Links designers for Brit+Ire

[Paul Kelly]

Carne is indeed planning to build another nine holes. They have applied for planning permission for this and an extension to the club house. This is an exciting development.

[RobertO4653]

Kyle Phillips is the one I would recommend his work to date in that area has been great

Kingsbarn is fantastic and has won several awards

Go to his web site www.kylephillips.com

He is the best

Happy Holidays

Robert

[Slag_Bandoon]

 I'm very happy and relieved to hear that Carne is doing well enough to expand.    

  What of Irishman Pat Ruddy?  Or Scotland's Cameron Sinclair?  I would be curious to see what the Bunker Hill boys of Axland and Proctor could discover and uncover out there.  Their work has impressed me to no limit.  

  Nine new holes alongside Eddie Hackett's layout would and should require some major restraint by a designer. I have never played a Fazio course but hiring him just because he's got a name to draw American ignoramusi would be a sad and distracted motive.    

  Rare and glorious land such as this requires the highest level of worth ethic.

[Brian Phillips]

Before everyone heaps all the praise on Kyle Phillips let me just add my input about Kingsbarns and what I know about the project:

Mark Parsinen and his partner were the driving force behind the project and made some very crucial decisions.  Such as getting Kyle Phillips and giving him a brief to create a links course on what looked like farmland.  Two good books to read about the project is Robert Price's book and Paul Daley's new book that just came out and Parsinen has written an essay on the project.

Parsinen brought in some very important consultants including Robert Price who taught the construction team how to create dunes that looked natural.

Parsinen got an agronomist (Dr.Paul Miller) to teach him eveything possible about grasses.

Mick McShane is a great shaper/foreman and with Stuart McCollom from Southern Golf Construction ran the show together.  Stuart said never has a project come so close to breaking his back.  He was Project Manager for Southern Golf and he is now the in charge of Greenkeeping on the course.

Stuart is applying nearly no fertiliser on the course and still has the greens stimping at around 11.  Guess at which height he was cutting the bent/fescue greens?

5-7mm!!  He even had to raise the cutting heights for the Dunhill because the Tour didn't want any of the players getting embarassed on TV rolling off the greens.

The whole set up is being run very well by Parsinen and Co. and Stuart.  Another new thing that they are doing is closing the course in December for (I think) 4 months which not many if any courses do in Britain.  This gives the grass a chance of recovery.

The true test for Kyle Phillips will be to see how well his latest links course does and that is Southern Gailes on the West coast of Scotland.  I wish him luck, I only wish he was British!!

I have been shown what the site looked like before and any other team based in Europe would NOT have been able to create the masterpiece that they have created TOGETHER.  It was truly a team effort and it sounds like all gave more than a 100% of their effort to achieve it.  Everyone I know who was involved with the project is very proud and they should be.

Sand Hills is one of the most impressive courses I have ever played but Kingsbarns is the most impressive golf course construction site I have seen.  The routing is also a stroke of genius from Phillips.

Brian Phillips.

PS. In five to ten years time I hope I will be one of the best to choose to design a links course in Europe! .

[Paul Kelly]

The club seems to have a good budget to construct the new holes. It will be done over a number of years in the quieter winter months by Turasoireacht Iorrais staff. I don't know if they got a known designer or if they have chosen one yet.

[Slag Bandoon]

Paul Turner,  Kingsbarns is laid upon about half links land inside of an almost continuous naturally occuring dune ridge, up an abandoned marine cliff, and inland on flat terrain where a glacier once crept, 13,000 years ago.  (Thanks Richard for the nudge.)  "A series of inspection pits revealed that virtually the entire site had a covering of sand at least six feet thick." -- Robert Price from Scotland's Golf Courses (2nd edition, 2002)
   The before picture of Kingsbarns reminded me of a little niner in Mulraney, Ireland.  Flat links with gently rising and rounded hill inland.  If laid out naturally, nobody would have travelled across the pond to play it - 'cept maybe me.  Much less spend any time talking about it.  

  Brian Phillips,  Nice post.  Good to see credit given where credit is due.  Sometimes we, out of no real fault but lack of information, and because it's easier, put all praise on the head guy.  

 Kyle Phillips may route well and design well and create well but with the dunescape at Carne already in place, can he restrain himself?  

  I'd really like to see someone with a lighter touch go in there.   Bunker Hill Design group (you too MacMillan) has proven they can blend interesting golf with naturally dynamic, even extreme land.

  

[Paul K]

Tying in with another thread, Carne has budgeted 850,000 euro for the new nine holes, including the irrigation system... I don't know how this compares with courses being built today.

Also, there's a picture of Jim Engh on Carne's website being greeted as a overseas life time member. I wonder would he have anything to do with the design of the new nine???