Top 100 Golf Courses in Britain and Ireland 2009

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99 d o wn 5

Goodwood Braid, 1914 7,100 yards, par 72 Chichester, West Sussex

Green fees: Members only.

ContaCt: 01243 755133, www.goodwood.co.uk Club Comment: A couple of greens have been relaid since 2006.

This is a wonderful, mature parkland course with impressive views over the West Sussex countryside; on a clear day you can even see the Isle of Wight. It was originally a James Braid design and there are lots of Braid trademarks such as blind tee shots, cross bunkering and interesting dog-legs. The greens are notable for their subtle borrows. It is one of the finest downland courses in the country set against the backdrop of the grand estate.

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Interv Iew

Kyle PhilliPs The designer of Kingsbarns talks about contours, copying and colt.

WORDS BY RichaRD GReen

I studied landscape architecture and got a job with Trent Jones straight away in 1981. I spent the next 16 years working for them. I remember telling my dad I was going to design courses; he asked what I was really going to do. I did my thesis on golf design and took every chance I could to improve my knowledge: agronomy, surveying, horticulture, civil engineering.

Now I can look at a map and see contours in 3D. I’ve spent a long time working in Europe and I love it. My mother is of Italian descent, but Kyle is a Scottish name. I’ve got a wild combination of stoic craziness.

I’m the highest living architect in GB&I’s top 100 courses. Perhaps I need to check my life insurance. I’ve always liked traditional golf. Despite all the money in new golf, I’m fascinated to know why we always look back over our shoulders to courses designed a century ago by Englishmen and Scotsmen. They had great sites, they could choose which trees to cut or keep. They could create natural courses, especially as they didn’t have the moving equipment we do now.

David Kidd and Tom Doak did some great work in the States with Bandon Dunes.

None of us know each other really well, but we have met and talked. Our backgrounds are very different; we all got to where we are in different ways, but we share a lot of the same goals in our work.

Working in Europe all these years really helped me to understand the traditions of heathland or links architecture. In the US, they view links as being under one umbrella, but the differences between say Prestwick and the Old Course and Turnberry and Lytham are huge. Our mission is to make new courses have an old feel to them.

Mind you, if you picked up an American and put them on the Old Course or Prestwick they’d come back raving about how great it all was. But if you redesigned their home course like that they’d go mad.

I try to understand what is in the owner’s head, try to extract part of their vision. At The Grove they didn’t really want an American style course. I visited local courses – Swinley Forest, Sunningdale, Wentworth – and brought back pictures to communicate to the owners what could be done, showing that although it wasn’t a heathland we could give it an English feel.

In the routing I am thinking about the type of shots you hit, not about the length of the holes. I am prepared to have back-toback par 4s of the same length as long as they play in different ways. I try to walk the course and think about what clubs, or what shots, you’d play on the par 3s. I’m not opposed to any order, it depends on the land or any special features of the site.

I don’t think it is the architect’s place to have an opinion on the technology issue.

We are designing for the game today under the rules of golf of today. Go back to Vardon and Ray and they were playing 6,200-yard courses, then during the Colt era it went up to 6,400 and now you are talking 7,600 – some are even going over 8,000. Where does it stop?

Where you have nice natural sites you can minimise the earthmoving. Colt was brilliant at using the natural contours to determine the routing. In those days it really worked well as you had great sites and no restrictions. Nowadays you have to create these landforms. My job is to make what I have done look easy. People go to play courses because of the course, the experience. Not who designed it.

What I like about Colt are his greens. He had a lot of subtle contours that work well for today’s quicker speeds. MacKenzie greens were a bit crazy. I like being able to have benign pins, but still be able to put them on the edges for the pros. Part of the defence is the run-offs, rather than the sticky rough you get nowadays.

Fa c t F i l e

Kyle Phillips Design experience: 1981 – 1997: RTJ II design 1997 onwards Kyle Phillips Design Best known designs: Kingsbarns, The Grove, Dundonald, Royal Westmoreland, The Wisley, Penha Longa Favourite green complex: No.5 Morfontaine This bathtub style green is a great demonstration of Tom Simpson’s ability to combine art and golf.

Favourite view: The 16th tee at Cypress Point.

I loved to hang out on it when it hosted the Bing Crosby.

Best hole you’ve designed: a. No.6 Kingsbarns. b. Most rewarding was No.5 at The Grove, as in preconstruction it was on the worst area of the site. Now it’s said to be one of, if not the, best par 4 on the course.

Site you wish you’d been given: Cashen Site at Ballybunion.

I like the old world look… walking a course is part of the soul of the game. If I have to include cart paths I try to keep them hidden from the tee. I’d love to get the perfect site but I like the challenge of trying to work with different sites.

We all draw influence from other courses, but that is not the same as copying. The 18th green at Kingsbarns was certainly influenced by the 16th hole at Turnberry, although the approach is slightly different.

Both are swing holes and are great for tournament play. You can make three or you can make a six just as easily. It is like Amen Corner at Augusta National.

The 17th and 18th there are holes where you can lose a shot, but it is the mid section that makes it.

Favourite holes? That’s a tough one. My favourite par 3 has to be the 156-yard 6th at Lahinch. It’s infamous for it’s blindness, but MacKenzie has created a one-of-akind historic hole that is fun to play. My favourite par 4 is the 6th at Kingsbarns. At 337 yards, placing the tee shot is essential to access a fall-away green nestled amidst the dunes. With the right wind, long drives over the right-hand fairway bunker can reach the green. The choice of par 5 is quite easy: No. 18 Pebble Beach. It’s the ultimate oceanside finishing hole, with risk and reward carry over the ocean left off the tee and out of bounds looming on the right. My favourite bunker in the world just has to be the front right at Royal Troon’s No.8 Postage Stamp. It has a tightly cut slope that drops down sharply to the bunker, making for one of the toughest recoveries in golf.

If I’m on a plane I’m always looking at the land and thinking about the course I could put there. It drives me mad. It is tough for me to enjoy playing golf because I am fixated with looking at the design and how it was constructed. I guess at least it means I am interested in my business.

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Kyle classics Dundonald, left, and The Grove are two of the United Kingdom’s best new courses.

Kyle’s favourite ‘natural’ hole The 15th at Kingsbarns was one that simply jumped out. “When I first saw it, I wondered how the guys at Pebble Beach felt when they first walked on the site.”

Before, during and after at the 15th at KingsBarns In the beginning With the site secured, planning for Kingsbarns began in the mid-1990s.

Nearly there Ground was broken in late 1997, with construction taking three years.

Bedding in After leaving the course to settle in for a year, it opened in 2000.

The finished article Within a year it was hosting the Dunhill Links Championship.

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Talk of The T Does the long-awaited Castle Course in St Andrews WORDS BY RICHARD GREEN PHOTOGRAPHY BY LC LAMBRECHT & RuSSELL kIRk

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hig he st Ne W eNtRY

Castle Course, St andrews McLay Kidd, 2008 7,188 yards, par 71 St Andrews, Fife

Green fees: Summer rate (until October 18) £117.50 a round. October 19-31, £82. cOnTacT: 01334 464501, www.standrews.org.uk cLuB cOMMenT: No changes – it’s a new course.

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Toon meet expectations?

Point of view The stunning par-4 6th hole enjoys the Home of Golf as its backdrop.

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Doonbeg Norman, 2001 6,911 yards, par 72 County Clare, Ireland

Green fees: Monday-Thursday €200, €210 Friday-Sunday.

ContaCt: 00 353 6590 55600, www.doonbeggolfclub.com CLUB CoMMent: A few new tee boxes added, some of the rough has been cut back and the slopes on a couple of the greens have been softened.

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top 100 Courses

restoring waterville Tom Fazio’s fiveyear labour of love is finally complete.

By Jerry Murray, Chairman of the Greens Committee.

13 up 5

Waterville Hackett, 1973 7,341 yards, par 72 County Kerry, Ireland

Green fees: Mon-Thurs before 8am or after 4pm (not Bank Holidays), €115. Week days €180.

Weekends €190. Second rounds €130.

ContaCt: 00 353 66 947 4102, www.watervillegolflinks.ie Club Comment: Most recently, the 13th hole has been redesigned – the green was straight up the fairway, but now it’s to the right side. It’s still a par 5.

The 7th fairway drain has been closed and domes re-shaped. Tom Fazio’s renovation is now complete (see separate story, right).

We wanted to redo a lot of the bunkers, the practice ground was a liability and two holes were so average that something had to be done (we ended up creating two new holes, 6 & 7). That’s not to mention the drainage problem.

I managed to persuade Tom Fazio to take it on and he came over and then presented Plan A, which covered those things, and then Plan B which had some other general observations.

He then told us how excited all his guys were about the place and decided to show us Plan C. This was the stuff they really wanted to do. We were blown away. One of our top guys just stood up and said “let’s go for it”. So we went into it with gusto and after Plan C we got D, E, F and G. It’s been the most extraordinary experience and after three winters, a year off and then last winter, it’s pretty much there.

The 1st hole sums up what we were trying to achieve. Tom looked at the hole and felt it was a bit sad. It was flat and open, so he put in a huge series of dunes on the right to divert attention from an open field.

Then we dug up a huge amount of fill from the area to the left of the 2nd, used it to make more dunes and now when you stand on the fairway you can’t see any other holes.

But it wasn’t simply a question of building a dune. To create a 30ft dune, Tom would start it 100 feet to the north and south, and 50ft to the east and west so that it gradually climbs to its full size. It’s about integrating into nature.

You’d never know that they weren’t original features of the land and that’s what all of this was about.

Even the tees look like they were cut out of the dunes.

The new bunkering will really challenge better players but we’ve been so careful to ensure that the course is fair to the regular player.

We all like to think that we’ve managed it.

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