The Defence Housing Authority of Karachi has selected Faldo Design to create an eighteen-hole golf course that will be part of a new development near the city, located on Pakistan’s south coast.

With a working title of Fairwinds Signature Golf Course and Country Club, the layout is one component of the proposed masterplanned community of 20,000 acres, DHA City Karachi, which also includes real estate, a hospital, a university, schools, and recreational facilities. According to a DHA masterplan unveiled in 2011, the community is 56 kilometres from Karachi and is planned to be self-dependent for water and electricity.

The selection of Faldo Design for the new golf course follows the firm’s Rumanza project, which opened in Multan, Pakistan, in early 2022.

“When Sir Nick saw the site and given our very good experience working on the Rumanza project, we were very interested in doing another design in Pakistan,” said Andy Haggar, lead architect at Faldo Design. “Our brief is to design a golf course capable of hosting international tournaments. This will be a golf and country club, so the course also needs to be one that members can enjoy.”

Haggar and the Faldo team have started work on developing a golf course routing with the aim of entering construction in late 2023, after the monsoon season. The course will be developed with assistance from GEO Foundation.

“We are just beginning to look at the routing options for the course,” said Haggar. “Our intention is to explore every corner of this extremely interesting site and to make the most of everything it has to offer. We will be looking to incorporate as many of the natural features as possible into the layout, whether that be physically or visually.

“The golf course will be an international standard facility. Like Rumanza, the design will feature core golf and we, with GEO’s input, aim to create an extremely natural and unique course landscape.”

It is expected that the course could open in 2025.