Arranging for teams of workmen, with appropriate machinery, to move hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of soil, and to bulldoze or blast their way through forests and gorges, while also re-routing rivers and roads, may not sound too much like art.
“Dave Thomas is a big man, with matching charisma. That much is instantly obvious...”Yet, when applied to the business of golf course architecture and design, an art it undoubtedly is; one that creates jobs, attracts tourism, boosts economies, provides sport and leisure, and provides both satisfaction and frustration in a sport growing in popularity with every generation.
Golf is the sporting phenomenon of the latter years of the 20th century and one that will stretch well into the 21st. Mothers do it, fathers do it, boys do it, girls do it, even grandmothers and great grandfathers in their dotage do it. Folk from every age group, both sexes and all social backgrounds play golf. From among this global golfing community, large numbers enjoy the pleasures of some of the one hundred or so designed by Dave Thomas, a man from the top echelon of golf course architects whose fairways, somewhere in the world are being trodden at this very moment. From the USA to China, from Taiwan to Japan, Turkey, Portugal, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Brazil…
His work has taken him across the continents. Although his base is in Cheshire, UK, this extremely likeable Geordie has a second home near Marbella, Costa del Sol, not far from the dozen or so courses his company has created in Spain, including San Roque Old, Almenara, The Marbella Club, and among his most recent, the superb Hacienda del Alamo on an enormous site not far from the airports at Murcia and Alicante.
Dave Thomas is a big man, with matching charisma. That much is instantly obvious when he arrives at the Four Seasons Resort Provence to meet your representative of eat GOLF! magazine to talk about himself and two of his latest creations. Here is a man who has been internationally successful in two golf-related careers and though now a septuagenarian, his journey through the sport continues unchecked. This is Four Seasons’ first such resort in Europe. It had to be special, and it is. The American luxury hotel group whose aim is always to provide a taste of lifestyle par excellence, grasped the opportunity to locate their hotel adjacent to the two Dave Thomas golf courses, Le Chateau and Le Riou. This marriage of five-star accommodation – in the form of self-contained, villa-style guest suites dotted around the hillside that leads to the golf course, sumptuous hotel with Provencal cuisine in the gastronomically-seductive Faventia Restaurant, and quality golf to rival any in Europe – seems destined to be a happy and long-lasting one.
