News Gil Hanse and his design team has been awarded the design of the 2016 Olympic Games host venue in Brazil has been received with great news in Scotland and particularly at Crail Golfing Society and Castle Stuart
Hanse Design was awarded this exciting new project ahead of some of the greatest names in the golf course design business including Jack Nicklaus and his team, Gary Player, Peter Thomson, Greg Norman and Robert Trent Jones to be allocated the project in suburban Rio de Janeiro.
“As it marks the return of golf to the Olympic Games after over a century of absence, this course represents the beginning of a new chapter in the history of the sport,” said President of Rio 2016, Carlos Arthur Nuzman.
“It will enable Rio to host important events in the international calendar and it will be an example of sustainability and preservation of an environmentally protected area.
Gil Hanse looks out of the Castle Stuart course. (Photo - www.golfbytourmiss.com)
“This course will be an excellent facility for the practice and development of golf and will inspire millions of youth across Brazil and the globe. We look forward to welcoming the athletes and spectators to the course in 2016.”
Peter Dawson, President of the International Golf Federation and also CEO at the R & A, said, “The IGF would like to thank all of the architects who worked so hard on their bids and whose presentations demonstrated great vision.
“The selection process adopted by Rio 2016™ was extremely thorough and reflected the importance of the project.
“So I am delighted Hanse Golf Course Design has been appointed to design the Olympic golf course which promises to provide an outstanding venue for the Games and a tremendous legacy for our sport in Brazil.”
Hanse Golf Course Design tackled the challenge of designing a course for use by both elite and amateur athletes; one of the main legacy objectives. It addressed the environmental sustainability directives for the Games and efficiently conformed to the building restrictions on the land.
Hanse Golf Course Design also effectively integrated native vegetation to the design, reducing the areas where frequent maintenance will be required.
Gil formed Hanse Golf Course Design in 1993 and was joined in 1995 by his partner and Vice-President, Jim Wagner and the company is based in Malvern, Pennsylvania.
It was Gil’s dear friend Graeme Lennie, who is the professional at Crail Golfing Society, who introduced me to Gil around this time last year when he travelled to Scotland to be guest of honour at the 225th anniversary celebrations of the formation of Crail Golfing Society, the seventh oldest golf club in the world.
The celebration dinner held in the Society’s clubhouse also attended by Old Tom Morris was a wonderful occasion and to be present to observe the banter between Old Tom and Gil was extremely entertaining.
Gil’s first design project outside of the U.S. was the Craighead course at Crail and along with the Balcomie there is now two 18-hole courses for members and visitors to enjoy at Fifeness.
Gil’s work in designing the Craighead course, and now host each year to the Battle Trophy, in many ways led to him being invited by Mark Parsons to design the Castle Stuart course and host to the Scottish Open.
In 2009, Hanse was elected “Architect of the Year” by Golf Magazine, and in the same year his Castle Stuartgolf course in Scotland was considered to be “the Best New International Course.”
What the course at Rio will look like when completed ahead of 2016 Olympics.
Gil hosted a Q & A session for members before heading north to inspect Castle Stuart located just on the outskirts of Inverness.
And as it turned out myself and Tour Miss ended up driving Gil to Castle Stuart. It was a most rewarding journey not only to spend a few hours in the vehicle just chatting with Gil but then to walk the full 18 holes at Castle Stuart and learn first hand Gil’s reasoning and decision process in the layout of each hole around the much acclaimed layout where later this year Luke Donald will defend his title.
It’s fantastic news now to learn Gil, in connection with American golfing great Amy Alcot, has been awarded the task of designing the golf course that will see golf return to the Olympics for a first time since early last century.
Hereunder is Gil’s reaction to being award the 2016 Olympic Games golf cousre design project.
“As I’m sure all of you can understand, it’s very humbling and we are incredibly honored to be recognized to design the golf course for the Rio 2016 Olympics,” said Hanse.
“To make the final eight, and to be included along with arguably the greatest player in the game and a cast of other great players, Jack and Annika and Greg and Lorena and Peter Thomson and Gary Player; it’s just an amazing cast. And then the golf course architects, Trent Jones, Jr., two of my mentors, Martin Hawtree and Tom Doak, we were always just kind of happy to be along for the ride.
“Jim Wagner, my design partner and I, we always just try to keep our heads down and do good work and figure at some point in time somebody will pay attention. We are excited that the jury was paying attention, and we were able to impress upon them that we would be the right fit for the project.
“Some of you who know me, there are so many people who come into this, and I don’t want to turn this into an Oscar acceptance speech, but we had great partners on this project, Owen Larkin and the Larkin Group; Frank Rossi and Jeff Carlson from an environmental perspective.
“Amy Alcott, obviously a great, great golf, and it says more about her than anything that she was unselfish enough to be part of the team and contribute whatever she could to the team without demanding or needing to be in the limelight. She’s just‑‑ those of you who know her, he’s really fun to be around and we like to have fun when we design courses, and we look so forward to working with her.”
And Gil revealed the ground-breaking process will take place in October later this year.
“As part of the overall process, each of the eight firms was required to submit pretty extensive designs so we are a little ways down the road in that respect, so it’s not like we are hitting the ground right now with day No. 1,” said Gil.
“So this summer will involve a lot of refining the design and going through whatever permits are required, getting the necessary approvals to break ground.
“And I think as long as we hit the ground in October, the time line that’s been articulated is comfortable. It’s not great, but I think given that climate, warm season grasses, we should be able to get the golf course up and running by the middle end of 2014, and I believe the schedule that was put out was to have test events in 2015 prior to the 2016 games.”
Phil Mickelson was among the world’s top ranked golfers to sing the praise of Hanse as the four time Major winner had done in playing Castle Stuart last year in the Barclays Scottish Open.
“I’m a big fan of Gil Hanse,” Mickelson said.
“I think he’s one of the best architects in the business. He understands how to make a golf course playable for the average player but challenging for the good player. He does it better than probably anyone, Crenshaw and Coore maybe being the exception.
“For him to get the Olympic job, I give the Olympic Committee a real credit, a lot of credit because, it would have been easier to go with a big name. And instead, they went with the best. I thought that was pretty cool.”
Again, congratulations to Gil and his design team and particularly from those in the Home of Golf who now enjoy tackling the Craighead and Castle Stuart courses.
