china Hanse Across the Water

Whenever anyone brings up Gil Hanse’s name these days, most of us immediately think of Brazil and the coveted commission he recently won to design the golf course for the 2016 Olympics. But the Malvern, Pennsylvania-based architect was previously tapped to create new courses in at least five other countries, including a high-profile project in China that the PGA Tour is trying desperately to keep under wraps.

The course I’m not supposed to discuss will be the centerpiece of TPC Beijing, a venue that will be designed specifically to accommodate crowds for PGA Tour events and other prominent professional tournaments. The Tour and its local partner, Beijing-based Sunshine Valley Sports Development Company, Ltd., have been negotiating the project’s development parameters since 2010, if not before, and Hanse signed a design contract early last year.

What’s more, the Tour has assigned one of its touring pros, Adam Scott, to “co-design” the course with Hanse.

Nonetheless, the PGA Tour doesn’t want to talk about TPC Beijing.

“It’s not been announced yet,” says Steve Wenzloff, the Tour’s vice president of design services. “It’s not a live project.”

When will it be announced?

“We haven’t set a date yet,” Wenzloff replies.

Sunshine Valley plans to surround Hanse’s course with high-end houses and a hotel, and it aims to make TPC Beijing the premier golf club in the capital city.

If the club is built, it’ll be just the second Tournament Players Club to be licensed outside the United States. The other one is in Cancun, Mexico.

Of course, TPC Beijing can’t be built until China’s central government lifts its moratorium on golf construction. When that day comes, Hanse also turn his attention to another project he’s booked in China, East Port Golf Links in Tianjin.

These days Hanse’s list of upcoming work also includes new courses in South Korea (a to-be-named track on Anmyeondo Island), Mexico (the second course at the Querencia resort community in Cabo San Lucas), and Canada (Union Bay Golf Club on Vancouver Island), as well as two courses in the United States, in Oregon and Nebraska. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the renovations that Hanse will oversee at Doral Golf Resort in Miami, Florida.

But at the top of the list is the golf course in Rio de Janeiro, where construction is scheduled to begin this fall. The work in Brazil will occupy Hanse for 18 months or more, and only then will he be able to devote full-time attention his other design agreements.

The original version of this story first appeared in the May 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.