So you don’t have a problem with the Tour players coming in with such low scores?

That is their game so to speak. Yes of course. Design-wise you think that right now there isn’t such a thing on the tour as a par 5. So you take your common par 72, and par is really 68. How many times do we see the professional players
hit a par 5 in two? About 80% of the time. Well to me that’s a par 4, I don’t care how long it is. The fact is if it’s 515 yards, they’re hitting in a 7 iron. So you have to put it into perspective. They are out there to perform for their fans and they should be shooting birdies. Right now with the equipment completely out of control there’s no distance barrier. I mean take Tiger Woods for example. I don’t remember where it was but he hit it on the green in two on a hole that was 605 yards!

Environmentally you can’t afford to chase the tour players, because we’d have golf courses of 8,000 yards, and it would use too much water, require too much maintanance and it would be crazy. We cannot chase distances, so we
decided not to worry about it. If they start hitting it a thousand yards, just forget about it because it doesn’t really affect what we do in our business. Let the T.V. company worry about the distance of the ball. We’re not going to stop them because we don’t know how. If we get the technology to try to figure it out, somebody is going to buy more technology to figure out how to figure it out to figure it out! When you design a golf course as an architect we have to design it for our common product: average players, and people who buy real estate. Period. So when you ask about designing for tour players, yes the golf facilities are accomodating, but they are not our market.

It’s interesting to hear your point of view on that subject, because as a golfer and golf viewer, you only hear what the TV companies have to say on the matter. But obviously as a designer you are, as you say, looking at it from our point of view, which is good to hear! Well yes, because time is of value. Shorter courses fit the market place.

Somebody calls me tomorrow and says “We are going to build the tour killer”, and O.K. we would know what to do and how to go about it. But I would not advise that to any promoter that is interested in selling his condominiums! In the United States we have come to that conclusion very quickly. It is a familly market. Most of the people who buy residential want to live on a course they can play. Go and watch tour players on T.V.!

San Roque Old held up pretty well against the Tour players
at the Jaztell Open de España this year…

One of the great things about San Roque is the wind. It is like many British courses and our courses like Kiawah island – anything that is on the ocean, near the ocean, close to the Mediterranean or on a hillside. You have the wind and it’s difficult for the players to play through. When we had some windy days at San Roque the course held up really well… the wind is a huge factor.

I think you’re being very polite calling it different! The architecture there is very different. Southern Spain is heavily influenced by Robert Trent Jones, Jnr & Snr. This great family are good friends of ours, but they have a very specific style. There are a lot of people who worked for Robert, say Cabell Robinson, who continue that style. Our style is different to begin with.

A lot of people that go there look at our style and find it very intimidating. In all honesty the golf course there was to be relatively difficult, because in the market place in Sotogrande area a lot of the golf courses are kind of like playing polo fields, and that’s not fair. We had trees there, we had a relatively small piece of ground, and we had unbelievable panoramic views of the Mediterranean, so felt that it was the seaside golf experience that I was trying to portray there. I knew that it would be percieved as different, but mygolf course, once you play it (as long as you’re not having the worst day of your life, because if you have one of those day’s you’re not going to enjoy any golf course!) it plays relatively easy from the correct tee.

We are always working with themanagement to try and adapt, so we will probably adjust some of the bunkers and change a couple of other things. You’ve got some of the most beautiful Oak trees in the world on it, like Valderrama, all that sort of thing. There are lots of obstacles out there! And I left a couple of them on a fairway or two!!