With 50 years behind it, the time had come for an in-depth reform of one of the most outstanding golf courses in Spain: the Real Club de Golf Sotogrande, which in 1964 premiered the splendid 18 holes signed by the prestigious and prolific designer Robert Trent Jones.
The renovation of the course is planned in two phases. The first, which has been undertaken on eight holes, began on January 8 and ended on July 31. The second will affect nine holes, starting on October 15 and concluding in July 2016. The remaining hole, the 13th, was renovated in 2013 and served as a sample of what was intended to be done later on the entire course. “With that hole we proved to ourselves that things could be done on time, on quality and on budget,” says Agustín Mazarrasa, the club’s managing director.
In the first phase, holes 1, 2, 8, 9, 10, 16, 17 and 18 were reformed. This non-consecutive selection had a reason: “We had to combine holes with a natural sand base, which were pure dune, such as 1, 2, 16, 17 and 18, with very clayey holes such as 8, 9 and 10, which needed a contribution of sand from tee to green, from wall to wall, of twenty centimeters”.
“To give you an idea,” Mazarrasa continues, “in these three alone we had to put 250 trailers on average in each hole, 18,000 tons of sand. We had to mix complicated holes with less complicated ones. Holes 8, 9 and 10 required drainage from tee to green and then sand. On the ones with sand, like 1 and 2, we basically did drainage but didn’t have to provide sand.”
The design of the course has only been touched on the 8th hole, which has been shortened a little because the green was totally blind. “We have lowered it a little bit and now it is a hole a little more accessible to members, and the truth is that everyone is happy,” says the director of the RCG Sotogrande.
The reason for the reform is that the field, with half a century behind it, was suffering from the ailments of its age, says Mazarrasa. “We reseeded in September/October with ryegrass, which is the cold weather seed, to keep the field in very good condition during the winter and spring, but when the heat arrived, the ryegrass died and the weeds began to grow, contaminating the whole field. As we always said, they were a lot of very well cut weeds. But what happened was that at the end of August or beginning of September the field was totally devastated, contaminated, with a lot of dry grass, so we had to find a solution, because it is also very expensive to maintain.
The most important work consisted of providing the course with the infrastructure it lacked, especially drainage and sand in the holes that did not have it. Thus, when the second phase is completed, all the holes on the course will have an even layer of sand, which is key to maintaining the good quality of Bermuda.
In addition, all the reformed holes have been teed, “an arduous job”, over a total area of 17 hectares, which will be increased to 37 hectares when the second phase of the reform is finished. Thus, the entire course will be uniform with Bermuda, while the greens will continue with Agrosti.
Another of the works has consisted in the leveling of the tees using laser technology, and on the other hand, all the bunkers of the eight holes have been shaped. “We have made many improvements,” Mazarrasa emphasizes. “From the tee many times the bunkers were not visible at all, and now you can see them, which strategically is very important. The shaping work has been remarkable, because it was a fairly flat course and the shaper has managed to give it a shape that aesthetically has improved it a lot. The area of holes 1, 2, 16, 17 and 18 has a depth that it did not have before through the holes, the level of the lake has been raised… a good job has been done. Aesthetically, the course has also improved a lot”.
The work has been overseen directly by the club with the support of Roger Rulewich, who was a disciple of Robert Trent Jones for 35 years, and his partner David Fleury, who is in charge of operating the bulldozer and shaping the course. “They’ve really done a fantastic job,” says the club director.
“The goal,” he continues, “was also to recover the original greens of the course, and we have achieved that. We had the original plans of Roberty Trent Jones, the sketches, the sketches he made by hand, and then the as-built plans, as the course was built. When it was built, they drew up a plan, and based on those two plans we have recovered the original designs. The greens had lost their surface and in some cases their grace. For example, the 1st green had the water next to the green, and when the water receded, it no longer came into play”.
Mazarrasa points out that the fundamental premise of the renovation was to respect Robert Trent Jones’ original design while introducing the improvements that the course needed.
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