February 2008

The Wind in the wadis

First-time collaboration creates a traditional links-style course

In a world first for golf course design, three of the biggest names in the game are joining forces to create ‘Wind’ – the fourth course of the Jumeirah Golf Estates development in Dubai.

Greg Norman has already established himself as one of the world’s leading golf architects and is also responsible for the ‘Fire’ and ‘Earth’ courses being built as part of the same project.

For Serfio Garcia, still only 27, this is his first venture into the design side of the game.

At the other end of the scale, Pete Dye is the doyen of the business – “the father of modern golf course design” – and the completion of Wind will mark half a century from tackling his first project.

For Jumeirah Golf Estates, getting such a distinguished trio to collaborate on a new course is more than just a coup – “we promised something special and we’re definitely delivering it,” said chief executive David Spencer.

The “special” is evident in the design concept: Wind takes golf back to its most elemental roots, a traditional course in which the power and energy of the wind plays a central role.

This will be the Middle East’s first genuine links-style course, characterised by undulating fairways, thick rough, pot bunkers – and of course, the swirling patterns of the wind – in a design reminiscent of where golf started.

With a varied range of teeing options, the course promises to pose a unique challenge to golfers of every skill level. Tight fairways cushioned between rolling dunes allow little room for error, with approach shots to well-protected sloping greens ensuring that precision is the key to unlocking the rewards.

“Without doubt this is going to become one of the most stunning courses in world golf,” said Spencer. “It will be a natural work of art – a masterpiece.”

Norman, Garcia, and Dye are moving quickly from design concepts to working drawings. Earthworks are due to start by the end of this year with completion scheduled for 2009.

The fourth course in the project – Water – is designed by Vijay Singh, and as the names imply, all pay tribute to the power of nature, and each employing the distinctive characteristics of its own surroundings to deliver a unique challenge.

They will be surrounded by individually-designed residential communities, encircled by a 16km jogging and cycling track linking four community parks, lakes, and nature strips.

Cottages and villas will share access to a school, community and commercial centres, a mosque, and a garden centre. Serviced apartments will be available at the clubhouse, which will also have its own academy and par-3 course.

Water, Vijay Singh’s course, will wind through naturally vegetated dune troughs, following ribbons of wetland. The dunes themselves will be vegetated with native salt-tolerant tall grasses and sedges, for a natural look, and oasis and pond areas will be fringed with palm trees. This approach is unique in Dubai, and will result in a challenging, traditional course that is dramatic in both appearance and feel.

A variety of teeing options allows for a wide range of course lengths, from 7,500 yards down to less than 5,000. Greens are open in the front, but pin placements are closely guarded. The many hazards – many of which are, naturally, water hazards – have been strategically placed to challenge longer hitters, while allowing shorter hitters a little more space.

The clubhouses

Serving the Fire and Earth courses, the Norman Clubhouse will be home to an ultra-modern practice facility and state-of-the-art golf academy. The Clubhouse’s Sports Centre caters for other sports too, featuring a fully-equipped gymnasium, tennis academy, lap pool and a leisure-focused lagoon.

The Norman Clubhouse offers a range of options for both formal and casual dining, while the Wellness Centre will offer a variety of massage and spa treatments.

For the first time anywhere in the world, Jumeirah Golf Estate’s Little White Shark golf academy at the Norman Clubhouse will allow golfers of all ages and abilities to hone their skills, with professional training programmes developed by Greg Norman himself.

The academy’s state-of-the-art Golf Learning Centre will be developed during the first phase of Jumeirah Golf Estates, and will offer personalised instruction, with low instructor-to-student ratios, using the latest technology and training knowledge to deliver real improvements to every part of the student’s game.

Fire and Earth are scheduled to open in 2008, with Water and Wind following a year later.

Young heart, old head

Garcia goes for the traditionalist style

Sergio Garcia admits to surprise on being invited to join the design team for the Wind course at Jumeirah Golf Estates.

Course design was for the future, and at age 27 he still has many prime playing years to come.

But with the surprise, there was also delight and the young Spaniard was quick to grasp the opportunity.

“It’s an honour to work on a project like this and be part of the team,” he said before the Dubai Desert Classic.

“This was something I dreamed of doing but I didn’t expect it to happen so soon.”

The course will be a blend of ideas from the trio of designers who will work closely to combine the best of their thinking.

“It won’t be a case of each of us looking after six holes and then joining them together,” he says. “We will meet regularly – off-site and here in Dubai – to compare notes and reach agreement on the final shape of the course.”

Despite his youth, Garcia is very much a traditionalist and he cites St Andrews and Carnoustie – home of this year’s Open – as courses that will influence his approach to the Wind project.

“I visualise hard, running fairways, well protected by Scottish-style vegetation but exposed to the elements the way the traditional links courses are. It will be hard but fair – a genuine test of skill and course-management for players of all abilities, from the best pros to the high-handicapper.”

Spain’s fearsome Valderamma – designed by fellow-countryman Seve Ballesteros is another source of inspiration, so clearly the Wind is going to be no pushover – whether Tiger Woods or Joe Hacker.

He relishes the prospect – and learning the fiendish arts of course design at the side of the master, Pete Dye.

For Garcia, this is a natural extension to a golfing career that began at the tender age of three, when he was introduced to the game by his father.

By the age of 12, he had won his club championship and later, aged 16, became the youngest player to make the cut at a European Tour event and to win the European Amateur Championship. He then became the youngest player to appear in the Ryder Cup, when he played at Brookline aged 19 years, eight months and 15 days in 1999.

In 1999 he turned professional after securing the lowest amateur score in the Masters that year. He also rose to prominence on the global golfing stage that year when he entered into a duel with Tiger Woods in the PGA Championship.

His youthful nature, passion and style of play has always ensured that, win or lose, Garcia has captivated audiences across the world.
The Ryder Cup has become his greatest stage, having played key roles in the last four tournaments and boasting a career record of played 20, won 14, halved two, lost four.

He has spent most of his career in the world Top 10, having risen as high as fourth, and currently ranked 11.

“Dye-abolical” brings his vision to Dubai

Paul ‘Pete’ Dye is the most famous golf course architect alive today. His reputation is that of a creative genius, one of the most imaginative course designers in the world, and deservedly titled ‘The father of modern golf course design’.

Born in 1925, his destiny to become one of the world’s all-time great golf course designers seems to have been pre-ordained. His father Paul had laid out the nine-hole Urbana Country Club course two years before Pete was born (a club for which Pete would later become green-keeper).

Golf was always an intrinsic part of Pete’s early life. During his high school years he joined the Army Air Corps and spent time doing parachute exhibitions while stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, just 90 miles from Donald Ross’s signature course, Pinehurst No 2. It was at Pinehurst that he became enamoured with, and influenced by, Ross’s green designs.

After that Pete moved to Indianapolis where he became a star salesman for the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company. Before he was 30 years old, Pete was one of the few Midwest members of the Million Dollar Round Table and this gave him the financial security to make the bold decision to follow his true vocation – designing and maintaining golf courses.

Pete visited Scotland in 1963 with his talented wife Alice (also a highly respected designer) where he gathered a vast amount of inspiration and understanding from his surroundings.

Pete and Alice discovered railroad ties shoring up bunkers, smallish greens with bold movement, tiny pot bunkers, sandy waste areas, and angular, rolling fairways guarded by strategically placed hazards.
Practically all these features can be found on many of his courses, including his most famous design, the Stadium Course at the Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass. Even the stadium golf aspect he incorporated at the behest of former PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman is reminiscent of links holes routed through natural mounds and dunes.

In addition to Sawgrass, Dye has created some of the most difficult layouts in modern history, including PGA West, the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, and Whistling Straits. This tends to overshadow some of his most subtle and brilliant work, most notably Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head, SC, a relatively short but strategically enthralling course he built in collaboration with Jack Nicklaus.

Though viewed as a maverick with a penchant for stirring controversy – the byword for his work is “Dye-abolical” – Dye’s philosophies are grounded in the old-style concepts.

Seldom working from set plans or elaborate blueprints, he sculpts his visions with a hands-on approach that has increasingly come into vogue in recent years. Especially in the early design days, Dye was not averse to hopping on a bulldozer to attain the kinds of features he sought for his courses.

From the creation of his first major golf course, Dye has Pete gained plaudits from all over the golfing community for his unique course designs and his work since shaped the future golf course architecture with Pete himself being rightfully hailed as ‘the father of modern golf course design’.

The opening of Wind at Jumeirah Golf Estates in 2009 will coincide with a fitting anniversary – 50 years since Dye completed his first course, the El Dorado in Indianapolis.


Late start but what a finish

Greg Norman came to golf relatively late in life – compared to many of the game’s superstars. In his early years, his sports were rugby and Australian Rules football, until at the age of 15 he caddied for his mother on her weekly round.

The following week, he borrowed her clubs to try the game for himself. Two years later he was off scratch.

He began his career as a trainee in the Royal Queensland golf shop, before turning professional and winning his first tournament in 1976 – the Westlakes Classic in Australia.

A year later he joined the European Tour and by 1982 he was the Tour’s leading money-winner. He then joined the PGA Tour in 1983.
Norman achieved a remarkable 86 wins in his professional career including 14 on the European Tour and 20 on the US PGA Tour. He also secured two Majors with victories at The Open in 1986 and 1993.

Off the course, he focused his attention on building his business empire, the highly successful Great White Shark Enterprises. This provides course design and architecture, Shark apparel, merchandising and licensing.

Greg Norman Golf Course Design (GNDCD) was established in 1987 in Sydney, Australia. Now headquartered in Jupiter, Florida, it has grown into one of the leading golf course design companies in the world.

Throughout the late 1980s and ‘90s, Norman spent 331 weeks as the world’s No 1 ranked golfer and his career is destined to go down in history for the excitement and entertainment he bought to so many, with his distinctive and friendly image, his humility and as a legend of the modern game.