the par three ninth wasn’t a great hole.
It is difficult to argue with that. And that was the core
of The Island Golf Club’s brief. Work on the revamp
of the front nine started in October 2019.
Destination Golf spoke to Martin Ebert about the
changes that have taken place.
Destination Golf (DG):
What was the client brief?
Martin Ebert (ME):
“Essentially, it was how could we make the best use of
the ground available. Martin Hawtree’s par three 4th
hole (a 19th hole of sorts, played during the winter)
was added a few years ago but a couple of elements
needed to be changed. The tees were not big enough
for year round play and the green surrounds were
tough. So we improved the surrounds and added new
tees including a back tee to make it an even more
impressive hole.
By introducing the par three 4th into the main
routing, and changing the 5th (the old 4th), it allowed
us to make the best use of the ground that was
previously home to holes 7, 8 and 9… by turning them
into two holes. The 8th (old 7th) now dog legs right
and into the dunes. The front nine did peter out
slightly, at the end of 7, so by changing that hole it
enabled us to remove the old 8th. Yes, it was loved
but there were problems with it and what we’ve now
ended up with is an incredibly strong finish to the
front nine, first with the 8th and then with a new
9th that goes all the way back to the clubhouse. This
means a new short game area has been created using
the old 9th green.
“For the 5th (old 4th) we moved the tee forward for
regular play and pushed the green back to where the
practice chipping green was, to make up for the lost
length at the tee. In some ways that’s the toughest
hole now, especially from the back tee which has
been retained for major events. For the new green,
we had to add some elevation to allow golfers to
have sight of it from the fairway. The green is also
bigger and it all adds to the view of the hole from the
clubhouse.
“To my mind I can’t think of many front nines which
are better than The Island’s. I love the 6th and
7th (the old 5th and 6th). They’re very different in
character yet both short par fours. They’re such fun.
And that was another misgiving about the old 8th… it
meant there were three short par fours in a stretch of
four holes. That is one too many.
“There has been a lot of earth movement to create
the new 8th and 9th holes – like we did on the new
58 Destination Golf .TRAVEL