Ernie’s pledge: a thing of beauty

ERNIE ELS flew over the site at Hangman’s Point near Kinsale and was so enthused with what he witnessed, he immediately made favourable comparisons with Pebble Beach.

The exciting course development, which takes its name from an historical local landmark, will be built on a spectacular cliff-top location overlooking the ocean and incorporating breathtaking views of the Kinsale coastline.

The complex will also include a five star Hyatt hotel, holiday resort lodges, conference facilities, a destination spa and an indoor and outdoor equestrian centre managed by Nick Skelton, the former British show jumping star. XCES Projects, an international property development consortium, is behind the venture which is expected to cost €200m.

Els will also design a links-style course at Kilmore Quay, Co Wexford, in a similar project.

Els came to Ireland on Saturday and having overseen the sites at Kinsale and Kilmore Quay, made his way to Adare for the J.P. McManus pro-am. "The Big Easy" was in his customary good humour nothing could dampen his enthusiasm for a task which, if planning obstacles are overcome, could establish Els as one of golf's foremost designers.

"This is my design team's tenth job with the first at Oubaai in South Africa now complete," he explained. "The interesting thing is that the site there is very similar to what we have at Hangman's Point. From the air, it looks almost identical. This is a beautiful site and while the weather is the weather, we will work with it. We will design a course where there will be a bit of space to put the ball in play because it's going to be as windy as hell. My design philosophy is to give the guys enough room and we will challenge the better player with back tees and so on.

"Designing a golf course on an exposed cliff-top isn't the easiest. And obviously it's very exposed so there are times, like with all other golf courses, when it could be almost unplayable. But this place is unique; you don't have sites like this cropping up every day, so when they do, you want to get involved and tackle the challenges. Dirk Bouts of the Jack Nicklaus organisation is the designer I'll be working with. We are doing a course in Dubai together. I like his style, he listens to me, we will put our heads together with European Golf Design and come up with something really good.

"The whole trick is to design a course that challenges players of my calibre, while being enjoyable for amateurs. I always look at a site with the mind-set of having a professional golf tournament there. You work from the tees forward because it's hard to say I'm going to put a green here because you've got to find a way of getting there and this site will challenge us in that way."

Those people who wonder where modern golf course architects are going with courses i.e. playable only by the best golfers who will only play there once a year, will be reassured by Els's words. He is definitely correct in his assessment of Hangman's Point as a spectacular site and one which a design team of his quality will turn into a testing and beautiful course. But if he had any illusions about how trying the weather can be, even in summer, at such an exposed location, they were dispelled by the wind howling around the place at the weekend.

"Of course, I've played courses where I wonder how amateurs could ever get around them", he admitted.

"You can play St Andrews going left all the time but that's the tougher way to score. You've got to get the right angles to the flags. Look at Augusta. What are you going to do around Augusta? Then there was Pinehurst a few weeks ago. If we designed golf courses today like they did back then, we'd be shot. It's easy to criticise golf courses but the whole trick is to get something that challenges but which isn't crazy."

It will not be easy although the 280 acres at his disposal should help. The playing area of the Old Course at St Andews is about a third of that.

This could be better than Pebble Beach. It's beautiful and I intend to spend a lot of time here. My home is in London so I can pop over quite easily. I'm not one of those guys who come in and says hello and disappears. I like to get involved, to speak to the guys on a regular basis, that's the way it's been with the other projects. My contract says three or four days but I'll be here more often. I want to know what my designers are thinking in what we are trying to create.

"I'm not a great fan of long par threes. There might be one out of four where you have to reach for a two iron or something but I like to choose middle iron par threes, very well bunkered. Also I don't like uphill short holes. They don't make sense. You'd like to give the guy a bit of space at the first hole. And people love to talk about finishing holes, such as Pebble Beach, I think there should be a par three in the last four and maybe a reachable five. This is a big piece of land so with the wind blowing, we can have huge landing areas and challenge the guy on the second shot."

Els is happy to leave any planning problems to the developers and concentrating on getting the golf course up and running as soon as is practicable: "Once we start, we should have it completed in about two years although the weather plays a part in this. It's a big project but because this place is so dramatic, I know we can create something great. I've enough houses around the world so I won't need one here, but we can always come to Ireland on holiday like I've done in the past with my dad when we played the great Irish links Ballybunion, Waterville, Portrush, Royal Co Down, Royal Dublin, Portmarnock."