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THE wheel has turned full circle for golf on the Costa del Sol. Forty years after Robert Trent Jones Senior built the first two courses at Sotogrande to kick-start European golf tourism, the scion of another US architectural dynasty has created a comparable masterpiece on the adjacent San Roque Club resort.
Comparable is an apposite adverb. While the architectural style and terrain are only vaguely similar, Perry Dye’s creation has elevated the stylish San Roque into the exclusive echelons of European golf resorts of which neighbouring Valderrama is the flagship.
Known as the New Course, it perfectly compliments the David Thomas lay-out that transformed the site back in the 1980s and which put San Roque onto the world stage of golf.
Both Trent Jones and David Thomas had expansive sites on which to practice their arts. In this case, Perry Dye, son of the illustrious Pete, found a limited canvas at odds with the magnanimous acreage to which most architects are accustomed.
The New Course is laid over a scant 45 hectares, a vaguely triangular-shaped oblong lying parallel to the ocean and with a sacrosanct nature reserve running along one boundary. To complicate matters, its centrepiece was a huge hill festooned with cork and oak trees. Plainly, “shifting dirt,” as the Dye dynasty has it, was a priority, as was transplanting trees, hundreds of them.
Because of a wet winter, two years were to pass before the first ball was struck, in September 2003.
The consensus: it may be one of the finest new resort courses in Europe and certainly one of the most beautiful. Visually it is a joy; technically it is a masterpiece of the art, fun for beginners and a thorough test for those capable of strutting the back tees.
Because of the shape of the site most of the holes run east to west, or the reverse, so the prevailing winds, from the mountains or the sea, are generally across the line of shot. The exceptions are holes 4, 5, 6, and 13 that lie at right angles at one end of the site. There are sea views from 12 holes, often over a carpet of waving tree tops. You’ll gather it is not displeasing to the eye.
Illusion, the architect’s accomplice, is rampant. Stand on most tees and the knuckles will turn white. But a treat, not a trick, lies in wait: the course is much easier than at first it appears. The fairways look narrow but frequently they widen out beyond a mound, or a sand dune that gives a links appearance in places.
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