The Week That Was, july 17, 2011

brazil The Olympics' Sense of Site

The golf events of the 2016 Olympics have found their home, and it'll be just a hop, a skip, and a jump from the Olympic village.

The to-be-designed course will be built on a site called Riserva Uno, in southwestern Rio de Janeiro. Riserva Uno is located in an upscale neighborhood known as Barra da Tijuca, where about half of the games' venues -- not to mention the athletes' residences and their private beach -- will be located.

During a press conference at the Open Championship, Peter Dawson of the Royal & Ancient said that “commercial negotiations are underway to acquire that site.”

I've never been to Rio, let alone to Barra. A South American blogger has described it as “very American, with big shopping centers and broad streets difficult to cross for pedestrians.” Wikipedia calls it “one of the richest places in the country,” a place that's “believed to be the safest of Rio's upper-class neighborhoods,” and “the home of the Brazilian high society, celebrities, and soccer stars.”

Still to be determined is the course's designer. At his press conference, Dawson said that the selection would be made soon, as the Olympic organizers want to give the course a test drive in 2015.

vietnam Love and Other Tragedies

Government officials in Thai Nguyen Province have approved a master plan that will transform Nui Coc Lake in into what's been described as “a national tourism area.”

The officials have begun hunting for private interests willing to develop nearly 48,000 acres around the man-made lake, which is located just east of Tam Dao National Park, about 60 miles north of Hanoi. The lake, already a prime tourist attraction, currently offers a variety of eco-friendly activities, some modest overnight accommodations, a water park, and other attractions. By 2020, the province's people's committee hopes to give it a destination sheen with the obligatory resort-style hotels, sports facilities, and entertainment areas.

An 18-hole golf course is already said to be in planning.


Nui Coc Lake spreads over 6,500 acres and is dotted by 89 islets. All the travel-related websites I visited rave about its scenery. One said it looks “more like a water-color painting than a real landscape.”

The lake also attracts people in search of a romantic holiday, as it's said to be the backdrop for a legendary (and tragic) love story involving a guy named Coc and a girl named Cong. I'm not going to get into the details. I'll simply note that a travel writer once called the story “a Vietnamese Romeo and Juliet.”

And I'll add this: Maybe the tale of the star-crossed lovers isn't the only tragedy at work here.

canada Weir and Andrew Sing the Blue

The members of Le Club Laval-sur-le-Lac in suburban Montreal have agreed to radically make over their Blue course. The work is scheduled to begin this fall, and the course is expected to reopen in the spring of 2013, to coincide with the club's 100th anniversary.

The friendly persuaders were Mike Weir, Canada’s top professional golfer, and Ian Andrew, the nation’s most promising architect. They've convinced the club to make big changes to the course, in an attempt to land the Canadian Open in 2017.

The bullet points: six of the course's holes will be completely redesigned, and the others will be thoroughly upgraded. In addition, the layout will be stretched by roughly 300 yards, to a length just short of 7,200 yards.

“Our idea is to create variety and a thinking man’s game to the golf course,” Weir told the Montreal Gazette. “That’s our strength, and we’re looking forward to this challenge. And I think we’re going to be able to accomplish that.”

Laval-sur-le-Lac, the oldest French-language private club in North America, has committed $6 million to the renovation.