25 It is an incredible, tropical location that is on the same time zone as most of Europe. It’s 28C (82F) most of the year, has some cloud cover and a nice breeze – the site and location couldn’t be more perfect for golf. Tim knew you can’t just build one golf course; you must build three or four to make it a destination. Can you provide some insight into what the course will be like? The golf will be built first on the western side of the development, with the resorts to follow. The first layout will be a linksy style championship course. Linksy in terms of the general shaping, but we’ve also got five coastal holes. The rest will wind through quite rocky lunar landscapes, a bit like Black Desert in Utah, which is an absolute masterpiece, and that is 100 per cent the sort of visual that I would be going for. We have exactly that type of volcanic terrain to allow us to do a similar combination of the perfect turfgrass contrasting with the rocky, lunar landscape. Every parcel has a boundary that is preordained, so we had to fit our golf within those boundaries. I wanted to get as far away from the clubhouse as I could with a view to pulling in as much of the coastline… and our plan pretty much achieves that. We’ve got a green finishing on the coast, a par three and par four alongside it, a tee that plays away from the beach but the hole after then plays back towards the coast and will provide a fantastic sunset view. This first course will be around 7,200 yards and will be the resort’s jewel in the crown. A second will be around 7,000 yards and slightly less challenging, with the third, which will be built further from the coast in the ‘backlands’, around 6,800 yards. How will this project be sustainable? All the water will be created by reverse osmosis (RO) desalinisation, powered by a massive solar farm. The entirety of the development is aiming to be hydrocarbon-free and not reliant on any diesel backup or grid support for electricity. Water will be generated by our own machines – this is why you won’t see many lakes on the courses, because we don’t want to lose it to evaporation. We have some around the clubhouse, but these will be saltwater lakes. We’re going to be using salt tolerant grasses, so we don’t have to squeeze every last drop of salt out of the RO delivery. TEE BOX The first phase will include construction of the Tarafo Bay Links course Image: International Design Group
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