Catriona Matthew – Team Europe Solheim Cup 2019 Captain. Pic: Visit Scotland.
The Renaissance Club in East Lothian, venue to Aberdeen Standard Investments
Scottish Open 2019.
Q&A with Tom Doak, one of the world’s best architects
and the designer of The Renaissance Club.
Destination Golf (DG): What was the most challenging part of the
original design process at The Renaissance Club?
Solheim Cup stars Danielle Kang and Madelene Sagstrom unveiling
a specially commissioned tartan design to celebrate The 2019 Solheim Cup.
Pic: Visit Scotland.
And then there’s the Solheim Cup, which will be held at Gleneagles
in Perthshire, from 13-15 September. This is the third time the Cup
has been contested in Scotland, and the best female golfers from
Europe and the USA will go head-to-head on the PGA Centenary
course where Europe won the Ryder Cup in 2014. The Solheim Cup
is a biennial tournament and one of the world’s biggest golf events
this year. The format is similar to the Ryder Cup, with 12 players from
each side battling it out for glory over three days of competition.
Adding to the excitement, Visit Scotland even launched a specially
commissioned tartan design to celebrate the 2019 Solheim Cup
returning to Scotland in September.
There are 100,000 tickets being sold for the clash of Europe vs.
USA, with spectators expected from across Europe in what will
undoubtedly be a family-friendly affair (kids go free) and a passionate
event, particularly with Catriona Matthew as captain in her home
country. Check out www.solheimcup2019.com for more information
and tickets.
And let’s not forget the Hickory World Championships, which began
in Scotland in 2005 with a field of 36. Today, golfers from over 14
countries play this annual event which has inspired tournaments in 20
other countries around the world.
Ahead of the Scottish Opens, The Renaissance Club remains a
rather unknown quantity to the world’s travelling golfers because it
is a private club. Few of us will get to play here so golf fans will be
watching the coverage of the two tournaments with some interest.
It is a links that drifts through pines and around red stone walls out
towards the sea. It was designed by Tom Doak in 2008, and there is a
Q&A with the revered designer in the panel alongside which offers a
flavour of the course and the designer himself.
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Tom Doak (TD): We knew there was a possibility of extending the course
into the dunes someday, so we had to make the design a bit open-ended
to accommodate changing two or three holes later on (out at the point).
Also, we had never built revetted bunkers before, and it took some time
to understand how to shape them for the turf walls to be built later,
after my shapers had gone home.
DG: What is TRC’s greatest strength?
TD: The playing surface has always been the finest of turf, partly because
there isn’t as much traffic as the famous links; and the wind is nearly
always blowing across East Lothian. So the course is the epitome of “firm
and fast” Scottish golf.
DG: What additional work was required or recommended in order to get
the course ready for the two Scottish Opens?
Tom Doak: We haven’t done anything to the course since the new holes
were added to the point several years ago, and that was more about the
member experience than the Pros. The club has, however, continued to
thin trees to open up views across the course.
DG: At its full length, what will the greatest challenges be for the
Professionals (men and women)?
TD: It is a relentless test of golf and it will require focus on every shot,
including around the greens. A lapse of concentration can easily lead to a
double bogey on almost any hole.
DG: Finally, what is your favourite hole and why?
TD: I have two favourites, the 7th and 8th. The par-5 7th was really
designed by my friend John Ashworth, the golf-fashion icon, when he
was looking at the site years before The Renaissance Club came to be...
the green site, tucked in the back of a little dune ridge, is very hard to
reach and hold with a second shot. The 8th is the strongest par-4 on the
course, and it came together when we uncovered a broken-down stone
wall while clearing gorse in the area. I loved how the wall to the right and
the dune to the left frame the green, so we extended the green back into
that space, making a bunch of little terraces for potential hole locations.