Sir Nick Faldo helps a local girl
dead flat and mostly covered with meters
of water during the monsoon. Through
cooperation with international hydrology
experts and local expertize, this marvel of
engineering is so grand and expansive, it
has a very good chance of becoming the
one of the, if not the, best in SE Asia. With
the luxury of lots of property to work with
Sir Nick and Haggar were free to let their
imaginations flow, and flow they did. To
pause for a side note here; Sir Nick never
stops observing his surroundings. At every
location, he constan tly files away images of
culture, architecture, vegetation, and land
forms he sees in the region to incorporate
into the design work. He is adamant that
he does not have a “style.” Every course
concept is from scratch. For the soon to
be renowned, Vattanac Golf Resort, with
an abundance of earth to work with and a
flat site to put it on, he chose to direct the
shaping to resemble land forms that hinted
at half buried temple grounds of some of
the ancient Khmer ruins he had seen on
his travels in the countryside. The course
boundaries were so expansive that the team
was able to incorporate many multiple
option holes. Given wind, weather, and how
you might be swinging that day, the ways of
navigating to the hole are practically limitless
and sure to be beguiling to the regular player.
While it seems wide open, is far from easy.
It is the kind of layout that can take years
to unlock all its secrets. In the spirit of the
concept the owner, has planted thousands
of mature local species of trees and even
built some tasteful monuments honoring
Khmer heritage of the region. One of which
is a 75 ton hand carved rock rendition of the
famous Wat Bayon in Siem Reap. It took
local craftsman almost two years to create,
and serves as a majestic aiming point behind
several converging holes.
Up next, in addition to several properties
under consideration in established regions,
he will be venturing into Myanmar and
Laos where he has great plans for helping
to develop golf in those emerging markets.
His thinking, “…the Faldo Series, Learning
Volume 3 • Issue 40
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