This week Luxehills Country Club becomes only the eighth golf course in China to play host to the Volvo China Open and promises to set the toughest of tests for whoever has designs on the RMB3.3million (Approx. US$500,000) first prize.
When the Volvo China Open joined the European Tour back in 2004, the golf course hosting this year’s event was midway through a four-year construction project, transforming neglected semi-rural land into Chengdu’s showpiece golf and residential development.
And it was to a man, Mark E Hollinger, and a practice, JMP Golf Design that the Luxehills developers turned, the California-based design house having over three-score years experience creating some of the finest – and most demanding – golf courses, not only in their native North America but also is Asia in general and China in particular.
A dozen courses and counting in the PRC since the pioneering Beijing Golf Club was opened in 1987 when golf was barely in its infancy, the inaugural Volvo China Open still seven-years-hence.
“Due to our previous involvement on another highly-successful integrated golf project in Southern China involving a golf and residential development, we were recommended to the owners of Luxehills,” explains Mark E Hollinger, one of three partners at JMP Golf Design Group, adding, “The owners has a strong vision of doing something quite different – bold – but needed guidance of golf and whether Chengdu might have a potential golf market.”
Construction commenced back in 2003, with the course opening in 2007and, as Hollinger explains, there were some challenges along the way.
“I had a totally blank canvas on which to work, the existing conditions offering little as to my overall vision,” he explains, adding, “So it presented something of a daunting task.”
He continued, “The owners team is a very clever group of outward thinking people, having learned from extensive travel and research around the world, visiting similar projects, and, as it turned out, they made very good decisions along the way and continually tried to do things which were, at the time, being done in few other places in China.”
Chengduhas been and continues to undergo very significant changes, from the rich agricultural ‘land of abundance,’ into a thriving, modern capital city of Sichuan Province, a population of almost 12 million and rated the fourth most desirable city to live in by China Daily.
“The underlying design philosophy for Luxehills was to create an exhilarating walk in nature, the main purpose of the golf course to help sell real estate, to create a country club setting,” continues Mark Hollinger, adding, “The focus of the golf course at that time was to create a great golf experience for residents and members, more so than staging major golfing events, which has come as something of a bonus.”
Working within an overall master-planning team with the residential architects and landscape consultants, the end result at Luxehills is a very joined-up approach to an upmarket lifestyle, neither golf, nor housing, nor the considerable open spaces dominating, the whole certainly greater than the sum of its parts.
But that balance was not achieved by accident, but by design, Mark Hollinger, a member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, the American Society of Landscape Architects explaining, “We made sure there was a balanced relationship between the residential areas and golf course, up to eight metres.
“We moved almost 1.5million cubic metres of earth to create the many unique features, each and every one of the thousands of tress and shrubs planted by us, everything imagined, designed and created from scratch.”
But, whilst the Chengdu area may be ideal for agriculture, hence its reputation as the, ‘Land of bountiful harvest,” the climate created some problems from a golf course perspective, Hollinger and his team conducting considerable turf testing, which led them to a combination of warm and cool season turf grasses.
“The lack of consistent sunshine during some periods of the year presented us with some headaches during the grow-in period, so we used a combination of cool season A1 and A4 creeping bent grass on the greens, Kentucky bluegrass on the tees, whilst the fairways and rough were planted with warm season Salem Paspalum,” he explains.
“The overall environment and natural ambiance, which the golf course helps to create was the driving force behind all the design elements, on and off course, lakes, streams, waterfalls, outcrops of rock, extensive colourful landscaping with a richness of textures and forms, creating natural habitats for the flora and fauna that now occupy what was getting quite close to waste land before we moved on site.”
Hollinger, together with his two JMP partners, Brian E Costello and Robert Moore Jr. eschew the big name, ‘Signature’ courses that bear the name but little else of some of the world’s leading golfers past and present.
“There are very few touring professional of celebrity golf course designers who actually work at designing courses, they merely franchise their name, sometimes even employing a specialist golf course designer to perform those services,” says Hollinger, proud of his track record and reputation in Asia, and especially in China.
“I spend over 100 days each year travelling all around China, servicing my numerous design commissions, as I have been doing for the past 20 years [and] as a golf course architect in Asia, if you want to work consistently on quality projects, you must be physically there, be prepared to spend a good deal of time in the field, defending the integrity of your designs.”
After four years in play, Luxehills had matured sufficiently to stage to RMB6.5million Luxehills Chengdu Open, won by Chinese number-one Liang Wenchong, who says of Luxehills, “Of course, I like the golf course very much and not just because I won there last year.”
He explains, “It is a very tough course, but very fair, good shots are rewarded, bad shots punished and it forces you to use your imagination, to play every club in the bag and to improvise, so it is very challenging, but also great fun.”
Even at a cost of over RMB120 million for the golf course alone – the expansive clubhouse would have added a further RMB10 million, the developers will have turned a handsome profit, with properties said to be changing hands for between RMB5 million for a modest property, right up to a rumoured RMB25million for the top-of-the-range landmark residences.
But let there be no doubt, Luxehills has earned the right to join that small, exclusive number of golf clubs in China to have had the honour of hosting the country’s national open golf championship.
Opening-up with a Par-5, 523-yard risk-and-reward hole, followed by the scenic 208-yard Par-3 where the plateau green sits atop an outcrop of rock, and a Par-4, at 431-yards, far less simple than it looks.
With almost 150 bunkers and extensive water hazards, Luxehills allows no let-up in concentration, course management absolutely essential, the final three holes throwing down the toughest of challenges to the leading groups on the late afternoon of Sunday 24th April.
“We took the approach from the outset that the [Luxehills] course was going to be a series of 18 ‘signature holes,’ each hole standing alone as something visually dramatic and strategically interesting,” says designer Mark Hollinger, concluding, “I did focus on creating an exciting – and challenging – finish, a final flourish of Par-5, Par-3 and Par-5.”
And the American is not wrong in his estimation.
At 569-yards, the Par-5 16th is the second longest on the golf course, whilst the Par-3 17th, relatively short at 196-yards is well defended by bunkers, whilst Hollinger saves the best ‘til last, the gargantuan 18th, Par-5, at 602-yards playing into an island green, the margins between glory and grief wafer thin, especially given the Gold Jacket and RMB3.3 million (Approx. US$500,000) on offer for the winner of the Volvo China Open.
Co-sanctioned by the European Tour and OneAsia, the RMB20 million (Approx. US$3million) Volvo China Open takes place at Luxehills International Country Club from Thursday 21st – Sunday 24th April 2011.
