Despite an accelerated time frame and various weather setbacks, Granite Bay-based Phillips – a globetrotting artist whose design at Kingsbarns in Scotland is a Top 50 dweller on many magazine lists – took Robert Trent Jones Sr.'s original 1968 routing and brought it up to 2ist century standards in impressive fashion. In essence, he squeezed miracles out of a $4.8 million budget.

Start with the greens: He reshaped and retrained every one of them, and already they read and run to perfection even at 6,500 feet above sea level.

He brought fairway bunkers out of irrelevance and back into play. He toughened up a slew of greenside traps; they're still classic in look and often caustic to one's score. He accentuated the water features, including a natural snow-fed stream running through the property. He shaved down landing areas so players can actually see where their drives land, where they're heading and where they're likely to stop.

And he brought the site's sublime sightlines – pines in the short range, mountains and sky and Tahoe itself further on – into more stirring focus than ever.

"A lot of what we did at Incline was cleaning it up," says Phillips, who's currently rebuilding Sacramento's venerable Del Paso Country Club from scratch.

"Getting the cart paths done properly, going to more formal, squared-off tees ... compared to what Mr. Jones had, yeah, it's different. Other than the concepts of the greens that he had stylistically, the rest of that course had been chewed up."

By "chewed up" he means nearly 40 years' worth of incremental in-house changes – money-saving measures that, collectively, took their toll on Jones' vision and the overall golf experience. Stir in decades of snow-and-thaw cycles, construction of adjacent homes over the decades and constant changes in equipment and maintenance technology, and you have the perfect recipe for a timely overhaul, which was complete last fall but revealed to the general public in May.

"Basically, we've put the 'championship'back in the Championship Course," Phillips says. "It's a nice site, with beautiful views of the lake. It represents Incline Village well now, and I'm happy for them."

The course's members, mostly well-heeled Incline Village residents and second-home owners packing the course's summer tee sheet, are ecstatic to have a shiny new (grown up?) baby to show off. Visitors lucky enough to secure a tee time find an engaging yet demanding mountain resort course that is completely new to them, whether they played it before or not. Management is fired up, too. Jeff Clouthier, Incline's superintendent since 2001, walked side by side with Phillips throughout the redesign process, from drawings to final shaping and sodding. He's still amazed that the course has reopened so soon, especially after the winter just passed dropped more than 20 feet of snow on the course, leading to drainage issues in the spring.

"We've had so much water, we haven't even been able to fire up our brand-new irrigation system, and I'm champing at the bit to do it," Clouthier said in early June as a light rain fell over the course. "We had a few voles digging holes over the winter, and we had to push our opening date back a few days because of the weather, but it's shaping up nicely."

By now the Championship Course should be at full force, with greens running between 9 and 10 on the Stimpmeter, creeks simmered down to a sweet-sounding trickle instead of a roar and native areas edging toward a gold. Overall, it presents as a fast-but-fair test — including bunkers that get your attention and greens that have the hint of familiarity.

"Certainly [the bunkers are] back in play" Phillips says. "It used to be if you were a really long hitter, you didn't even think about the bunkers on a number of shots. And though we changed all of the greens, we did GPS surveys of each one before we went to work. I thought a lot of the green concepts were good, and I'm not a fan of changing just to change.

"No. 13, for example, is a green I tried to rebuild very dose to what it was. No. 12 is totally new. So are 15 and 18. When Mr. Jones did these greens in the '60s, they were great greens, but now they were too fast. It's like Pasatiempo; if Alister MacKenzie were alive today, would he have three-foot tiers and five-degree slopes? The same with Incline; they now have more flexibility, with more pin positions."

One green Phillips completely changed is at No. 2, a par 5 of only 423 yards that could play as a par 4 during big tournaments. Despite Phillips' urgings, members voted to keep it a par 5, so he toughed up the green complex, deepening bunkers and shallowing the surface to repel long approaches.

Incline's 5-pars, in general, got a lot of work. "We chopped down areas so when you drive the ball, you can see where you're going. A lot of them were blind. In the case of No. 2, if you tried to lay up there, you'd go straight into the creek."

As for the 4-pars and 3-pars, Phillips was limited by housing and couldn't tag too many yards onto the shorter holes. No. 18, for instance, stretches to 420 yards, but it's all downhill with a severe dogleg left. "We did the best we could with that hole, made it a better driving hole. When Mr. Jones laid that out, it was never part of the plan to have houses in there. Back then you had views of the lake from 16 tee all the way through 18. Somebody made a lot of money, but the course sure suffered."

Though he supports Jones' original intent to close the round with a trio of holes stoked with great Tahoe views and possible birdies, Phillips says today's front nine is better. In a perfect world, he would switch incline's two sides, and it's hard not to agree. Even Augusta National eventually flip-flopped its layout, and look how that turned out.

But according to Clouthier, that'll never happen at Incline. "Unfortunately, several of the streets surrounding the course are named after the holes they're on," he says. "So they have to stay the way they are."

Thankfully that wasn't the mindset going into the Championship Course's long-overdue facelift. By hiring a naturalist like Phillips, the Incline ownership and membership knew they'd get the outcome they wanted, and by any measure, it's turned out even better than expected, right up there with the region's best, Coyote Moon and Old Greenwood included.

"It was a great course when it opened," Phillips says. "And now the pride in it has been renewed."

The Championship Course at Incline Village
INCLINE VILIAGE.NEV. (866) 925-60LF www.golfincline.com
RA1B: $155. $100 after 4 p.m., including cart

Labels: Incline Village, Press

Friday, July 1, 2005

Kingsbarns Hole 12 Ranks 6th

Golf World 2005

Why should I play it?
It's just about the closest thing you'll get to the 18th at Pebble Beach – in other words, a sweeping right-to-left par-five that skirts the rocky seashore of the North Sea. Its setting is eye-popping and at the end of it all, you'll find a wickedly sloping and enormous green that seems to keep on going round the headland. Because the drive is downhill, birdies are possible. But so are bogeys, double-bogeys...

Strategy:
Favour the right side of the fairway which cambers in – that way you'll avoid the trouble on the left and the ball should gallop on. The perfect shape for this is a draw, which will use the slopes on the apron and the green to swing the ball round to the hole. Otherwise, play down the right side and leave a pitch up the length of the green.

Now go and play it:
There are no members. It's a pay and play course or, as the club would rather have it, it's a "daily fee facility" only. Handicaps are limited to 28 for men and 36 for ladies. Permanent Fife residents get a preferential rate.

Expert View
"As you turn the corner onto the elevated tee the view of the coast is reminiscent of Pebble Beach.

Labels: Kingsbarns, Press

Sunday, February 6, 2005

Scotland's Dundonald: An exceptional new links layout

Golf International Inc.
By David Brice

Most new golf courses are like wine – they often require time to mature and develop. But also similar to wine, there are some new courses that can be experienced young and are filled with character and personality from the moment they are first opened.

Dundonald Golf Club is such a course and the most recent addition to Scotland's already links rich, Ayrshire coastline. Dundonald, opened in 2003, is the handiwork of California-based architect Kyle Phillips, who took Scotland and the golfing world by storm in 2000 with his first Scottish design effort, Kingsbarns, near St. Andrews.

Taking an 18th century, nine-hole layout that had been turned over to farm use during the Second World War, Phillips demonstrated his respect for the traditional and a remarkable sensitivity toward the complex qualities that make Scottish links courses unique.

Kingsbarns amazed even the most dyed-in-the-wool traditionalists from the home of golf, skyrocketing to the lofty heights of the Top 100 Courses in The British Isles rankings, where it quickly reached 13th position. Firmly ensconced alongside Carnoustie and St. Andrews Old Course as the regular triumvirate of courses to host the annual Dunhill Links Championship (previously The Dunhill Cup) it's only a matter of time before the masterpiece at Kingsbarns is brought into the British Open rotation.

For Phillips, Dundonald was the opportunity for an encore and a chance to repeat his triumph at Kingsbarns. He has not disappointed. Similar to Kingsbarns, Dundonald was an ancient links layout that had fallen into disrepair some 70 years earlier. Dundonald did not have the glory of feeding a country at war; it merely became a wasteland. Surrounded by concentration of classic links such as Prestwick, Troon, Western Gailes and a dozen more, most locals had long forgotten this was ever a course in its own right.

Unlike Kingsbarns, Dundonald was pure Ayrshire linksland in the truest sense of the word -- flat terrain made up of light, sandy soil that was once covered by the sea. Phillips saw the opportunity to bring his own design talent into play and take what might be the very last piece of real estate remaining in the Kingdom still available for golf course development, and build the ultimate links layout.

With modern design technology, the determination to build a course that fitted into its surroundings and a tremendous concern to preserve links tradition, Phillips has produced nothing less than a links masterpiece.

The thoroughly natural feeling to the layout belies the amount of manmade changes that have been introduced so effectively. In all fairness, the original Dundonald course was probably a little boring in comparison to some of its neighbors, but no more, the course is already among the most exciting layouts in a neighborhood filled with thriller links.

Measuring a heft 7,300 yards from the tips, only the most accomplished should ever dream of undertaking the full Dundonald challenge. Thankfully, a variety of tee boxes make it a test that even high handicappers can tackle with hopes of a good showing while enduring every test provided by a superior links – and a superior links it certainly is.

How good is it? Good enough for the exclusive Loch Lomond Golf Club to purchase Dundonald quite recently for a princely $20 million.

Loch Lomond Golf Club is one of a thankfully tiny minority of Scottish golf clubs that actively dissuades visitors. The only way you can play their home, parkland course, situated on the shores of Loch Lomond, is as the personal guest of one of its members.

For the time being, Loch Lomond is allowing a very limited number of visitors to play Dundonald, but there is no telling how long such generosity might last. This is a fine wine of a golf course and it's ready to drink today; best get to play this exceptional new addition to Scotland's links inventory while you can.

For a few suggestions on how best to add Ayrshire's new Dundonald course to your Scotland golf itinerary, click here.

Labels: Dundonald, Press

Monday, October 4, 2004

The Grove to Host World Golf Championship

Golf Business News

The International Federation of PGA Tours has announced that the American Express World Golf Championship will be played at The Grove from 28th September to 1st October 2006.

It will be the first time that the United Kingdom has hosted one of the World Golf Championships since the series of top class global events was inaugurated in 1999. The WGC - American Express Championship has visited Spain twice, the United States once and Ireland on two occasions, most recently this past week at Mount Juliet Conrad in Thomastown, Co Kilkenny.

Ken Schofield, Executive director of The European Tour, said, "The International Federation of PGA Tours is delighted that the 2006 WGC - American Express Championship will be hosted by one of the UK's most outstanding new venues. The Grove has already received significant international acclaim in a very short space of time since opening for business in 2003 and we look forward to a truly world class field assembling at this splendid setting in the heart of the Hertfordshire countryside in two years time."

The Grove, the former home of the Earls of Clarendon, has been transformed into a contemporary country estate with an outstanding 18 hole golf course, a five star hotel and spa surrounded in 300 acres of private ground. Situated at Chandlers Cross, Hertfordshire close to Heathrow airport and central London, it has rapidly acquired a reputation as one of the UK's premier new golf resorts within a year of opening.

Chris Andrews, Commercial Director of The Grove, said: "We are delighted to welcome the elite of international golf and we will ensure that their stay with us will be memorable both on and off the course so that they too can enjoy what has become known throughout the world of golf as The Grove Experience."

Labels: Press, The Grove

Thursday, July 1, 2004

Opens to Loch Lomond Golf Club Members

Links
By Malcolm Campbell

Medieval kings and horse-racing dukes once claimed this scenic plat on the Firth of Clyde. Today a deep-pocketed American developer has some calling it the seaside sensation of Scottish golf.

With much of Scotland's links land already occupied by some of the greatest venues in golf, few new seaside courses have appeared on the game's home turf since the early 20th century. That drought was broken in 2000 when the acclaimed Kingsbarns opened on the Fife coast just south of St. Andrews.

Then, with natives still abuzz over the eye-pop-ping Kyle Phillips design, a links course was announced for a classic site in Ayrshire, just a stone's throw from Royal Troon on the country's west coast. Phillips, the American whiz kid, got the assignment from Castle 2000 Property Development, which named the project "Southern Gailes" to complement a pair of established venues in the region, Western Gailes and Glasgow Gailes.

Then came an even bigger buzz: In early 2003, before work was completed on Southern Gailes, the developer sold it to Lyle Anderson's Loch Lomond Golf Club. Among the cognoscenti, eyebrows angled skywards, locals all too aware the new owners were an international – and very private – golf club.

Southern Gailes acquired not only a new owner, but also a name change and a shift in philoso-phy. Rechristened as Dundonald – a one-word name in the Scottish tradition of Carnoustie, Prestwick, Muirfield and Turnberry – it moved from the realm of open public links to that of exclusive private property, a notion that is anathema to many Scots in a land where golf is still considered a basic human right.

Public-or-private controversy aside, Dundonald is a fascinating site. The name – literally "Fort Donald” – derives from fortifications discovered on a nearby hillside dating as far back as 500 B.C. A castle once used as a summer residence for Scottish Kings was built there by Robert II in 1371. It was one of three medieval fortresses on the site between the early 12th century and 1647.

In 1911 the first attempt was made at building a golf course. The land was owned at the time by His Grace William John Arthur Charles James Cavendish-Bentinck, Duke of Portland, Welbeck, Worksop and Nottingham, whose locker name-plate must have been something to behold. Actually, history doesn't say much about the Duke's prowess with a cleek or mashie; his passion was horse racing, and he reached the pinnacle of his ambition in 1888, when he won The Derby, of the English Classic series, with a horse appropriately named "Ayrshire."

When a club was formed, it was named Dundonald and the members had the original course stretched to 6,700 yards, a monster by the standards of the time. The first 100 members were admit-ted at an annual fee of one guinea, about $2 by today's reckoning.

That original course was lost just be-fore the Second World War. Conscription was introduced at that time and the Dundonald Army Camp was built on the land after the British requisitioned it for military use. When Phillips was hired to bring golf back to the site, comparisons with Kingsbarns were inevitable. But the land he was given to work with at Dundonald is markedly different from the Fife site: The Dundonald terrain is much flatter and subtler in its movement, whereas massive amounts of dirt had to be moved to create the dramatic Kingsbarns. The overall effect is much more in tune with an older-style links than the modern interpretation that works so well at Kingsbarns.

Phillips was keen to retain that tradi-tional feel after initially walking the site in 1999. "The ground was all ancient beach sand," he says. "There were a few small dunes, some rushes and gorse ar-eas running through it. I tried to utilize the strongest and most interesting of the natural features and then create grander, more dramatic landforms and features over the remainder of the site.

"I wanted to create a new championship Ayrshire-style course that felt and played as though it was an old 'rediscovered' course by integrating newly constructed features with the existing site features."

Since the Loch Lomond acquisition, Phillips has made minor changes to his original design, the most obvious being the disappearance of the Montgomery Burn. That stream ran through several holes and has since been piped underground and lowered by several feet to improve drainage. Above it, a dry ditch remains as a hazard and a reminder. Dundonald initially opened for preview rounds in mid-2003, then closed so those improvements could be made over the winter. It’s now open year-round, making it a welcome complement to its sister course at Loch Lomond, located an hour's drive inland and closed from November through March.

Stretching an uncompromising 7,300 yards from the championship tees, Dundonald clearly has the depth of character to test the best. When the wind blows, par 72 seems as far from reach as the Isle of Arran, which rises from the sea to the west and dominates the wonderful view from Dundonald's fairways across the Firth of Clyde toward Northern Ireland.

Already it seems likely the Scottish Open will move here from Loch Lomond after the current sponsor's agreement with Barclays expires in 2006. Those who have long cam-paigned to have this great event returned to a traditional links course will rejoice.

The Phillips' philosophy that demands a variety of decisions from tee to green is very much in evidence here. And as with Kingsbarns, there are a considerable number of tightly mown areas around the greens, allowing errant shots to run away from the target and putting a premium on skillful recovery work.

The designer's affinity for links golf is clearly reflected in the large, rolling greens and often penal bunkering, some of it reminiscent of St. Andrews itself. Two holes are particularly noteworthy. The par-4 16th (the No. 1 handicap) typically plays with the prevailing wind but has a hog’s-back hump to add an element of chance to any drive that carries the first fairway bunker. In the right conditions, the long par-5 third can be reachable in two, but only with a perfect drive thread-ed between the ditch on the right side and a bunker that threatens the left.

Like Loch Lomond, Dundonald is generally restricted to members and guests, but a few visitor times are set aside each day after 2 p.m. With the 2004 British Open now at hand in nearby Troon, golf fans will likely be in the mood for links golf and clamoring for those tee times.

For more information on Dundonald, call 011-44-1436-655340 or visit www.lochlomond.com

Labels: Dundonald, Press

Tuesday, June 1, 2004

The Best of the Best 2004

Robb Report

The Grove
A modern classic at England's finest new resort.

Kyle Phillips' work at Kingsbarns, neighbor to hallowed St. Andrews, has been universally hailed as an almost perfect modern example of the Scottish links course. Now the American architect has created his version of an English parkland course at the Grove, a quirky yet fabulous new resort in Hertford-shire, England, just 25 miles outside of London.

Though influenced by the designs of Harry Colt, J.H. Taylor, and James Braid – all of whom built park-land courses near London – Phillips adhered to the resort's overall theme of commingling new and old. He utilized both natural and artificial land forms in his 18 beguiling holes, and he kept cart paths out of sight to preserve the ambience of a traditional English club. Regardless, the Grove is meant to be walked.

The opening handful of holes plays through a meadow in front of the imposing facade of the resort's converted 18th-century country house. Through the duration of the front nine, natural wetlands, a man-made lake, the Grand Union Canal, and some modern-era fairway bunkers demand forethought from the tee.

After the turn, the course begins its wooded phase: The drive on 10 must be split between two towering sweet chestnut trees. Farther along, cedars, oaks, and other mature specimens come into play. On 15, a twisting par 4 through the trees, a deceptive sunken area captures slightly undercooked approach shots in front of the green. The 17th is a short but uphill par 5 that, with its prevailing westerly breezes, challenges golfers to go for it in two. Naturally, the penalties for not quite making the green are severe.

Throughout The Grove, Phillips combined the usual assortment of penalties and perils – sand, water, rough – with hazards such as tightly mowed areas around the green collars and contours on the greens. Overall, his modern take on a traditional layout has once again resulted in a fine course, one that genuflects graciously toward the others in its class – all of which are at least 100 years its senior.

– James Y. Bartlett

The Grove 44-1923-294266
www.thegrove.co.uk

Labels: Press, The Grove

Thursday, April 1, 2004

The New Kingbarns? Another Kyle Phillips Masterpiece Prepares to Welcomes Golfers

Golf World

This summer another extraordinary links course will be officially unveiled. Dundonald, formerly known as Southern Gailes, just a couple of miles up the coast from Royal Troon, where this year's Open Championship is due to take place, is the latest in a line of links courses which have recently been uncovered.

Following the rave reviews of Kingsbarns on the east coast of Scotland, American designer Kyle Phillips has once more produced what looks like a masterpiece, this time on the west coast. In February 2003 the course was acquired by the exclusive Loch Lomond Golf Club, and although two tee times a day will be reserved for the general public, the course is primarily for the use of the golf club's international membership.

Loch Lomond will hold The Barclays Scottish Open a week before The Open in July but given that this event has occasionally suffered because some players feel a parkland course is not the obvious place to warm up for the ultimate links test at the Open Championship, there are already some suggesting that Dundonald could be the ideal future site for this event. Watch this space.

Labels: Dundonald, Press

Thursday, January 1, 2004

The Grove Honored as One of England's Finest

From The Peugeot Guide

The Grove, Britain's most-talked about new golf resort, has been ranked officially as one of Europe's finest venues only three months after opening and been placed in the elite category of world-class golfing destinations that includes Gleneagles and Turnberry. The Peugeot Golf Guide 2004-2005, the most influential manual on where to play in Europe and widely regarded as "the traveling golfer's bible", has judged the Hertfordshire complex to be one of the most complete resorts among more than 1,000 it surveys each year.

What makes the Peugeot Guide so popular and authoritative is that its judgments are based on the personal experiences of knowledgeable golfers who turn up unannounced, pay green fees, experience what is on offer and then make their no-holds-barred reports.On that basis The Grove received one of the highest ratings when all aspects of its facilities were considered. The judges examine three aspects of a venue and award points accordingly for course value, clubhouse amenities and hotel facilities.

The Kyle Phillips designed golf course received 18 points out of 20 a remarkably high rating for a new course. The hotel with 9 out of 10 was unsurpassed and with the clubhouse at 8 out of 10, the total of 35/40 placed The Grove at the very top of European golf venues.

The experts' verdict: "This is one of the most ambitious resorts ever. A five-star facility half an hour from London with a luxurious hotel catering to both major special functions and golfers, plus an 18-hole course manicured by 20 green keepers.

"This is a severe test of talent with a certain emphasis on the chip shot that is so often overlooked on modern courses. A connoisseur's course whose excellence is unveiled as you play it, testing for the finest exponents of the game but never humbling for the common mortal, all wrapped in absolute elegance."

Labels: Press, The Grove

Friday, August 1, 2003

Scotland's Loch Lomond Golf Club Adds an Inspired New Links Course: Dundonald

Executive Golfer
By Edward F. Pazdur

"Kyle Phillips' first course designed in Scotland, Kingsbarns Golf Links near St. Andrews earned him an unprecedented endorsement from The Royal and Ancient Golf Club in St. Andrews."

Newly acquired, Dundonald makes an exceptionally worthy companion to Lyle Anderson's Loch Lomond, a renowned international private club in Scotland with members from 42 countries, and 48 of America's states. With the addition of Dundonald, Loch Lomond Golf Club, located just 30 minutes from Scotland's Glasgow International airport, has surely become the world's "mecca" of golf. The rank of mecca is easily justified. Its international membership includes 42 countries and 48 American states representing virtually every important private club in the world.

Chairmen, presidents, owners and senior executives have become members and formed a network of leading decision makers worldwide. " Loch Lomond is a remarkable achievement in a remarkable setting. Never turn down an invitation to play there," said Peter Burt, a member and recently retired Group Chief Executive of the Bank of Scotland, and Muirfield Captain.

The addition of Dundonald to Loch Lomond is a masterful move. It boosted the prominence of Loch Lomond within international circles and significantly added to its worldwide stature.

Dundonald is a new links course located about an hour's drive from Loch Lomond and just north of Troon, Scotland. Anderson initially became interested last November when its name was Southern Gailes Golf Links with an uncertain future.

Phil Schneider, Vice Chairman of the Anderson Company, accompanied Anderson to take a look at it. "The owner decided he wanted to sell the club for personal reasons," said Schneider. It had not opened. "We thought we might look at it and see if it would be possible, over time, to make arrangements for Loch Lomond members to play there from time to time. But, when we got down there," explained Schneider, "we walked all 18 holes, designed by Kyle Phillips, and found all 18 to be outstanding. Our plans were changed right on the spot. We decided Loch Lomond Golf Club should try to buy it!"

The purchase was negotiated and completed by the end of January of this year. One of the first things on Anderson's agenda was a name change. A variety of names was tossed back and forth.

Anderson decided, with the encouragement of others who favor a traditional approach to simply name it "Dundonald" without the word "links" with the name. Prince Andrew, who is serving as the international captain for Loch Lomond Golf Club, said he strongly favored a one word name in the tradition of links courses such as Troon, Carnoustie, Muirfield and Donorch. Dun means fort, so the name means Fort Donald and refers to a nearby hill which has had fortifications since the period of 500 to 200 B.C., and has had small castles between then and now.

Prior to World War II, there was an old course called Dundonald at the site and the Dundonald name was used for that area when it was converted for military use. There is also a small town of the same name nearby. Consequently, there is some very relevant history to the name.

When word got out to Loch Lomond members, it created a lot of excitement and pressure to play it. Kyle Phillips felt there was still some drainage and finishing work to be done.

As a compromise, it was decided to open it to club members sometime in July on a "preview" basis, until the fall, and then close it for a number of months to fully complete it, with a true grand opening on the finished course in 2004.

"We'll have a very nice temporary clubhouse facility this summer. Our permanent clubhouse will be ready in 2004," said Schneider. "And we have planning approval for forty (4-bedroom) cottages that would be along the golf course. Over time, there could be accommodations for members and their guests as well as sold to members."

I asked: "How about the Anderson Company specialty and the development of a golf community?"

"There will be no homesites," replied Schneider. "This is a private club and an extension of Loch Lomond."

The buzz among Americans familiar with golf in the U.K. and among the Brits themselves is that Dundonald will become one of the very best links courses in the world. The real beneficiaries, of course, are Loch Lomond members. They have just been handed a second golf course to play and can look forward to a third, designed by Jack Nicklaus at Loch Lomond, in the near future.

"We are going through a really exciting time at Loch Lomond Golf Club. In addition to golf we're adding a spa within the historic Walled Garden and beautiful new cottage accommodations for members and their guests," said Schneider.

Labels: Dundonald, Press

Tuesday, July 1, 2003

Grandeur at The Grove

Links Magazine

PRESENTING A SCHIZOPHRENIC blend of 21st-century luxury and chivalric hauteur, a first-of-its-kind English golf resort debuts this summer under the deceptively modest name of The Grove.

Jacuzzis, plasma-screen TVs and "Broadband conferencing are concealed within The Grove's courtly buildings--one of which dates to 1400 and all of which provided hearth and home to several Earls of Clarendon. Just a half-hour's drive from London proper, the resort's grandeur is painted across a 300-acre demesne whose fresh-air pleasures include an aristocratic-looking golf course laid out by the Kingsbarns Kid himself, Kyle Phillips.

Phillips, who's as hot as a blacksmith's forge these days, extended the new-meets-old theme of The Grove when he conceived his 7,170-yard parkland design. Today's technology is all there in the irrigation, drainage and soil mixes, but the course's visual style and shot characteristics have an artisan feel that will suggest the possibility of Harry Vardon (or maybe Harry Colt) appearing from the mist along its fairways. Phillips strives for the impression that nothing diesel-powered was used to shape his fairways and greens. "I'm looking back at classic British course architecture and trying to create great courses whose artificial landforms are indistinguishable from natural ones," he explains.

From its Saxon burial ground to its acres of walled gardens, the property surrounding Phillips' layout fits seamlessly with the streams, boundary hedges and roundabouts of Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, the modest crossroads where this whole fable is set.

But if the scenery is unspoiled, the people who stay here won't be. And a fair number of them can be put up in the 211 guest rooms and 16 luxury suites. A staff of 350 will unobtrusively guide Grove guests among the resort's three restaurants and dozen-plus spa treatment rooms, as well as tidy up the croquet lawn and the two 75-foot swimming pools when a day's play is over.

In advance of the course's opening, the resort brought in crack golf management company Troon Golf from the U.S. to handle operations. Given the basic premise of The Grove (i.e., American-style luxury in a British golfing milieu), having a group of worldly Yanks around to dust off the ballwashers and comb the rough is a logical idea.

Labels: Press, The Grove

Sunday, June 1, 2003

Into The Grove

Business Golfer

With a course designed by the renowned Kyle Phillips and a hotel based on traditional values, The Grove is an irresistible mixture. Alison Root visits the perfect place to combine business with pleasure.

The style and character of the championship golf course underlines Kyle Phillips' attention to detail. The layout follows a route that's over rolling tree-lined landscape and owes much to the value Phillips is renowned for throughout the clubhouses of the world.

The American, who learned his trade as an employee of Robert Trent Jones, Jr. is best known for his work at Kingsbarns Golf Links, close to St Andrews. Kingsbarns is an admirable addition to the Fife coast and one that has earned Phillips international plaudits, particularly from the world's leading tournament golfers.

Originally from Northern California, Phillips sums up his style as this: "I like to create courses that look and feel old even though they are new," he says. "A good design should help players experience the course with all of their senses. They should feel they are walking on a natural landscape and they should feel a little intimidation mixed with a little triumph," he adds.

To this end, Phillips has allowed The Grove's course to emerge from the landscape rather than have a template design imposed upon it. Having been left alone for almost two years to bed-in and mature, its condition is impeccable. "Building a golf course is like peeling an onion," Phillips continues. "There are layers of detail, but it's the subtle detail that separates the great courses from the others."

Phillips' concern with natural land forms is a departure from the design concept that has dominated golf since the Sixties - the bulldozer - which resulted in flat and featureless courses. Phillips' ethos is to create the most natural courses possible; even a cursory glance at The Grove's course confirms his theory.

Each individually-named hole, from tee to green, presents a unique challenge and unmistakable character. Having designed more than 35 courses while still working with Jones, Phillips knows a thing or two about how to massage a decent score from low- to high-handicappers. His work rewards the golfer with moments when the sight of a green or a fairway, set against centuries-old woodlands, presents an inviting temptation to stop and stare than simply play the ball.

The essence of the course is one in which the player sets his own tasks within his own limits and is then rewarded accordingly. The greater the risk and subsequent success, the bigger the reward. It's a principle that many in the corporate world will recognise.

In golfing terms, it owes much to the strategic school of thought in which a player must think his way round the course without falling into the trap of trying to overpower it. The Hoggery (the 450 yard, par-four 3 rd hole) is a case in point. It follows a slightly downhill route with danger on the left and water threatening the approach shot. This places the emphasis on a perfectly-struck tee shot in order to find the right position on the fairway for a safe approach to the green.

The 4th, a 208-yard, par-three called the Boathouse fulfills all the conditions of a perfect short hole. The green is menaced by the Grand Union Canal to the right, while a stream at the front then humps and hollows behind leave few options to achieve perfect par.

Phillips' customary foresight is seen at its best on the 11th - the Greenhouse. The fairway of this long par-5 (545 yards) sweeps left against a background of ancient trees, while the outer edge is challenged by a series of mounds. Again, accuracy from the tee is paramount to ensure your second shot is more than just a salvage pitch, taking you back to the safety of the fairway to start again.

Overall, it's an engrossing course with a benign element - there is always an escape route as Phillips sticks to his doctrine of providing enjoyment for whoever plays and to whatever standard.

In effect, the demands on all those who play the course and the subsequent sense of achievement provide a complete escape - and that, after all, is the hallmark of The Grove.

Labels: Press, The Grove

Dundonald Course Linking with Past and a Great Future

Scotland on Sunday
By Paul Forsyth

On a warm summer's evening by the Ayrshire coast, as lengthening shadows are cast across the dunes and the hazy outline of the Isle of Arran shimmers in the distance, it seems almost sacrilegious to suggest that so spiritual a setting, a haven at one with nature, could be manufactured by hand.

But Kyle Phillips has mastered the art. On a short trip from his home in Sacramento, where he is establishing a reputation as one of the leading golf-course architects, the 45-year-old American uses up every last hour of daylight, steering his buggy between the gorse bushes, content that he has played God with the land.

If the future of golf is man-made, this is the man who is making it. By transforming a patch of disused farmland six miles south of St Andrews into the spectacular layout now known as Kingsbarns, Phillips has made his name as the designer who re-creates nature. He is literally altering the landscape of links golf in Scotland.

His latest project is on the course formerly known as Southern Gailes, recently acquired by Loch Lomond Golf Club and renamed Dundonald. On Tuesday, the first ball will be struck in its "preview opening," a prelude to the official version next summer.

Set among a concentration of classic venues, from Prestwick to Turnberry and Troon, Dundonald has much in common with the acclaimed Kingsbarns. Both sites were home to ancient courses that fell into disrepair during the Second World War; while the Fife venue was later given over to livestock, its Ayrshire equivalent became wasteland.

Phillips, commissioned by Dundonald's previous owner, Yaqub Ali - who died this month - is attempting to make history. "What I try to do is design a course that looks old. I want it to be very difficult for players to establish what is man-made and what was already there. I'm hoping that in a couple of years, people will think Dundonald has been there for decades.

Which is not to say that his two additions to the country's links are from the same mould. Phillips studies nearby courses in an attempt to reproduce the land forms and characteristics of that area. The sprawling greens of Fife , for instance, tend to dwarf Ayrshire counterparts.

"Most Americans think links is one thing, something that fits into a little box, but it's not.

Where Kingsbarns is a course that sits on top of a hill, with those wonderful views in front of you, Dundonald is more like Carnoustie or Lytham St Annes, or even Troon. It's down among the dunes. You're near the coastline, but you don't really have a great deal of visual contact with the sea."

Dundonald, which will closed in October for the winter, cost Loch Lomond Golf Club an estimated £10 million. Existing members will be given the opportunity to play as part of their membership, while a couple of tee times will be made available to the public each day. As well as developing 40 four-bedroom lodges, the new owners, noted for their emphasis on exclusive luxury, are building a temporary clubhouse while they decide what to do with the existing, half-built one.

"It's a very traditional golf course, probably as pure as it gets," says Phillips . "It's also an old-fashioned, walking course. It's not a hilly site, and you don't have to cross busy roads, which is great to see because there is so much emphasis on carts and battery-powered buggies nowadays."

Conscious that their stellar field for the Scottish Open could be even better were the tournament staged on a links course, Loch Lomond this year will allow their entrants to practice at Dundonald for the Open Championship.

"They have the Scottish Open at Loch Lomond but, from everything I've heard, it sounds like a real possibility that it could move to Dundonald," says Phillips . "The Americans are over here to play the Open, so they want to be playing links golf. It wouldn't take a lot to bring the fairways in and create some very Open-like conditions down here."

The designer can see why Keith Williams, vice-president of Loch Lomond, has been championing Dundonald for a place on the Open rota. "One of the advantages of this course is its accessibility," says Phillips . " St Andrews is a fantastic place for an Open, but the road system isn't perfect. It's easy to move galleries around here, and there are enough elevated positions for viewing."

One of Phillips' first contracts when he set up his company in 1997 was to remake the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Manassas , venue for the 2000 Presidents Cup. "That made me more aware of where you might put tented villages and corporate facilities. There is certainly room for that at Dundonald. It's a spacious site. We have land out the back that could be a fantastic car park."

Phillips is striving to preserve tradition without ignoring the demands of modern golf. Improved technology has widened the gap between long- and short-hitters, thereby increasing the number of tees and generally complicating the architect's job.

"What I like best is the creative side. It's very easy to become obsessed with technical stuff, like which is the best irrigation system, but you have to shut that out. The great links courses had natural irrigation, and the emphasis was on architecture. If we can do that a bit more, we'll have better courses to play on."

Labels: Dundonald, Press

Saturday, February 1, 2003

New Wonder Near Watford

Golf International

With a course designed by the renowned Kyle Phillips and a hotel based on traditional values, The Grove is an irresistible mixture. Alison Root visits the perfect place to combine business with pleasure.

The style and character of the championship golf course underlines Kyle Phillips' attention to detail. The layout follows a route that's over rolling tree-lined landscape and owes much to the value Phillips is renowned for throughout the clubhouses of the world.

The American, who learned his trade as an employee of Robert Trent Jones, Jr. is best known for his work at Kingsbarns Golf Links, close to St Andrews. Kingsbarns is an admirable addition to the Fife coast and one that has earned Phillips international plaudits, particularly from the world's leading tournament golfers.

Originally from Northern California , Phillips sums up his style as this: "I like to create courses that look and feel old even though they are new," he says. "A good design should help players experience the course with all of their senses. They should feel they are walking on a natural landscape and they should feel a little intimidation mixed with a little triumph," he adds.

To this end, Phillips has allowed The Grove's course to emerge from the landscape rather than have a template design imposed upon it. Having been left alone for almost two years to bed-in and mature, its condition is impeccable. "Building a golf course is like peeling an onion," Phillips continues. "There are layers of detail, but it's the subtle detail that separates the great courses from the others."

Phillips' concern with natural land forms is a departure from the design concept that has dominated golf since the Sixties - the bulldozer - which resulted in flat and featureless courses. Phillips' ethos is to create the most natural courses possible; even a cursory glance at The Grove's course confirms his theory.

Each individually-named hole, from tee to green, presents a unique challenge and unmistakable character. Having designed more than 35 courses while still working with Jones, Phillips knows a thing or two about how to massage a decent score from low- to high-handicappers. His work rewards the golfer with moments when the sight of a green or a fairway, set against centuries-old woodlands, presents an inviting temptation to stop and stare than simply play the ball.

The essence of the course is one in which the player sets his own tasks within his own limits and is then rewarded accordingly. The greater the risk and subsequent success, the bigger the reward. It's a principle that many in the corporate world will recognise.

In golfing terms, it owes much to the strategic school of thought in which a player must think his way round the course without falling into the trap of trying to overpower it. The Hoggery (the 450 yard, par-four 3rd hole) is a case in point. It follows a slightly downhill route with danger on the left and water threatening the approach shot. This places the emphasis on a perfectly-struck tee shot in order to find the right position on the fairway for a safe approach to the green.

The 4th, a 208-yard, par-three called the Boathouse fulfills all the conditions of a perfect short hole. The green is menaced by the Grand Union Canal to the right, while a stream at the front then humps and hollows behind leave few options to achieve perfect par.

Phillips' customary foresight is seen at its best on the 11th - the Greenhouse. The fairway of this long par-5 (545 yards) sweeps left against a background of ancient trees, while the outer edge is challenged by a series of mounds. Again, accuracy from the tee is paramount to ensure your second shot is more than just a salvage pitch, taking you back to the safety of the fairway to start again.

Overall, it's an engrossing course with a benign element - there is always an escape route as Phillips sticks to his doctrine of providing enjoyment for whoever plays and to whatever standard.

In effect, the demands on all those who play the course and the subsequent sense of achievement provide a complete escape - and that, after all, is the hallmark of The Grove.

Labels: Press, The Grove

Wednesday, January 1, 2003

Gourmet Golf at The Grove

Golf Links

That's how golf course architect, Kyle Phillips, who also designed the stunning and award-winning links course at Kingsbarns near St Andrews , describes his approach to designing golf courses. And this philosophy is clearly evident with his latest creation. Sitting serenely in 300 acres of prime, natural parkland, The Grove, which was formerly the home of the Earls of Clarendon, is a magnificent new 18-hole layout, situated near Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire.

Phillips set out to create a golf course, which would measure up to the demands and requirements of the modem game at the highest level, yet still have the look and feel of the classic English courses from the early 1920's. And although the course doesn't officially open until September 8 th , early indications are that The Grove certainly has the potential to meet both these design objectives.

The developers and owners of The Grove spent some eight years looking for the right location for the course and it was certainly worth the wait. At Kingsbarns, Phillips had to move a considerable amount of earth to create the links style layout. At The Grove he inherited a wonderful piece of natural rolling parkland terrain, where he was able to fit many of the holes into the existing landscape and he has made full and in some instances, exciting use of this in his superb design. No more so than on the short holes, where water and major elevation changes have been used to create four excellent par three holes.

With terrain, which in certain places is fairly steep, it's inevitable that there would be one or two holes that play uphill. But in the main, Phillips has used the elevation changes to great effect, both aesthetically and strategically, with the result that while the layout is stunningly scenic, it's not overly demanding for golfers who prefer to walk, rather than ride in electric buggies.

There is no doubt that The Grove has been constructed to the very highest specifications, with the aim of eventually hosting major professional events and this is clearly indicated by the strategic design of the holes and the quality of the bunkering. Not to mention large putting surfaces, which are already slippery and exceptionally smooth. Likewise the abundance of viewing areas for spectators have also been incorporated in the layout of the course.

However, while The Grove quite rightly strives to attract the game's top professionals, Kyle Phillips' design also ensures that playing the course will also be an enjoyable and rewarding experience for the average golfer.

Labels: Press, The Grove

Tuesday, November 12, 2002

Phillips' Next Masterpiece could be Roseville course

Sacramento Bee
by John Schumacher

Kyle Phillips stands in the dirt on the eighth tee at Morgan Creek Golf & Country Club in Roseville, motions with his hands and starts speaking his favorite language - Landforms. Contours. Ridge lines. Heathland. Dust drifts by as a bulldozer rumbles past. Phillips, the course's balding, personable architect, doesn't flinch, pointing out bunkers where there is only dirt, and praising an irregular-shaped oak tree that hugs the right side of a soon-to-be fairway. "Trees like that are just fantastic," he says. "It works with the golf hole. It's lost a big limb. If it lives another 30 years, we'll be thrilled."

As a kid in Blue Springs, Mo., just outside Kansas City, Phillips sometimes got in trouble for drawing golf holes in class. Now, instead of being sent to the principal's office, he receives pay and praise for his creations.

Phillips, 44, ranks as one of the game's top architects, thanks to a 16-year run working for legendary designer Robert Trent Jones Jr. in Palo Alto and stunning success since launching his own company in Granite Bay five years ago. Under Jones, Phillips worked as the lead designer on a number of courses, including Granite Bay Golf Club, the Resort at Squaw Creek and Bodega Harbour.

Once on his own, the engaging, energetic and down-to-earth architect gave the golf world Kingsbarns, a links-style course six miles from St. Andrews, Scotland, that opened in 2000 and already ranks among the world's top 50 courses. Golf Eichenheim, another Phillips creation, is ranked as the top course in Austria by Peugeot Golf Guide, which rates Phillips' Golfsocieteit De Lage Vurrsche as one of Holland's top five layouts.

The Grove Estate in London and Southern Gailes in Ayrshire, Scotland, both set to open next summer, add to Phillips' portfolio. So does his renovation of the Robert Trent Jones Club in Prince William County, Va., which hosted the 2000 Presidents Cup.

His latest venture is Morgan Creek, a private course between PFE and Vineyard roads, just north of the Sacramento-Placer county line, that's scheduled to open late next spring. While Kingsbarns provides sweeping views of the North Sea and a rocky coastline, Morgan Creek will meander through a housing development.

"I'm really excited about what Kyle has done," says project manager Dave Cook. "He's shown his depth of talent by coming up with a different flavor that's still traditional." Says Phillips: "I'm trying to do something that's different for this area. A few greens with drama to them ... a heathland (open land with heather and shrubs) kind of look."

Hear the passion in his voice as he talks about design concepts -- trees and mounding hiding houses from tees, bunkers set farther from greens than they appear and the importance of a course's entry point -- and realize this is a man doing something he loves. "I like the whole process," says Phillips, who prefers to design walkable courses. "I love doing routings. I love doing grading. I love to spend time on the site."

Even if the site is challenging. Phillips grins as he talks about designing a course for Jones on Nevis Island in the West Indies, where he flew into a small airstrip and found nothing there. A few years later, there was a Four Seasons Hotel and an inviting golf course. "It kind of makes your work feel like it's worthwhile," says Phillips, a 7-handicapper who started playing golf when he was 5. "All this work so other people can have fun."

An intensity simmers below the surface as Phillips talks shop. His philosophy is to make something look natural; his style is to connect with everyone from the CEOs and developers to the guys doing the blue-collar work.

"I really enjoy the variety," he says. "You try to be approachable as an architect." And flexible. One man's vision can be another's nightmare, and sometimes developers can be insistent about what they want.

Phillips can be stubborn, too. He laughs as he tells the story of butting heads with Jones, a strong-willed intellectual and a natural entertainer. "I remember one day he walked in and said, 'You're strong, and you're wrong,' " Phillips says. "He walked out. We laughed about that for years." Phillips recalls long talks with Jones about golf and politics and life, and says he learned a lot working for perhaps the game's best-known living architect. "Even in his most difficult moment, we could say our piece and still be friends and move on," Phillips says. "Whether he agreed or disagreed, he was always really open to criticism."

Five years ago, though, Phillips reached a crossroads. He was secure working for Jones and enjoyed an atmosphere that encouraged sharing ideas, but with his 39th birthday approaching and his oldest child in junior high, Phillips realized the clock was ticking on notions of going solo. Everything said it was time to give it a shot," says Phillips, who joined Jones after earning a degree in landscape architecture from Kansas State, thus avoiding the family notion that he would become a lawyer.

"Sometimes you have to force yourself out of the nest." So far, out of the nest has been good to Phillips, whose Kyle Phillips Golf Course Design has been circling the bases ever since hitting a home run with Kingsbarns.

Phillips, who resides in Granite Bay with his wife, Jill, son Aaron, 18, and daughter, Kelsey, 15, recalls walking on "horrible, flat terrain" on his first visit to Kingsbarns. But with the sea and rocks beckoning, there was much potential. So Phillips went to work, consulting with Kingsbarns co-owner Mark Parsinen of Granite Bay to create a course drawing rave reviews.

Golf Digest's Ron Whitten wrote: "Whatever it takes, get there. Kingsbarns is worth a king's ransom to play." Golf Magazine ranked it 49th in its 2001 world rankings. Golf Digest voted it the best new international course in its February 2001 edition.
Count Granite Bay golf artist Jim Fitzpatrick among the believers. He was at Kingsbarns for the first 10 days, hearing countless praise. "Ben Wright came through, he plays and says, 'The greatest golf experience of my life,' " Fitzpatrick says, referring to the longtime British golf commentator. "It was like that every day there. I heard a guy on his cell phone, he's talking after his round, and he says, 'You know, I've played over 500 golf courses all over the world and this is by far the best.' "

Phillips' office hints at an influence from across the pond. Besides photos of his own creations -- Kingsbarns, The Grove, Southern Gailes -- a large aerial view of St. Andrews hangs on the wall across from his desk. "I was just excited to be able to re-create a links course," Phillips says. "I was trying to create landforms that look like they naturally belong. Long lines, long landforms. "I knew Kingsbarns was going to be a big hit."

Such success contributes to a curious reality: The man from Missouri who lives in California is better known in Europe than anywhere else. "I'm interested in doing more courses in the U.S.," Phillips says. "You're just known in certain parts of the world. "I'm like this homeless person. I work here, but it's, Oh, yeah, but you always work in Europe. Over there it's, Oh, but you're an American. You don't understand how it is in Spain or how it is in Holland. "All the places I work make me a better architect."

Phillips learned in Europe there are different ways to get things done. Over there, they're not obsessed with every blade of grass being green.

And he learned from Jones just as Jones learned from his father, Robert Trent Jones Sr., who designed Spyglass Hill. "Kyle is a wonderful architect," Jones says. "As I was mentored by my father, I mentored him and others. He's part of the Jones family tree. "I tend to think of him as a personality -- his work speaks for itself -- somewhat like a surfer. When he sees a wave coming, he knows how to ride it and knows how to get off it."

Cook describes Phillips as a breath of fresh air. "He's thoughtful and enthusiastic," Cook says. "Compared with a couple of other architects I've worked with, he's not egotistical, he's not brash, he's focused, he's persistent. "Even though he's easy to work with, he doesn't back off if it's something he believes in."

Phillips believes in designing courses that look as if they've always been there. He starts by walking the land, scribbling notes on a topography map and focusing attention on areas that will prove difficult to design. Soil conditions, water sources and environmental issues all factor into the design process, with Phillips coming up with a routing plan and sketching green sites.

Phillips, a big fan of English architect Harry Colt, likes to design a number of potential routings, prompting Jones to dub him "Mr. Alternative." Ask Phillips how many routings he did for Granite Bay and he notes "there's hundreds of holes out there. Pick your best 18."

Cook, an original partner in Granite Bay, marvels at the layout Phillips helped create just off East Roseville Parkway. "From the time you arrive," Cook says, "it looks like it was there before all the rest of Granite Bay."

Phillips never appears to tire of his passion. "Early on, I looked at things as individual pieces: Here's a tee, here's a bunker, here's a lake, here's a green," he says. "Now I've come to a point I see it as one total landscape."

A canvas, if you will, to create something. And then to turn over the keys to someone else. "By the time a golf course opens up, I'm well down the road to other things," Phillips says. "You have to give birth to it. Somebody else has to raise it."

Labels: Morgan Creek, Press

Tuesday, January 1, 2002

Q & A with Kyle Phillips

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.

GCNI: What did you think when you first saw the property?

KDP: When I first walked the property at Kingsbarns, I wondered how the guys at Pebble Beach must have felt when they explored that truly outstanding site. I knew a golf course could be designed on the existing farmland, but what I envisioned was to transform the farmland into a dramatic links-style course.

GCNI: How do you feel about the results?

KDP: For purity of a "land meets sea" venue, I feel that Kingsbarns is unbeatable worldwide.

GCNI: Kingsbarns has received remarkable ratings by Golf Magazine and more recently by Golf World's panel of judges. Why do you think this is?
KDP: One of the reasons is that many players perceive the course as a natural links--even though it was all man-made. Also it can be set up for all levels of play. At the Dunhill Links Challenge, the pros enjoy the strategy from the back tees. The amateurs also derive great pleasure from their tee boxes as the tee shots leave both levels of players facing similar strategic decisions to achieve their scoring objectives.

GCNI: The Grove in Hertfordshire opens this summer. Could you describe the development?

KDP: This remarkable property lies within the M25 less than 25 miles from the centre of London and is also easily accessible from the airports of Heathrow, Stanstead and Luton. The British developer owns two successful hotels in the London area. They researched and identified the need for an hotel and golf venue where both elements were top quality. The users will be hotel guests, conference and event clients as well as some green fee play.

There will be a 227 bedroom five star hotel. A world-class spa is in construction as well as banqueting facilities for 500 guests. A feature will be the landscaped gardens around the restored mansion which was the former home of the Earl of Clarendon. It is destined to become "London's Country Estate".

GCNI: What were the site and soil conditions like when you began?

KDP: The site had two levels, both very flat with very different technical issues. The upper level was largely gravel with only a thin layer of topsoil, while the lower level along the canal had a high water table. The site also required removal of a considerable amount of old concrete from the old chicken sheds and military style buildings that were left from earlier owners.

GCNI: What theme did you incorporate at The Grove?

KDP: In general, I like to create courses that look and feel old-even though they are new I like them to look and feel as though they have existed for many years. At The Grove, it seemed only appropriate to design a course that would look and feel traditionally English. I have always liked the heathland style of architecture, particularly the

Harry S. Colt designed courses. I visited several different English Style courses with the owner and shaper, so that we all were in sync with what we were striving to create-not only how the course would be designed and constructed, but also how the course would be maintained.

GCNI: What sort of golfer is the course aimed at?

KDP: Even though it is true that the course was designed to be capable of hosting professional tournaments and is ideal for viewing by large galleries, the primary user will be 15-25 handicap players. Besides having a choice of 4 tee locations, bogey players will find available to them alternate angles of play, allowing them to play around hazards instead of always over them.

GCNI: The previous boom of golf courses springing up everywhere has apparently died. What can bring such days back? Do we want them back?

KDP: The marketplace is simply supply and demand. Currently there is an oversupply of certain types of golf facilities within certain markets. Just as in the lean times of the early 1980's and early 1990's, developers in the next several years are going to look harder at where each dollar is spent. Hopefully we will come out of this period with a greater appreciation of the importance of architecture.
GCNI: Where do you see golf going from here?

KDP: In the short term, I do worry about many of the new courses out there that have under achieved architecturally. They have a good location and all of the bells and whistles-- nice clubhouses, irrigation, green construction and so forth, but the architecture of the course is either uninspiring or just plain no fun to play. For whatever reason, these courses have failed to realise that the architecture, not the infrastructure of the course is ultimately every course's sustaining attribute-the architecture is the engine that drives it's success.

In competitive markets, these courses are certain to struggle against the courses that may have less infrastructure, but are better designed and more enjoyable to play.

One thing that is certain in these uncertain times, great architecture will stand the test of time. It always has.

GCNI: What is your major influence when considering golf course design?

KDP: I like to carry out extensive visits in the region of the proposed golf course with the construction team. In the case of Kingsbarns, I went with the developer and shapers to visit some of my favourite Scottish links courses, photographing the bunkers and green complexes prior to commencing the site works. In the case of The Grove in Hertfordshire, we were welcomed by the club secretaries and greenkeepers at the fine Surrey and Berkshire courses, where designers such as Harry Colt were masters of the art of strategy.

GCNI: Finally, with which other projects are you currently involved?
KDP: Southern Gailes in Ayrshire will also open in the coming Summer. It is at the heart of one of the greatest concentrations of classic courses in the World: Turnberry, Prestwick, Royal Troon and adjoins Western Gailes. Morgan Creek Country Club, near my home in California is nearing completion of construction, and we are in the design phase of new courses in Spain, Italy and just across the bay from San Francisco.

GCNI: Is there anything else you would like to contribute to modern architecture?

KDP: Probably two things. One is that I really enjoy traditional golf courses and hope to be able to demonstrate that new courses can look old while providing the functionality of the modern game. The second is to impress upon developers that a great design does not cost money; it makes money. Ninety to ninety-five per cent of the construction costs are predetermined by the site the owner has chosen and the expectations of the marketplace.

Today many sites that are available for golf do not possess interesting natural landforms. As at Kingsbarns, the landforms must be created. If we are going to restore golf course design to the greatness it provided some eighty years ago, then we must do a better job of creating natural looking landforms. I hope my work at Kingsbarns, Southern Gailes and The Grove will broaden the vision of developers and designers to realise that a minimalist look can be achieved without necessarily possessing a superb natural site from the outset.

Labels: Kyle Phillips, Press

Thursday, March 1, 2001

Design Special

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.

For those who have this incredible "sixth sense," and who are lucky enough to find a slot in the harshly competitive world of golf course architecture, life can be good. If you are successful, chances are you will be asked to design courses in some of the more spectacular places in the world, such as Hawaii , the Caribbean , the Far East and Northern California.

Your work will likely stand for decades - if not centuries - as horizontal monuments to your talent. And you can make a comfortable living, if not become downright rich.

Of course, there are downsides. Every golfer who misses a putt, catches a bad lie or just has a bad day will not only call into doubt your design ability, but possibly the legitimacy of your ancestry. And then there are the developers - who pay your salary - who usually get their way when they want to unbend your perfect dogleg so they can cram in another house or two. Perhaps worst of all is the current and unfortunate trend for a "name" golfer to be paid more than you to place his name on the project and take credit for your work.

But, all things considered, many of us might gladly take on the challenges of being a big time golf course architect. We caught up with one from Northern California.

If you've played the 12th hole at Granite Bay Golf Course, you can understand my mistake. It's a long, uphill par 5 that looks like it was plucked from the Scottish Highlands. "This one has a great natural feel to it," I told one of my playing partners, Kyle Phillips, who happened to be the course designer. Phillips immediately broke into laughter. So did our other playing partner, Dave Cook, one of the principal developers of Granite Bay.

"We moved more dirt on this hole than just about all the other holes combined," Phillips explained with a grin. "But, you saying that is about the biggest compliment I could ever get. It's the effect we were trying to achieve."

As we finished the hole and looked back down the fairway, I realized the hole is a microcosm of the Phillips style, which already is breaking new ground for golf course architects worldwide. A former protégé and employee of perhaps the most famous course designer in the world - Robert Trent Jones Jr. - Phillips designed more than 35 courses on several continents under the Jones logo. He also has completed work on courses in five countries since going out on his own in 1997.

Last fall we spent a day hitting it around Granite Bay and talking about his philosophy of architecture, which was pure heaven for a golf course design junkie like me. We also talked about his split from the Robert Trent Jones II Design Group and the reasons behind his relocation to the Sacramento area. But, most of all, we talked about the future of golf. Phillips was easygoing and unassuming - he enjoyed talking about his family as much as he did his work. But by the end of the evening, it was easy to understand why he is considered one of the world's most thorough and innovative designers. His naturalistic style may well play a major role in influencing what golf courses will look like in the future.

If Phillips, 43, were a writer, you would say he had spent most of his career as a highly successful ghostwriter. For 16 years he served as a principle architect for Jones Jr. never receiving public credit for his work. (Although you will never hear Phillips complain about it.)

For example, few Northern Californians know Phillips did most of the design work on the Bodega Harbour Golf Links, The Resort at Squaw Creek, Granite Bay Golf Club and Adobe Creek in Petaluma.

The reason is that the marking of the golf industry is still a celebrity-driven phenomenon and the Robert Trent Jones name is highly salable. Jones Jr., of course, is part of the most famous lineage in golf course architecture history. His father, the late Robert T. Jones Sr., designed Spyglass Hill in Pebble Beach and the Mauna Kea in Hawaii , among many other famous layouts. Phillips joined Jones' design company is 1981, fresh out of Kansas State University.

"I'm not sure I knew how lucky I was to get the job," said Phillips, who moved in 1981 to the Jones Jr. headquarters in Palo Alto . "All I knew is I loved what I was doing and so did everybody else. There was a tremendous amount of energy in that office."

During the 1980s, Jones Jr.'s company went from being a popular course architecture firm to a burgeoning international conglomerate, handling the design of hundreds of new resort courses around the world. Phillips was one of four primary designers under Jones' tutelage. As a results, he traveled the world to places including Barbados , Austria , Malaysia , Portugal , Italy , France , Finland and Aruba , building golf courses. Although the junior architects did much of the work, all the courses are considered Robert Trent Jones Jr. designs.

"At the time, it was well worth the trade-off", said Phillips. "I learned a tremendous amount from Bobby and his father. We didn't always agree on things and more than once Bobby called me 'strong and wrong,' but he gave us a lot of leeway to design courses our own way."

In 1997, Phillips decided to make a break from the Jones fold. It was a gutsy move because working for Jones Jr. was interesting, lucrative and secure. "I really did some soul searching," Phillips said. "In the end, I knew if I was ever going to make a mark on my own, I had to try it. I didn't want to reach the end of my career with regrets that I never took that step."

One of his motivations for going out on his own was to further explore his ideas about creating the most natural-feeling golf courses possible. A major tenet in any Phillips design is detailed attention to what he calls "landforms." These are the slopes, ridges, mounds and rolls that occur naturally within the local landscape. They are critical elements to Phillips, who is a master at extending what nature gives him.

"That's what you saw on the 12th at Granite Bay ," he told me. "We took what was an unplayable slope and created an acceptable fairway by building the same type of long ridges that occur naturally on the rest of the course."

Phillips' concern with natural landforms is a distinct departure from the design concepts that have dominated golf for the last four decades. Beginning in the 1960s, course architects moved away from the approach of designers such as Jones Sr., who turned as little dirt as possible. Instead, designers began a long love affair with a singular design tool - the bulldozer. The minimalist or naturalistic trend that produced courses such as Pebble Beach , Spyglass Hill , Riviera , The Olympic Club, Shinnecock Hills, Winged Foot and other classis courses was shipwrecked by a fleet of D-8's. Many of the '60s courses turned out flat, long and virtually featureless.

Later, artificial mounding became the vogue, leaving many courses hemmed by mogul-like bumps that looked like the aftermath of an invasion of giant moles. Golf course design reflected the disco styles of the late 1970s and early '80s - loud, flashy and about as natural as an oil slick. The '90s brought about even more radical designs, full of blind, 90-degree doglegs and nightmarishly tough greens.

Today, Phillips is helping pioneer a new style of naturalism. His inspiration comes from the great architects of the past. He talks with great reverence about "Tillinghast bunkers," "MacKenzie greens" and other trademarks of the classic designers.

"What we're doing now is looking back at what they did and recognizing that we haven't actually been moving forward in the past few decades," Phillips said. "Hopefully we're through with this era of demolishing the natural terrain."
One of Kyle Phillips Golf Course Design's first contracts was to remake the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Manassas , Va. , site of the 2000 Presidents Cup. His work drew high praise from the PGA Touring pros.

Tom Lehman, for example, once said: "He improved the course dramatically. It's just a much better test." Phil Mickelson agreed. "I thought the remake of the greens was fabulous," the lefty said. "I thought all the subtleties made it a much improved track."

It was praise enough to leave one red-faced, but even that was nothing compared to the reviews Phillips has received for the most ambitious project he has taken on since leaving Jones in 1997 - the Kingsbarns Golf Links near St. Andrews , Scotland.

"Kingsbarns was a total challenge for me because the area was nothing more than a flat field that once housed horse barns for the king of England , " Phillips said. "Really, the land was pretty uninspiring".

Before he turned a shovel of dirt, Phillips studied the shape and sizes of the surrounding landscapes. Then he went to work recreating similar slopes, berms and landforms on the Kingsbarns site. "I created the landforms first, then fit the golf course into them," he said. "That, I believe, is the difference between me and many other designers. I think a golf course goes beyond flattening the terrain, then just building tees, greens and bunkers. Building a course is like peeling an onion. There are layers of detail. In the end, a designer has to consider every single land form when finishing a course. It is the subtle details that separate the great courses from the others."

Did Phillips succeed at Kingsbarns? It would appear so. The February 2001 issue of Golf Digest rated Kingsbarns the Best New International Course. "Whatever it takes, get there," wrote Ron Whitten. "Kingsbarns is worth a king's ransom to play."

Dave Perkins, a respected golf writer, wrote that in Kingsbarns, "Phillips has produced a reputation-making course that one day may stand beside Pebble Beach as Jack Neville's first-time wonder."

This is all high praise indeed for the work of a virtually unknown golf architect from Granite Bay , California.Yet Phillips appears unaffected by his success. He rolled his eyes and laughed when I called him a world-renowned course designer. He was more eager to talk - with a father's obvious pride - about his son, Aaron, 16, and his daughter, Kelsey, 13, than he was about the fabulous places he has been. His children's welfare was a big reason Phillips and his wife, Jill, chose the Sacramento area for their home in 1997.

"The quality of the schools and the community were a big draw for us in Sacramento ," said Phillips, who sometimes flies home from an overseas project just to watch his children's weekend soccer games. "We were considering several different cities around the country, but Sacramento seemed to have everything we wanted as a family."

Phillips' next project, currently on the drawing board, is the Morgan Creek Golf and Country Club just northeast of Sacramento in Placer County . He and Dave Cook are working together on the project, a private course that will wind through a subdivision. "It should be an exciting course when we are finished," said Phillips. "Right now we're in the longest phase of any course development. That, of course, is getting all the permits we need."

By the time we finished our round at Granite Bay , I had become aware that Phillips the "ghostwriter" also was a fan of mysteries. What I noticed was that most of the greens at Granite Bay are only slightly visible from the fairway. And what you can see looks a bit imposing, as though every angle into the hole is a tough one. Yet, when you reach the greens themselves, you realize the visual intimidation is mostly bluff. The greens are far more receptive to approach shots than they appear. When I called Phillips on it, he just grinned.

"A little mystery and complexity makes golf more fun, don't you think?" he said. "A good design should help players experience the course with all their senses. They should feel they are walking a natural landscape, and they should feel a bit of intimidation and a little triumph, too. I like to build courses that reveal a little more of themselves every time you play them."

Labels: Kyle Phillips, Press

Thursday, February 1, 2001

Kingsbarns Golf Links Names Best New International Course

Golf Digest
By Ron Whitten

Six miles south of Scotland's Old Course at St. Andrews, along gentle coves of the North Sea, carved into hillsides that cant like a massive, curved amphitheater, is the new Kingsbarns Golf Links - so splendiferous in its concept and execution that we felt compelled to declare it our first-ever Best New International Course.

Nature provided its framework, but designer Kyle Phillips (a former Robert Trent Jones Jr. associate) and a construction crew reshaped nondescript slopes to create an uncanny faux-linksland of rumpled fairways and wind-swept dunes. Phillips and co-owner Mark Parsinen conceived its near flawless 7,110-yard routing. Five holes touch the shoreline, with the par-3 15th on a peninsula. Other holes run atop balcony-like shelves, 75 feet above the beach. The sea is visible from every hole.

The twists and turns of Kingsbarns' holes offer enticing gambles and occasional mysteries. Its greens, merged into the surrounding topography of humps and hollows, beckon bump-and-run shots. Pot bunkers, wind and the exhilarating salt-air scenery are all distractions. Kingsbarns is a rare American-designed course in Great Britain that doesn't look American.

Unveiled to the public last summer, Scotland's newest links is open April through November. Whatever it takes, get there. Kingsbarns is worth a king's ransom to play.

Labels: Kingsbarns, Press

Monday, January 1, 2001

The New Old Course and the Sea

Golf and Leisure Magazine

All roads in golf history lead to St. Andrews, and although the town has six courses of choice, the Old Course is the one on which every golfer eventually wishes to test his or her game. Unfortunately, getting in a round there usually means getting lucky in the club's tee-time lottery, with odds running about 1 in 3 against you. But if you draw a short straw - or even if you don't - don't miss the entirely redesigned Kingsbarns Golf Links (001-44-1334/474-364). Just seven miles from St. Andrews, Kingsbarns was open as early as 1792, but was closed in 1939 to be used for military maneuvers (making bunker an ambiguous term).

The course fell into disrepair, and after World War II, farmers took over the land. Various developers looked at restoring the golf course over the years, but the project only came together in 1997. Since then, the Royal & Ancient Golf Club has given Kingsbarns its blessing in the form of a £1 million, interest-free loan. Kyle Phillips, once one of Robert Trent Jones's most talented designers, has risen to the R&A's challenge to create a bold links course: Every hole has ocean views and the sea comes into play on seven of them. "What struck me were the smells, sounds and strong visual contact with the sea," he says. Nevertheless, the 7,115-yard, par-72 course suits a variety of weather conditions and skill levels. Just as the ocean did, history played a big part in the design. One example is the 18th hole, where a burn (little river) required a bridge to link fairway to green. During the hole's construction, diggers unearthed a nearly intact stone bridge and water conduit: Phillips slightly changed his design to incorporate the finds. The course's debut is scheduled to coincide with the July 2000 British Open, which is being played at St. Andrews for the first time since 1995.

To play Kingsbarns, contact Perry Golf (800/344-5257), which also has guaranteed tee times on the Old Course.

Labels: Kingsbarns, Press

Friday, December 1, 2000

Kingsbarns is on a Par with Links of the Past

Financial Times

When Alfred Dunhill recently announced that its Nations Cup tournament, hitherto held at St Andrews every October, was to be replaced next year by a pro-am competition over three links courses on Scotland's east coast, the name of one of the host venues must have caused a deal of puzzlement. The Old Course at St Andrews, together with Carnoustie, fitted perfectly into Dunhill's stated ambition of making the tournament a celebration of links golf, but Kingsbarns?

Situated six miles from St Andrews on a winding, craggy road that leads to Crail, Kingsbarns only opened for play last July. So, one was entitled to ask: what was a new course doing in such revered company? I had the good fortune to play it recently, and here is my verdict: it fully deserves to be bracketed alongside two of Scotland's mightiest links courses.

Indeed, I would go so far as to describe it as the best course built in Scotland since Turnberry was remodeled after the Second World War. It is even better than Loch Lomond, undoubtedly the best inland course built in Britain in the past 20 years.

What a wonderful day it turned out to be for this golf writer, who usually visits much-hyped new courses with a sense of trepidation. Three months ago I played the new Marquess course at Woburn , in Bedfordshire, which was equally laden with praise but for me was a huge disappointment. Big greens, big bunkers, cart-paths; if the weather had been 20 degrees warmer, I could have been in Florida.

So many new courses in Britain are too heavily influenced by architectural trends that have emerged in the US . Take another lavishly built new venue, the Wentwood Hills course at the Celtic Manor resort, near Newport in south Wales . Half the course is situated in the beautiful Usk valley while the other half threads its way around mature woodland. It ought to be a beauty but is not because its American architect has contrived a series of holes around two manufactured lakes. The holes should fit in with their surroundings, but they do no such thing: the designer has laid out the same kinds of holes all over the US.

Golf has been played at Kingsbarns since the late 18th century. The nine-hole course that existed before the Second World War was taken over by the Ministry of Defense, which saw the beach at Kingsbarns as a natural invasion point. In 1945, the village was given the option by the government of money to rebuild the town hall or the golf course. When the villagers decided on the former, the small Kingsbarns membership joined the nearby Balcomie links at Crail.

Efforts were made several times to resurrect golf at Kingsbarns in the early 1990s, before the right combination of people somehow came together in 1997. They were a mix of Americans and Scots, with the Royal and Ancient Club at St Andrews also offering financial assistance.

The architect was an American called Kyle Phillips . He used to work for Robert Trent Jones Jr's design company, and anyone who has played the Royal Westmoreland course in Barbados , the Four Seasons venue on Nevis or the Cabo Real course in Mexico will be aware of his expertise in garnishing windy layouts with seaside aspects.

Phillips' work at Kingsbarns stands as a textbook illustration of empathizing with the land he was given to work on. At the 18th hole, for instance, he does not seek a grandiose signature hole with which to finish. Instead, he studied the original plans and built a hole as close in keeping as he could to the 18th hole that was in place a century ago.

It features a burn in front of the green and, when the bulldozers were removing 30ft of earth to find it, they also discovered a delightful old iron bridge. Needless to say, it is now a feature of the hole. Kingsbarns offers some of the most outstanding sea views to be found on any British links course.

Just one hole reminded me of America , and Phillips can be forgiven for that. The hole in question is the par-three 15th, which sits snugly along the shoreline. It is similar to the spectacular par-three 16th at Cypress Point, which was built in California by a Scot, Dr. Alister Mackenzie.

At Kingsbarns, an American returns the compliment. We were lucky with the day. It was one of those crisp autumnal mornings, a gentle wind blowing from the east and the sun illuminating the bay. Like most golfers on such days, we pondered our luck in finding ourselves on a sublime links course with many good holes and a number of outstanding ones. The compact clubhouse also fits in well with its surroundings.

At Pounds 85 a round, Kingsbarns is as expensive to play as the Old Course, which will no doubt put off some who are unaware of what it has to offer.

It is worth it, however, for it is one of those links courses that, once seen, is not forgotten. The fact that it was built in the final years of the 20th century rather than the 19th or 18th centuries simply adds to the wonderment.

Labels: Kingsbarns, Press

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