Harnessing the elements

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fmME catches up with Bob Knott, director of golf operations for Jumeirah Golf Estates, to talk about designing, building and maintaining golf courses in the Middle East.

The Earth golf course at Dubai’s Jumeirah Golf Estates (JGE)—which recently played host to the Dubai World Championships—is a sharply-defined, sculptured course inspired by the parklands of Europe and North America. Designed by golf legend Greg Norman and executed by Norman and JGE’s golf operations director Bob Knott, the course paints a magnificent pastiche of flora, rolling terrain and rushing water. These natural components also provide differing angles and changing perspectives from each tee.

The Earth course is streaked with what JGE calls “meandering, and occasionally daunting, water features [which] are ever-present factors when lining up one’s next golf shot”. Fully grassed since April 2008, JGE gave Earth two full seasons to mature before hosting the championship tournament.

With a variety of inspirations that range from the olive groves of Spain to classic Roman towns, the homes of the Earth neighbourhood offer a compelling variety of architectural styles. This diversity, and the district’s verdant topography, lends an air of expansiveness and encourages residents to congregate outdoors.

Because of the publicity surrounding last month’s Dubai World Championships, the Earth course has become very familiar to golfers and golf course designers throughout the world. But JGE’s next offering, the Fire course—which Knott claims is completely finished—is still shrouded in a bit of secrecy.

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fmME: How does one build a green golf course in the desert?

BK: When we started, we didn’t have the Dubai World Championship in mind. This began as simply a golf real-estate development. When you build a golf course in the desert, the most important thing you need is water. I can shape anything in sand; it’s a wonderful medium to work in, but if we have a 40mph wind coming through, everything I’ve shaped that day could be blown away. So as soon as we shape, we need access to water, so the first thing I did when I came here was create a temporary lake. We had a specific 24-inch main from Dubai Municipality that would service our temporary lake, so everything we built emanated away from that water source.

When we first came here, the site was a raw desert. Sand was blowing all around, dunes were shifting and Greg Norman was surrounded by camels. The first thing he did was create a ‘routing’ which is a basic idea of where the course will lie from tee #1 to green #18—hopefully this is done in two loops of nine holes so you’re always coming back to a central point, which is the clubhouse.

Once we had that routing, we decided on the style of the course. We looked at features we could design into the landscape, whether those were lakes or streams or trees or general landscaping.

After that, we began the plotting process. At tee #1, we put a stake in the ground, then we would go down the middle of where the fairway would be and we identify the turning point—at around 275 yards away—and we put a stake in the ground there, which would be the centre of the fairway. Then we go another 180 or so yards and that’s the centre of your green.

After that, we brought in a team and began shaping. I had shapers here from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the US, Mexico and Great Britain. The shaping team literally came from all over the world. At the rough grading stage we focus on the general look and shape of the golf course. Then another team comes in and does a fine grade. After that another team comes in and starts putting in all the features. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle. Then we get irrigation and topsoil and eventually grass. To get to this level of quality, you have to spend an inordinate amount of time preparing those surfaces.

fmME: What can you tell me about the Fire course?

BK: The Fire golf course is a very special course. It is a hidden gem. It is the most beautiful golf course. The beauty of JGE is that the four golf courses have different themes. The formality of the Earth golf course, with its very formal shaped bunkers and so on, contrast sharply with the Fire course. The featured bunkering on Fire is much more rustic in feeling. It goes much deeper than just one having red sand and the other having white. Of the two, Fire is certainly the equal of Earth in playing strategies—but Fire is shorter.

fmME: For Fire and Earth, what kind of shaping, sculpting and construction was required?

BK: We moved and shaped two million cubic metres of earth for these courses. Across Fire and Earth, we have 60 hectares of playing surface. We have 30,000 square metres of greens and 25,000 square metres of tees. Normally, I’d usually use a half metre of sweet soil under the surface, but on these courses we have used a full metre, meaning we’ve got 600,000 cubic metres of sweet soil beneath the playing surface on these two courses.