Harnessing the elements

Middle East Architect catches up with Bob Knott, senior development manager of golf courses for Jumeirah Golf Estates, to talk about designing, building and maintaining Earth, Fire, Wind and Water 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 that was inspired by the parklands of Europe and North America. Designed by golf legend Greg Norman and executed by Norman and JGE’s director of golf operations, 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 seasons to mature before the championship tournament.

With a variety of inspirations that range from the olive groves of Spain to classic Roman towns and villages, the homes of the Earth neighbourhood offer a compelling variety of architectural styles.

This diversity, coupled with the district’s verdant topography, lends an air of expansiveness and encourages residents to congregate in the development’s ample outdoor space.

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.

In terms of golf course architecture, Fire is framed by a wide variety of flora, carefully selected to reflect the overall theme and to enhance its natural setting, which is largely burnt grass and red sand. According to JGE: “Fire is in complete harmony with its surroundings. The undulating topography, with considerable protrusions, creates a more challenging level of play.”

Rich tones of terracotta reflected on walls of stucco, stone and brick, the Fire neighbourhood draws on rustic Mediterranean architecture that complements the desert context. The seven communities sited around the Fire course are landscaped to complement the beauty of their desert surroundings.

Middle East Architect caught up with Bob Knott, to talk about sustainability, design and maintenance of the Middle East’s most expansive golf course development.

First, 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 residential 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 began deciding on the style of the course. We began looking 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 walk down what would be the middle of where the fairway would be and we would identify the turning point—at around 275 yards away—and we put a stake in the ground there, which would then become the centre of the fairway. Then we would 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 USA, 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 a 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.

What can you say about ‘Fire’?

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 featured bunkering on Fire, which has a much more rustic feeling.

It goes much deeper than just one having red sand and the other having white. Fire is a beautiful course. Of the two, Fire is certainly the equal of Earth as playing strategies goes—but Fire is a bit shorter.

For Fire and Earth, tell us more about what kind of shaping, sculpting and construction was required?

BK: I’ll give you some statistics. We moved and shaped two million cubic meters of earth for these courses. Across Fire and Earth, we have 60 hectares of playing surface. We have 30,000 square meters of greens and 25,000 square meters 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 meter of sweet soil, that means we’ve got 600,000 cubic metres of sweet soil beneath the playing surface on these two courses.

How did you import all of that vegetation, specifically the grass?

BK: To ensure we achieved the grass we wanted, we took six or seven months locating the Bermuda grass from a specific farm in Pike Creek, Georgia. One of the first things I did when we found that grass was to build a 100,000 square foot nursery for us to grow the grass we needed and then whenever we were growing areas, we simply harvested from our own nursery.

That was absolutely necessary because you cannot import that amount of grass we needed here. We needed to control the environment in which that grass was grown; we wanted to control the percolation rates; we wanted to control the type and quality of the grass on the surface and to do that, we needed our own nursery.

It’s about controlling the environment of the golf, as much as you reasonably can. Remember, we’ve got in excess of 450,000 square metres of bark mulch and 3,600 mature trees. I have trees out there that are 11-12 metres high already.

 

To harvest and maintain that amount of vegetation, what are your water requirements?

BK: I’ll give you a couple figures on irrigation. We have 20,000 linear meters of mainline ranging from six to 24 inches in diametre. We have 70,000 metres of lateral irrigation piping out there.

We have 17,000 metres of power cable and 20,000 metres of communication cable. On just those two courses, we have 4,000 sprinkler heads. During construction, we were using 4.5-5.0 million gallons of water per day. We expect the cost of water after maturation to be about AED 6 million per year.

Maintenance should be about AED 8 million per year.

But, it’s important to keep in mind, every gallon of water used on the course is treated water.

Nakheel is building its own sewage treatment plant on the project site, which is big enough to supply water to the entire 1357 hectares. It’s creating a habitat for both human beings and wildlife. We have an extremely sophisticated computer system to regulate our water usage as well.

Some of those numbers are astronomical. In the era of sustainability, do you feel you have to justify using the amount of resources used?

BK: I think you do. For people who don’t understand golf courses, they can appear to be wasteful of resources and energy. As you might imagine, I have a totally reverse opinion. On a golf course you have the most wonderful natural environment. You only have to walk around this project site now to see some of the most marvellous wildlife, which has made its home here.

Up until 3-4 weeks ago, we had about 20 flamingoes living on the golf course. Next year, when they come back, we’ll have double that. I had a family of swans arrive 18 months ago and they’ve never left. I have tens of thousands of bird species that have found homes here. It’s an environmentally friendly place. We’re creating this environment, we have to be conscious of the environment as well.

In fact, Greg Norman and our chairman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem were founding members of the Environmental Institute of Golf. We’ve been very conscious that as we built this that we were mindful of where we were going with it. To build quality is expensive but it’s an enhancement to the environment. Let me give you another fact, one 18-hole golf course, by photosynthesis, will provide enough oxygen for 100,000 people per annum. This is a major facility for the environment. Even for non-golfers, this is a beautiful landscape.

What is the future of JGE?

BK: I think JGE is a jewel in the crown. I know times are difficult and things are hard but when this project is finished—hopefully in the next 12-18 months—I think it’ll set a benchmark for projects of this kind in the region. To be frank, golf courses are just like hotels; hotels need to put bums in beds, golf courses need players on the courses. If I have 500 people out there playing golf everyday, I’ll be happy.