Siam Country Club in Thailand has opened a new golf course designed by Toby Cobb.

The club, owned by the Phornprapha family that built the Siam Motors car dealership business, has four existing courses (Old, Plantation, Waterside and Rolling Hills) in Pattaya, which is 60 miles southeast of the Thai capital. Cobb’s design, the club’s fifth course, is located east of Bangkok, approximately 20 minutes south of Suvarnabhumi International Airport.

Construction of Cobb’s Bangkok course began in March 2019 and was completed in February 2021, with the club opening the layout to members in December. Golf magazine has the course listed as one of the most anticipated openings of 2022.

“It was a very challenging site,” said Cobb, who has previously worked with Coore & Crenshaw and Renaissance Golf Design. “It’s one-and-a-half-feet above sea level and was previously rice paddies. About one metre down you would run into marine clay that was like soup. It had to be dug out and spread out for two weeks for it to dry enough to move and shape. Because of the marine clay, we were limited to three feet of fill and three feet of cut. The weight of more than three feet of fill would have been too heavy for the ground and would sink down overnight.”

Cobb also mentions that the site’s lack of elevation change presented the project team with some challenges in relation to flood protection and drainage. Contractor Golf East made use of its local knowledge of the site’s soils to overcome these issues and build the course.

“I still don’t know how to describe the style of the course,” said Cobb. “I’ve told many that it’s a hybrid links course as it has linksy-looking ground with some trees. I wanted to do something different from Coore & Crenshaw. The goal was to create something completely different from all the other courses in the area; water is the main feature of those layouts, with some having water on every hole.”

Some of the bunkers have been built in what Cobb describes as a hybrid style, with grass faces that are typical of pot bunkers, but they are quite large and have movement both within and on top of the faces.

“I was lucky that the owner, Phornthep Phornprapha, believed in me enough to let me do something different to the other courses,” said Cobb.