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IT'S been a long wait, especially for one of the world's leading golf course architects with around 220 projects to his credit. But after a lapse of 11 years from the initial approach, Robert Trent Jones II has eventually got to work on the design of his first course in this country.
The site is known as Bellevue, on the old La Touche estate in County Wicklow between Delgany and the Glen of the Downs. And the American is promising a layout very different from leading, established courses in the area, such as Druids Glen and the European Club, both of which are the handiwork of Pat Ruddy.
"It will have a wild look about it, like you would expect on heathland," he said when we met recently. "I plan to open up the natural, scenic wonders of a site containing forest land and with the Sugarloaf mountain behind and the sea in front. And there will be heather on the faces of the bunkers and a splash of yellow, like you have at Royal County Down."
Befitting one of the great romantics of the modern game, Trent Jones used rich, colourful language when describing the project. And as a son of the renowned architect, Robert Trent Jones Sr, who was responsible for Adare Manor and the Cashen Course at Ballybunion, his observations were backed by a wealth of design experience.
Yet the discovery that he was an American studies and history major (liberal arts) at Yale University, goes some way towards explaining his skills as a writer of poetry. Like his tribute to the Old Course at St Andrews which contains the evocative lines:
A barren, timeless land tolled by bells
Carved by wind and shepherds on watch
Given to humble folk by noblesse oblige
slow links from receding seas.
He smiled at the memory of his first meeting with James Fortune, the original owner of Bellevue. "Later on, he joined forces with John Moore, who, sadly, has since died, but his son Damien is now involved," said the architect. "And we have an excellent project manager in John Clerkin, a highly-respected agronomist out of Penn State University.
"The big problem was planning permission, which finally came through only a few weeks ago. That's what brought me here this week, to put the final touches to the routing. I expect we will be getting down seriously to course construction next year." He went on to explain that while the course will stretch to 7,000 yards off the back tees, it will not be a tournament layout due to lack of space for parking, tentage and the other requirements of such an event. But amateur championships would certainly be welcome.
During his Irish visit, I joined himself and two of his colleagues for a game of golf at the Old Head of Kinsale, where compatriot Ron Kirby came along as an observer. So we had the fascinating situation of Trent Jones, now in his late 60s and playing off 10 handicap, testing the design skills of Kirby, who put the final touches to the Old Head.
With civilians in their midst, the two architects were careful to keep their comments suitably vague or non-committal. Kirby's portfolio would be a lot more modest than that of a colleague whose creations on six continents include Celtic Manor, which will be the venue for the 2010 Ryder Cup, and the Harbour Plaza Club in Guangdong Province, where China's first $1m tournament will be staged next month, November 14-17. This is the TCL Classic in which the leading challengers will include Colin Montgomerie and John Daly.
Still, Kirby has had a distinguished involvement in this country from Mount Juliet to the Old Head, while current solo projects include the new course at Waterville and a re-working of the Dromoland Castle layout.
Meanwhile, when he's not designing courses and writing poetry, Trent Jones likes to delve into history. So who better to give us the origins of the term 'tee' as the area from which we hit a golf ball into play.
The 'T', he informed me, was an ancient Egyptian surveyor's mark, set in the ground to indicate that one should 'start here' and follow the direction of the stem of the 'T'. Mind you, he didn't specify whether the Egyptians had in mind to start a pyramid, a sphinx, or their first crude attempts at what would become a royal as well as an ancient game.
It seems that back in 1899, Patent 638,920 was granted to Dr George Franklin Grant, a graduate of the Harvard School of Dentistry, who invented a ball-perch about two inches high with a folding rubber top on an upright stem. Within a few years, however, the idea was shelved due to lack of interest.
But the next serious attempt at putting a golf ball on an artificial pedestal proved to be a runaway success. Interestingly, the idea came from another American dentist, Dr William Lowell of New Jersey, who first experimented with gutta percha before opting for the local durable, birchwood. When painted red, the so-called Reddy Tees came into vogue and have remained largely unchanged for more than 80 years.
"Now, if we were to eliminate the tee from golf equipment while forcing players to hit the driver at all par fours and fives, we might see some very interesting results," said Trent Jones. "With the ball dropped behind the tee markers and played from where it comes to rest, the best players would have to find some way of getting it airborne with a 7.5 degree light alloy head."
"I am the defender of the castle," he continued in historical vein, going on to explain how, with the onset of gunpowder, it was no longer viable for castle defenders to pour boiling oil on attackers. So the era of the moat was born.
If we substitute modern technology for gunpowder, how does he propose to introduce the equivalent of a moat into his golf-course creations? He believes that much can be achieved through the use of dog-legs, either natural or contrived. For instance, one could place a bunker in the middle of the fairway at driving distance and, depending on the wind, require players to use either a left or a right teeing ground, separated by about 20 yards.
"I believe 7,300 yards is now the maximum, desirable length for a championship course, given the yardage that can be gained by shortening par threes," he said. "The global limit on the spiring-like effect, which has been agreed by the USGA and the R and A for 2008, should take care of any further developments in equipment."
During the early 1980s, when Robert Trent Jones Sr made his first visit to Ballybunion, he was flown by helicopter from Shannon. As the small, portly figure in an overcoat and cap emerged from the chopper onto an area close by the old clubhouse, a large group of locals had gathered to greet him.
The silence was broken only by animated whispering until one of the locals piped up: "Begob! Doesn't he have a great look of a Kildimo man about him." While visitors responded to the remark with puzzlement, the more knowing locals nodded their agreement.
One wonders how Wicklow folk from around the Bellevue area, will assess the great man's remarkable son, 20 years on.
Dermot Gilleece
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