russia Forrest Service

Earlier this year Steve Forrest was in Morocco, checking on the progress of the 18-hole golf course he’s designed for the Chrifia resort community in Marrakesh. He's also planning a trip to Russia, as he has an 18-hole course in St. Petersburg that could break ground this spring.

Forrest isn't willing to discuss new the course, but he did mention that this summer he expects to resume construction on Forest Hills Golf & Country Club in suburban Moscow. Work on the club’s 7,300-yard course began several years ago (12 holes were completed) but was suspended when its developer, Oleg Kustikov of Protcion Company, got into a financial pinch.

Forrest, a principal of Toledo, Ohio-based Arthur Hills & Associates, reports that “a new investor with money” has given the project life. We don’t know exactly what the new investor has in mind, but Kustikov, who owned 550 acres, had planned to build vacation houses and a five-star hotel adjacent to the course.

Forrest hopes to open his 7,000-yard course at Chrifia in the spring of 2012, but he doesn’t foresee picking up any additional business in Morocco anytime soon.

“We’re putting our eggs in China and Russia,” he says.