Golf Course Architecture - Issue 64, April 2021

65 so common on new courses. “It is almost a dream, being able to shape a course and then leave it for years to naturalise,” he says happily. “It looks phenomenal – the transition from golf, through small plants, to big plants is fantastic. We are clearing the growth very selectively to make the best possible use of this – we have our backdrops and we’re clearing where we want playable areas to be. But the landscape palette is quite wonderful.” Although architect Kidd has not yet been able to get back to the site during this phase of construction, Walsh says he is very closely involved in the process. “David is 100 per cent involved in the work,” he explains. “We chat and FaceTime every day, and send sketches of particular features back and forth all the time. There’s no cutting him out – this is still going to be a David McLay Kidd course.” Kidd said: “If it hadn’t been for the pandemic, we would have figured out how to get our crew out to finish the course. But in the circumstances we had to find another solution, so I told the client that Conor was the best choice, given that he shaped the course originally. I knew that, with Conor’s talent and the team he has around him, he would be able to get it done.” The site at Comporta is beautifully sandy, and the Portuguese climate is extremely suitable for good growth of golfing turf – Walsh says that germination is taking only four days, and fairways can be mowed within two weeks of seeding – but it isn’t all plain sailing. The sand, he explains, is hydrophobic, so has needed to be amended to give the grass the best chance to prosper. Fairways are getting organic soil amendments, while zeolite is being used in the greens. Walsh says that the plan is to have the entire course seeded by the first week of June. It will then be left to grow in for more than a year, before an official opening in late summer of 2022. As co-owner Amorim’s business interests include a chain of small luxury hotels, one will naturally be built at Comporta, while the development also includes a number of substantial real estate plots. It has taken longer than expected, but the Comporta project is finally getting moving. GCA The entire course is expected to be seeded by the first week of June