Ellerstina Polo - Buenos Aires - the future in unique land usage for golf ?

[David Davis]

I've been sharing a couple unique courses I visited on my recent trip to Brazil and Argentina. One of the most unique visits I was able to make was not to a traditional golf course by any means but rather to a world famous polo club called Ellerstina. Ellerstina is owned and ran by the Pieres family. Mr. Gonzalo Pieres is a legend on the polo field and truly one of the all-time great polo players. His 3 sons are all +10 goal handicaps in polo and they happen to have one thing in common with all of us. A great love of golf, not to mention being very good players as well, as you might expect given the fact that polo is not exactly child's play and takes considerable talent.

Mr. Pieres is very good friends with the famous Packer family from Australia, the same family that had Bob Harrison design and build Ellerston Golf Club. The Packer family make regular visits to Argentina and a few years ago wanted to be able to practice golf when they were there so they came up with an idea to build a course of sorts but they only had about 14 hectares or a couple polo fields to work with. This of course is way too small for a normal course yet they didn't want a little executive or par 3 type of course as they all felt they would get bored. A project was started by Argentinian contractors and fairly early it became painfully obvious that this was not turning out the way all parties involved had hoped. Fortunately, a friend put them on to one Matt Dusenberry of Dusenberry Golf Course Design.

Mr. Dusenberry came up with a unique concept that fulfilled all the wishes of the Pieres and Packer family. Ellerstina Golf is the masterful result of the project and after spending the better part of the day there I have to say for me it was something special and unique, a kind of dream back yard if you will.

Starting with perfectly flat land they created a St. Andrews like landscape at the time all but void of trees but encircled by a huge row of trees to offer the property a secluded feel to it. 9 greens were placed in various corners of the property that can be played from various angles and have two pinned holes on each of them. These are 9 versatile, rather large greens that can be played to from many different angles. Interesting shaping and bunkering and even a small lake add to the versatility of this small property.

Two 36 hole routings were initial created but literally hundreds of golf holes exist here. These holes criss-cross the property back and forth in various way to these 9 greens.

The obvious comment by the astute GCA armchair warrior will be to suggest this is impracticle when multiple 4 balls are played at one and you would of course be correct, this could get messy. However, that is not the case at Ellerstina and the course was not made to be played by more than 2 groups at a time. However, that could be two 4 balls or easily two 8 balls if need be.

There is a really nice write up here by Mr. Dusenberry and our team at Top 100 Golf Courses in the World if anyone is interested in reading more.   http://www.top100golfcourses.com/news-item/introduction-to-ellerstina-golf-by-matthew-dusenberry



Just think of these spectators as finely tuned F1 Cars, they are trained and bred here.

Standing in front of their multi purpose clubhouse you look out to the former polo fields



































 

[Thomas Dai]

Thanks for posting David.
Intriguing. Essentially as flat as the proverbial pancake but actually with slopes and contours everywhere.


Found it on a satmap - https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@-34.5560191,-58.9123162,921m/data=!3m1!1e3
There would seem to be a mints worth of money in polo
Oh to be able to walk out the door and play/practice on a facility like this....to be said in a dreamy fake Che voice "Come The Revolution Comrades, we will all have our own golf course and a string of polo ponies!".
atb

[Sean_A]

David


This looks to be a good "course".  I am a huge fan of the rolled over grass for bunkers rather than the current fade of chunking so that too is a big plus.  What did you think of the design?


Ciao

[Mike Sweeney]

Thanks for posting David.
Intriguing. Essentially as flat as the proverbial pancake but actually with slopes and contours everywhere.


Found it on a satmap - https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@-34.5560191,-58.9123162,921m/data=!3m1!1e3
There would seem to be a mints worth of money in polo
Oh to be able to walk out the door and play/practice on a facility like this....to be said in a dreamy fake Che voice "Come The Revolution Comrades, we will all have our own golf course and a string of polo ponies!".
atb

I jumped on a bunch of the Pablo Escobar Netflix creations, and this would seem to be a perfect place for "his prison" that he wanted to build for himself so that the Columbian government could "Lock him up". Well done!


It looks perfect.

[David Davis]

David


This looks to be a good "course".  I am a huge fan of the rolled over grass for bunkers rather than the current fade of chunking so that too is a big plus.  What did you think of the design?


Ciao

Sean,


I think Matt and his team did an amazing job here. It's one of the most interesting shaping jobs on really flat sites I've seen. I don't know what the budget was but my understanding is that it has a pretty significant drainage set up as well. Like you I just loved the bunkering and what really surprised me was the length and difficult of the holes. I didn't feel that any two were similar and there was a huge mix of lengths from a 600+ yds par 5 to a scary tough par 3 of about 225 yds so the set up they initially received was quite challenging. The beauty of it was that you didn't have to play any particular length and it was all short grass so pure fun without lost balls regardless of your ability unless you wanted to play a lot around the water which of course could result in lost balls.


The area is also nice and windy which really made for extra fun. I guess it's fair to say I would of been happy to retire there and just play that course for the rest of my days.


Anyone who has been to Wolf Point could relate for sure. If that's your back yard, I guess you are pretty much set as a golfer or a golf geek.


So yes I really liked the design a lot.


Somebody sent me an email and said that Doak also gave it a 7 which I suppose says quite a bit given it's not a real golf course.


It was the best thing I saw in Argentina in terms of design and GCA.

[Niall C]

Sounds a bit like the original 12 hole routing for Prestwick.


Niall

[jeffwarne]

Otway without the sea, cliffs, and dunes


Helmet optional

[Peter Pallotta]

A striking blend of rarified estate and homely field of play. I can’t quite wrap my head around it. 

David - yours is a world and a game with which I’m not familiar; but there is certainly a worthwhile place for profiles/coverage of this sliver of the golfing experience. Keep doing what you’re doing — there’s only a small handful of folks that can/are.

[Thomas Dai]

Otway without the sea, cliffs, and dunes

......and the sheep and with polo played on donkeys!


Amazing how the world changes.
Ultra-private courses used to be the preserve of Kings and Queens and Dukes and Duchess's, then film stars had them now it's media moguls and polo players.


atb

[MClutterbuck]

David, great write up on Ellerstina, here and on Top 100. Nice to see Matt Dusenberry being recognized on GCA. He is certainly one of the most interesting young architects out there with several fantastic designs and restorations to his name.


I wanted to emphasize how good the design is. If The Loop is actually 2 very good courses and they rightfully get acknowledged as separate courses, Ellerstina can be viewed like this as well. There are at least 72 full holes identified without repeating tees or greens, including two 18 hole courses formally routed, with tees just a few yards away from each previous green. The 2 18 holes routings are above 7000 yards with full par 5s, long and short par 4s, and par 3s of varied lengths.


In addition, the Pieres family has come up with a separate 18 hole routing that plays to their liking, which I think is not as good as the original routings, but still spectacular except for 1 hole where they came up with an internal OB for difficulty sake. Bear in mind these guys can drive it as long as PGA Tour players.


The massive double greens, many in the 14,000 to 16,000 square feet range, and up to 230 long, often feel like 3-4 different greens with 10-12 completely different pin positions. Bunkers also play completely different depending on where the flag is, with angles that change more than 90 degrees.


Of course this design has 2 restrictions: 1. No more than 2 groups can play at the same time and 2. fairway height of cut throughout the playing area. 

[David Davis]

Marcos,


Thanks for the comments. Of course all are spot on and very much add to the details that I neglected to mention.


I agree with you that Matt is clearly an up and coming talent and it's really nice to be able to provide the well deserved exposure for some really fantastic out of the box work.

[Tim Gallant]

David,


Wonderful write-up. I appreciate the differing sizes of bunkers, which seems silly to think about, but seeing a small coffin-like bunker as well as sprawling bunkers built into the sides of push-up greens is fantastic. I love the variety.

[MClutterbuck]

David,


Wonderful write-up. I appreciate the differing sizes of bunkers, which seems silly to think about, but seeing a small coffin-like bunker as well as sprawling bunkers built into the sides of push-up greens is fantastic. I love the variety.

Some greens are designed to be played into from 4 different angles, in one instance it is a par 3 green, in another it is a par 4 green, in another it is a par 5 green. The large and small bunkers are thoughtfully placed to change the character of the green for each different case.

[Tim Gallant]

David,


Wonderful write-up. I appreciate the differing sizes of bunkers, which seems silly to think about, but seeing a small coffin-like bunker as well as sprawling bunkers built into the sides of push-up greens is fantastic. I love the variety.

Some greens are designed to be played into from 4 different angles, in one instance it is a par 3 green, in another it is a par 4 green, in another it is a par 5 green. The large and small bunkers are thoughtfully placed to change the character of the green for each different case.

Genius!