Well-known
golf course architect Arthur Hills designed the Sunset Course at
Mirasol in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., site of this week's Honda
Classic. He was on hand this week to answer media questions about
the new course and the challenges it presents to the PGA Tour players.
GARY FERMAN: Okay.
We have the pleasure of being joined today by Arthur Hills, who is
the designer of the Sunset Course here at Mirasol, which will be
playing host to the tournament this year.
What I'm going
to do is I'm going to let Arthur talk a little bit about the project
and the elements that went into the design and his work with Mirasol,
and then what we will do is we will open up to questions about the
specific holes, what he anticipates will be happening in the tournament
and that sort of thing.
So, Arthur, if
you could get it going by talking a little bit about the project.
ARTHUR HILLS: Thank
you, Gary.
Well, first we
started out, we were working with Taylor Woodrow and with Craig Turner,
who is in the room here, on the layout of the golf course as it related
to the residential community, which essentially is where we started.
We started with a residential community here, and the golf course
needs to compliment that residential community and has complimented
that residential community to the extent that it's been popular with
the people who have bought into the community and it's off to a great
start. So that's one aspect of it, not directly related to this tournament.
But, as far as
the golf course, I was thinking a little bit about it, I might talk
to you about, it's interesting that it's maybe characterized as not
too long a golf course, yet it's 7,150 yards, which tells you something
about what's happening with the game today when a 7,150-yard golf
course is kind of medium length, not very long.
This golf course
starts out in the range of 390 to 415 (-yard holes). I imagine that
somebody could be 4-under par at the end of four holes on this golf
course because they are going to be hitting probably a 3-wood and
a 9-iron or 8-iron in on those holes.
However, it is
a shot-makers golf course. They have got to put the ball in the right
place in the fairway on those holes, and they need to not hit it
right, because if they hit it right a little, they are going to be
in trouble on several of the early holes on the golf course.
The greens are
small. The greens are very subtly contoured, but there are three
or four cupping areas on each green, very subtly defined, but it
makes a big difference whether you get it to the right part of the
green or not. That's probably some of the resistance to scoring to
be found in the golf course.
The big thing here
will be the wind. If there's wind, then the scores will be a little
higher. If there's no wind, you know, these guys are so good at what
they do, that they are going to shoot some low scores.
It might be that
they would shoot 20-, 21-, 22-under par because there are a lot of
birdie opportunities out there, if they are able to control the length
of their shots.
That's about it
to start.
Click
here to read the full transcript of the interview with Arthur Hills.
