Golf Course Architecture - Issue 64, April 2021

58 group Golf Estate swooped in and, in just a few months, a deal to purchase San Roque was done. Responsibility for the club’s revival now lay with its new president Stephen Dundas. Dundas – a former British Amateur champion who also competed in the 1993 Masters – was drawn to the proposals detailed in Clarkin’s report to the members. Sensing that they shared a common vision for a golf course that would be firm and fast, enjoyable to play and sustainable, and would complement a new ethos he was developing for the club – he made contact. They agreed that the bones of the course’s original routing by Dave Thomas were strong, making good use of the undulating terrain and sitting at ease with the low-density housing that lines a handful of its fairways. But time had taken its toll; tree growth was shrouding the holes and too many of the hazards had either become less relevant or were more of a hindrance to enjoyment than a strategic challenge. Dundas says: “My first thought was to make the golf course as dry as possible – I wanted it to play firm and fast. But it also had to be sustainable. A lot of projects start off grand, but can’t be maintained after three or four years.” This focus on sustainability would be a driver for many of the design decisions. A plan was drawn up to remove almost half the bunkers and 18 hectares of maintained turf would be replaced with mulch. A new state- of-the-art irrigation system from Rain Bird would contribute to a reduction in water use estimated to be somewhere between 35 and 50 percent – a massive saving given the cost of water in southern Spain. “The length of the course would be shorter too – bucking the trend,” says Dundas. “I never had the temptation to THE SAN ROQUE CLUB A bark mulch has been used throughout the course to reduce the amount of maintained turf, saving water and labour