Hugely rewarding to see the course we designed at Royal Greens in Saudi Arabia receive “Middle East’s Best Golf Course 2021” & “Saudi Arabia’s Best Golf Course” by World Golf Awards. Having already hosted the Saudi International on the European Tour it is fantastic that the club welcomes the Aramco Saudi Ladies International this week.
European Golf Design (EGD), the golf course design company of the European Tour, aims to become a carbon neutral design company in a move that underlines the company’s strengthened commitment to sustainability and climate action.
The announcement comes ahead of the UN Climate Summit COP26 in Glasgow and underlines EGD’s strategic goals and ambition for net zero emissions.
The move towards net zero is also aligned with the European Tour’s Green Drive initiative, launched earlier this year on World Environment Day, when the Tour set out a vision to become a leader in social and environmental responsibility, delivering net positive impacts around the world.
With support from the GEO Foundation for Sustainable Golf – the non-profit organisation dedicated to accelerating sustainability in and through golf around the world – EGD will track and measure its carbon footprint across all areas of business operations, reduce emissions where possible and mitigate where necessary by credibly offsetting all unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions.
All carbon calculations are in line with the UN Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard, and offsetting will be carried out using GEO’s Sustainable Golf Climate Initiative – ensuring offsets are accredited by The Gold Standard and deliver additional contributions to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Jeremy Slessor, Managing Director of EGD, said: “For many years sustainability has been part of the way in which we conceptualise, design and construct courses. Now, our updated and strengthened strategy aims to deliver even more positive and measurable environmental and social impacts through course development and renovation, alongside new goals and actions across various other aspects of the business.”
Jonathan Smith, Executive Director of GEO Foundation for Sustainable Golf, said: “Congratulations to European Golf Design for proactively stepping forward with this new commitment and action. We all need to do what we can to minimise climate change, so a comprehensive approach to emissions reduction is essential, as is a credible approach to offsetting what are currently unavoidable emissions. We look forward to supporting EGD in accurately measuring, actively reducing and credibly mitigating their emissions so that they make a meaningful contribution to addressing what is rapidly emerging as the defining issue of current and future generations.
“We hope others will follow this lead, become a committed part of the sustainable golf community and utilise the platform and solutions provided with and for the sport of golf.”
European Golf Design designed the first new development in the world to be recognised with the GEO Certified Development status and has projects throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean and Asia.
About EGD
European Golf Design was established in 1992 and is the Golf Course Design Company of the European Tour.
The company has earned a reputation for producing successful resort, members and tournament golf courses, on schedule and within budget. They are recognised for the ability to exceed their clients’ expectations and for the economic added value of their designs.
Three of EGD’s courses have been voted best new course in Europe and two are named in the top 100 courses in the World. With views of the famous skyline of downtown Dubai, our course at Dubai Hill was named ‘World’s Best New Golf Course’ at the 2019 World Golf Awards.
The company has won design commissions throughout Europe and beyond to Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean and Asia, working for private landowners, worldwide hotel groups, resort and real estate developers either independently or within a team of master planners, architects and engineers.
About GEO Foundation
GEO Foundation for Sustainable Golf is the international not-for-profit dedicated to advancing sustainability and climate action in and through golf. The foundation works collaboratively to help the sport proactively embrace key environmental and social issues, to foster nature, conserve resources, take climate action and strengthen communities. In addition to its strategic support through partnerships with associations, GEO Foundation manages and assures the OnCourse® programmes for grassroots golf facilities, new developments and tournaments, each of which can lead to the internationally accredited and widely endorsed GEO Certified® label.
Find out more at www.sustainable.golf
About European Tour Green Drive
The European Tour Green Drive underlines an intensified approach towards priority issues such as climate change; biodiversity loss; air and ocean pollution; and sustainable and ethical procurement. It also sees the Green Drive take a formal position within Golf for Good, the European Tour’s overarching Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme.
The Green Drive is aimed at contributing to internationally recognised environmental and social priorities, including many of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The approach to climate action is directly aligned to The Paris Agreement and the UN Sport for Climate Framework.
It’s Ryder Cup Week and that means memorable Ryder Cup moments. For us those moments were back in 2010 at Celtic Manor with the course we designed (Ross McMurray), The Twenty Ten Course. The 2010 Ryder Cup was even described as the “greatest ever” after the sun shone on a dramatic final day with the then Wales Open champion Graeme McDowell secured the winning point for Europe in the very last match.
Fast forward 11 years and we look forward to 2023 and making more memorable moments on the spectacular 2023 Ryder Cup Course at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club, the course we led the design (Dave Sampson).
Ryder Cup 2010 – Day 4 – 4th October 2010 – Celtic Manor Resort Newport, Wales. Please Credit – Ian Cook – Sportingwales
With it being the Dutch Open week on the European Tour we thought it would be a good time to look back at the course we designed (EGD’s Ross McMurray) in association with Ryder Cup Legend Colin Montgomerie, aptly named course “The Dutch”. It is also a fitting time as The Dutch is celebrating 10 years since it opened back in 2011. The course was designed with a mission to transfer the Scottish experience to Dutch soil. The result: a beautiful Inland Links Championship Course. The Dutch is part of European Tour Destinations; a network of world-class golf courses all closely linked to The European Tour. It has hosted the KLM Open from 2016 to 2018 in collaboration with KLM, TIG Sports and the European Tour, it recently hosted The B-NL Challenge Trophy. Find out more on The Dutch website at https://thedutch.nl/
We are very proud to have designed The Lake Course at Evian Resort Golf Club. To find out more check out the video clip presented by Sebastien Gros, Evian’s ambassador and French Tour player and David Leadbetter one of the greatest international Tour player coaches. Thanks to Sunset Productions for their support and to Luca DELLOSTA and Edouard GUIBAUD for this second ambitious project.
Tom Kelly from European Golf Design and Michael Harradine have both passed their final assignment of the European Institute of Golf Course Architects‘ Vocational Qualification in Golf Course Design and graduated with Distinction.
Both students will now be added to the EIGCA’s Member Directory as candidates for membership.
Niall Glen, chair of the EIGCA Education Board, said: “On behalf of the Education Board, and all the EIGCA members who have contributed to the education programme over the past two years, we would like to warmly congratulate both Michael and Tom for completing the course.
“For two students to pass the course with distinction in the same year is truly gratifying and demonstrates a consistently high level of achievement. Both came into the course with a great depth of knowledge about golf and our industry, but they also worked very hard to prove their abilities and delivered a series of excellent design submissions that impressed our markers.
“We are confident that both will go on to fulfil their ambitions in the industry and be an active and valuable part of the Institute for many years to come.”
From Golf Business News
Above: Tom Kelly (left), Michael Harradine (Right)
On the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea sits the city of Aktau (which, in the local language, means ‘white mountain’ in reference to the cliffs overlooking the sea) a city of 190,000 people. With the increase in regional and some international tourism in recent years in Kazakhstan, developments catering to that market have started to spring up, the latest of which is the Aktau Resort, a master-planned community featuring primary and secondary real estate, multiple hotels, attractions, retail and commercial space, and in the current phase of expansion, a nine hole golf course and academy to be designed by European Golf Design, the design company of The European Tour.
On what is predominantly a sandy coastal site, European Golf Design’s Gary Johnston is working with long-time collaborators Golf Tek, led by Naki Evrandir, and Sembol Construction, both from Turkey. Design work started late in 2020 and construction works have already started on site, with a view to the golf course being fully grassed by the end of September this year, and opening summer 2022.
Although the ninth largest country on earth, covering over 2.7million square kilometres (about the size of Western Europe), golf is a relatively new sport in Kazakhstan with only three courses all located around Almaty. Therefore practice facilities are increasingly important and, with a limited amount of space available, Johnston has designed the course such that there are two loops of three and six holes from, and returning to, the clubhouse. The three hole loop can be taken out of play at required times of the day, or week, and used as the academy area to provide dedicated short game, putting and long game zones or a three hole Academy Course, while play continues on the six hole loop. The intention is to encourage local schools and clubs to take advantage of the facility in the hope that more locals will be enthused to take up the game, as well as providing outstanding golf facilities for residents, guests and tourists alike.
“This has been a whirlwind of a project since our first conversations with the project team last autumn,” said Gary Johnston “and now that construction has started, we are looking forward to getting onto site to work with Naki and his team, alongside our clients at Rixos Hotels & Sembol Construction, to create a course that helps achieve the developers’ business objectives but, as importantly, provides locals and tourists the opportunity of exposure, some for the very first time in their lives, to golf. We’re working hard to make this project as inclusive as possible to ensure long term growth and viability.”
For more information, please contact Jeremy Slessor of European Golf Design at jslessor@egd.com
European Golf Design (‘EGD’), the golf course design company of The European Tour, has been appointed by Chislehurst Golf Club to undertake a full review of its historic golf course and make recommendations on short, medium and long term enhancements.
Located in Kent, just to the south-east of London, the Club was established in 1894 as a nine hole layout which was subsequently expanded to 18 holes early in the following decade. There is evidence as to the involvement of James Braid in both the expansion and subsequent improvement to bunkers in the years immediately prior to the First World War. Although short by modern standards at 5100 yards and playing to a par of 66, the course is anything but a pushover, demanding accuracy and precision over brute strength. However, some of the hazards around the course have become less strategically relevant over the years and part of the design brief is to thoroughly investigate the strategy presented to players and, in relation to bunkering, to return them to the styles and aesthetics experienced over a century ago by reference to the Club’s archives of plans and photographs.
David MacLaren, the Chief Executive Officer of Chislehurst Golf Club, said “This is a progressive club with a very active golf and social membership. Those who know the course love it – those that visit us soon come to love the course too. It has visual interest, it has challenge, it has beauty. Working with European Golf Design to develop a five to ten year programme of improvements allows the Club to move forward positively, but also to reclaim our heritage by re-establishing the original styling which has inevitably been lost in parts over the last one hundred years or so.”
“Working with a Club and on a course with a relationship to Braid is a great honour and privilege,” said Dave Sampson, who will be leading the project on behalf of EGD, “and we are eager to explore all possibilities to restore as much of the original aesthetics and challenge as we can, while keeping the course playable for as many golfers as possible.”
Work on the initial planning began in March and is expected to take two to three months, following which more detailed plans will be prepared, alongside work schedules to fit improvements within the Club’s busy playing and competition schedule.
For more information, please contact Jeremy Slessor, Managing Director at European Golf Design (jslessor@egd.com) or David MacLaren, Chief Executive Officer of Chislehurst Golf Club (davidmaclaren@chislehurstgolfclub.co.uk)