BALANGAN BEACH, Bali, Indonesia -- Indonesia's ailing tourist economy
received a shot in the arm this spring with unveiling of the full 18
at New Kuta Golf Course, a sensuous Golfplan-Fream, Dale & Ramsey
design on Bali's southernmost tip.
The first nine opened last October and the second nine this past May.
Perched mainly atop limestone cliffs overlooking Balangan Beach, the
championship track at New Kuta GC offers long, broad vistas of the
Indian Ocean and a pair of holes that play directly along the shore.
The course is centerpiece of a resort development that will eventually
boast hotels, villas, restaurants and shops. The Ritz Carlton and Four
Seasons Jimbaran Bay are already nearby; both have arrangements for
guests to play New Kuta, site of the 2009 Indonesian Open.
Golfplan partner David Dale believes that New Kuta, with its native
vegetation sitting along the edges of fairways, will remind many of
another tournament venue, the Plantation Course at the Kapalua Resort
in Hawaii, where the PGA Tour holds its Mercedes Championship each
January.
"It has a quasi-links feel to it, though it generally plays along
cliff tops rather than down near the shore," Dale said. "This tableau
has a real appeal, of course, as places like Kapalua and Pebble Beach
exemplify. At New Kuta, there are holes that run right along the sea.
The par-4 14th and par-3 15th play right down to the water and travel
along ocean's edge. They are very memorable, but the holes that sit
higher on the property have water views that are longer and, in their
own way, are more breathtaking."
"We are very happy with the final product," Dale continued. "Many
local events have already taken place there and the owner seems very
pleased. It would have been difficult to build a golf course on this
site that wasn't drop-dead gorgeous. New Kuta is all that, but it's
also got real strategic integrity."
The par-72, 6,812-yard layout has a links feel with native grasses,
vegetation and just a handful of trees bordering its seashore paspalum
fairways, tees and roughs. The greens are planted with smooth-rolling
ultradwarf bermudagrass.
This latest Golfplan design should help stimulate a Balinese tourist
economy that was hit hard following the 2002 terrorist bombings that
killed 240 foreign tourists, many of them Australian. The United
States recently lifted its almost decade-long travel advisory to the
country. Other nations with similar policies are expected to follow
this lead and ease their travel restrictions Indonesia's famously
inviting eastern outpost.
What visitors will find when they return to Bali's Pecatu region,
located south of Jimbaran, is a semi-arid landscape with unsurpassed
sunsets along Dreamland Beach. The surrounding rugged terrain reminds
many of what they might find in the American Southwest, Tunisia, or
drier portions of South Africa.
Golfplan (www.golfplan.com), which has built more than 160 golf
courses in 65 countries, first became involved with the project in
1994. The course was well on its way to completion when Indonesian
President Suharto was ousted from power in 1998. Construction of New
Kuta Golf Course came to a halt during the next eight years of
political and economic unrest. In 2006, the developers were able to
resume construction.
The surprised Golfplan staff was cautiously optimistic in 2007, when
notified of the progress. Nine holes had been completed before the
office had been contacted. However, in a testament to the accuracy of
Golfplan's construction drawings, these holes were found to be quite
good and in line with the original design intent of the project.
Subsequently, Golfplan founder Ronald Fream made several site visits
to oversee completion of construction efforts. Indeed, departing from
the initial land planner's concept, Golfplan was able to reroute the
course design so the future hotel and residential components will have
equally compelling views of the course and ocean. The new routing also
reduced the amount of earthmoving to just 200,000 cubic meters.
"We were able to maximize the real-estate frontage," Dale explained.
"That meant additional savings in terms of course drainage and resort
infrastructure. The little earth we did move helped better define
landing areas, green and tee sites, as well as pick up water and move
it off the course quickly when it does rain."
The developers, Golf Links Resort headed by Director Aulia Putera,
have big plans for New Kuta GC (+62 361 8481 333,
info@newkutagolf.com). Once the hotels have been built, plans are to
add a second course on the cliff tops. The resort's primary audience
will be north Asians, mostly from Korea and Japan, and Australians
with a sprinkling of Chinese, Singaporeans, Europeans and the
occasional North Americans seeking an exotic destination.
Golfplan-Fream, Dale & Ramsey specialize in the exotic. They are
golf's most well traveled course designers, with projects now in some
stage of development in 21 different countries worldwide. Since its
formation in 1972, by founder Ron Fream, the firm has built some of
the world's most celebrated courses, in some of golf's most exotic
locations: Pezula, on South African cliffs overlooking the Indian
Ocean; Bali Handara and Jagorawi, in the tropical jungles of
Indonesia; Shore Gate, in the storied sand hills just a few miles from
Pine Valley and the boardwalks of Atlantic City, New Jersey, in the
United States; the 27 holes at Disneyland Paris; the mountainous
Bonari Kogen GC, Japan's top-rated resort course; and The Club at Nine
Bridges in Korea, host to the Samsung World Championship and now
firmly ensconced on the world Top 100 lists at both Golf Digest and
Golf Magazine.
Dale and partner Kevin Ramsey are based out of Golfplan's U.S.
headquarters in Santa Rosa, Calif., while the famously globetrotting
Fream now operates a satellite office from his home in Johor Bahru,
just over the border from Singapore in Malaysia. Golfplan has recently
been retained to handle the renovation work at Singapore Island Country Club. The firm
recently retooled the Serapong Course on the Island of Sentosa, which
sits in Singapore Harbor. The Serapong is current host of the
Barclay's Singapore Open and was recently named the top tournament
course in all of Asia by Asian Golf Monthly magazine.
Contact: Hal Phillips
Mandarin Media/US
207-926-3700
hphillips@mandarinmedia.net
