The Week That Was: March 20, 2011

china Round Two at Xili

Next month, the architects at Golfplan will resume their renovation of Xili Golf Club in Shenzhen Province.

The club, which opened in 1995, has a pair of 18-hole courses that were designed by Robin Nelson and Neil Haworth. It's hired Golfplan, a firm founded by Ron Fream, to regrass the courses' greens and rebuild their bunkers.

Kevin Ramsey, an associate at Fream's Santa Rosa, California-based firm, reports that the greens will be converted to TifEagle bermuda.

“This particular turf was not even available for commercial use in China until recently,” he said in a press release, “and this technical leap forward will provide a significant upgrade in the quality of course conditioning.”

The club is located in the Nam Shan area of Shenzhen, a short drive north of Hong Kong. Work on one of the complex's nines has already been completed, and the club plans to do the three remaining nines over the next three years.

scotland No Bull: The Angus is Primed To Go

Mike Forbes has enlisted Darren Clarke, the Irish golf pro, to put his “signature” on a “championship-standard” golf course to be built on farmland just west of Carnoustie.

The community will be called the Angus, and it'll take shape outside the village of Wellbank. Along with the golf course, Forbes plans to build 160 houses, a “five-star” hotel, a spa, and a golf teaching center designed especially for children.

Elected officials approved the Angus in late 2010, but Forbes isn't yet ready to start construction. He's searching for a hotelier and other developers who can build a foundation for his dreams. He recently told local officials that his project has drawn the interest of investors from China and the United States.

“We want to build a world-class golf course that is supported by world-class facilities,” Forbes said. “To do this, we need experts in golf, hotel, and tourism provision to lead the way forward.”

Forbes, a former farmer and fly-fishing champion, has already built one golf course, a nine-hole track at the Forbes of Kingennie country resort in nearby Dundee. Kingennie's course was designed by Graeme Webster of Niblick Golf Design in Moss, Norway, who'll co-design Clarke's course at the Angus.

pakistan Doing It for the Kids

The Pakistan Golf Federation has endorsed a plan to build a golf course and a teaching center for juniors in Islamabad.

The facility will occupy 150 acres and, according to a report in Dawn, provide training to youngsters “irrespective of their status in society.”

Paraphrasing a spokesman for the PGF, Dawn also said that the facility is “likely to set the pace for development of golf in the country.”

russia Family Fun in Moscow

Any day now, Thomson Perrett & Lobb is expected to break ground on a golf academy at the largest sports center in Europe.

The academy will take shape at the Luzhniki Olympic Complex in Moscow, which is home to some of Russia’s most famous sports stadiums and reportedly attracts 5 million athletes and fans annually. South Melbourne, Australia-based TPL plans to outfit the facility with a nine-hole, par-3 golf course (six of its holes will share two greens), a driving range, practice putting greens, and indoor golf simulators.

“We’ve concentrated on creating a golf facility that will be fun for all the family and enable the people of Moscow to experience and learn to play golf in a relaxed environment that everyone can enjoy,” said Tim Lobb, who designed the academy.

Dimitry Aleshin, Luzhniki’s deputy director of development, has said that TPL got the commission because it has “significant experience taking golf into new markets and understands what it takes to make golf an attractive and complementary choice to the established sports in Russia.”

Assuming that construction stays on schedule, the academy will open next year.