REPORT forced carries to add variable options. All of this allows for a wider skill range of golfers to play and enjoy themselves. Sandy wastes, beach, pot and splash bunkers, grassy hollows and bomb holes – you’ll find them all.” The course will have a combination of flat and rugged fairways, and some holes with plenty of bunkers (especially on the back nine) and others with only a couple (such as the first and second). “We have a pair of tiny greens and two or three huge ones, a forced carry or two, water-free tree-lined holes and an island par five following on from an island par three,” says Pern. “A course for all seasons and all tastes.” There have been some restrictions on the 100-hectare site, identified during the early stages of the project and planned for accordingly. These include seven voodoo shrines, some of which haven’t been touched, and others in the trees that were moved by priests. And in the middle of the site is a sacred grove, covering about half a hectare, that has been preserved and isolated. “The marshes, dunes, trees and voodoo shrines mean the golf course has to thread its way through these areas,” says Pern. “To escape the rise and fall of a seasonal water table and the wet season floods, low-lying playing areas were raised considerably, so opportunities for total fairway shaping were everywhere – resulting in some very interesting contouring. The highest point on the course is only three metres above the lowest, so in terms of topography it resembles a true links landscape, not a dunescape. “The crashing waves on the shore of the Gulf of Guinea are only a few hundred meters away. Like a genuine links course, the wind is ever-present; from mid-morning to mid-afternoon, the sea breezes rise and then fall. The lakes and wetlands are beginning to attract waterfowl and, in time, more will settle as the course will become replete with the wildlife that was driven away long ago by subsistence agriculture.” The architect says that the site’s sand “pretty much meets USGA rootzone specifications already” and that it has allowed him design freedom for creating greens. “The site has provided everything except the stones for the riprap on the lake edges,” says Pern. “The design has been carefully calibrated to exploit everything that the site has – big trees, water and wetlands, greens mix and bunker sand, organic matter and mangrove seedlings.” Pern and Gregori International have worked together on several projects, including the nine-hole course at Golf Soldeu in Andorra, which opened in 2008, and Casa Green Golf Club in Casablanca, Morocco, which opened in 2013. “I’ve never worked on a project that has achieved so much in such a short space of time,” says Xavier Gregori, CEO of Gregori International. “We have been blessed with an almost perfect site for a golf course – sand, trees and water in abundance. Having said that, I believe that what has made this project exceptional is the fact that there has been a single company with a design-and-build turnkey contract working for the government whose support and trust in our team has been consistent and solid.” 73 Image: The design office of Gregori International Pern has routed the course over a long, thin stretch of land of about 100 hectares
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