|~|109proj200.gif|~|Ernie Els in action at the Dubai Desert Classic in Dubai. Els has chosen the city to undertake his first golf course design project in the Middle East.|~|When top golfer Ernie Els picked Dubai as the location for The Dunes, his first golf course design project in the Middle East, he faced a number of construction challenges.
“You don’t get the opportunity to work with sand very often when creating a golf course,” says Els. “The benefits of it are that you can move it to wherever you want it.
“But the downside is it can be a dusty and windy process, which can make it hard to see where you’re working. And you’ve got to work quickly to grass the banks, in order to stop them from moving around.”
The answer to the shifting sand? Water — and lots of it.
“When we’re up to full speed with the construction process we’ll use about one mega litre [one million litres] of water per day for a period of six to seven months,” explains Neil Gardner from Septech Turnpoint, project manager for The Dunes golf course.
Septech Turnpoint (the joint venture of Sharjah-based Septech and Australia’s Turnpoint) recently won the contract to build the Ernie Els-designed course at Victory Heights, part of the Dubai Sports City development.
The vast amount of water required during the initial construction period will be sourced from two deep wells that are on site. Containing natural salty ground water — known as construction water — the wells are situated around 70 m below ground.
“We can only use ground water during the base construction,” explains Gardner. “We can’t use the salt water on top because the salt stays in the soil and affects the growth of the grass.”
Later on, when the project is up and running, it will switch to using water pumped from a treatment plant in Dubai.
Water used at this stage will be treated sewage effluent (TSE) transported from the city along an existing network of pipes to the golf course.
“There is a pipe near the Autodrome that runs along the Emirates Road, so we’ll
be tapping off that,’ says Gardner.
This is an environmentally sound way of recycling and utilising the TSE that would otherwise simply be dumped and wasted. While not fit for drinking, TSE is safe to use for irrigating a golf course.
“And as there’s still nutrients left in the water, it reduces our fertiliser requirements by about one-third,” adds Gardner.
Around this time of year, the amount of water required will be around half a million litres per day. But during the summer months when water consumption is at its peak, the course will need around five to six million litres per day.
Physically moving this amount of water around the course each day (six mega litres equates to 6000 tonnes of water) requires careful planning, not to mention an irrigation system that can be easily monitored and operated. To meet the challenge, Septech Turnpoint will begin installing the course’s hi-tech irrigation system at the end of March.
“The system we’ll be installing is worth in excess of US $2.7 million (AED10 million) and features approximately 2000 sprinkler heads, each of which can be controlled from a powerful central controller,” explains Gardner.
“There’s also a network of soil sensors and weather stations that update the computer, so we can make the grass survive on the least amount of water possible.”
The course will feature a hybrid Bermuda grass known as Tifway 419 in all the grassed areas, with the exception of the greens, which will use TifEagle, a finely textured dwarf Bermuda grass conducive to maintaining fast green speeds.
Stretching 6840 m (7480 yards), incorporating over 60 bunkers and with five sets of tees, allowing players a selection of different lengths from which to play the course, The Dunes can be transformed from an everyday player course to one that challenges the world’s best golfers.
The combination links course will feature a traditional ‘classical era’ design, with broad and gently rolling fairways. Steep greenside bunkers, grass swales and imaginatively designed greens will present significant challenges for the incoming approach shots.
Shaping the bunkers and other features will require a variety of plant equipment: The course will initially be rough shaped with a dozer, and then the intermediary stage will be shaped more finely with a smaller dozer. The final stage shaping will be done with a tracked skid steer,
such as a Bobcat, with a four-in-one bucket.
In addition to the Ernie Els-designed 18-hole course, the Victory Heights development will feature 910 villas, a spa and health club, as well as a clubhouse and driving range. It represents approximately half of the overall land area of Dubai Sports City.
Robert Davies, the project director of Victory Heights, says that having a top golfer such as Els involved in the early stages adds a professionalism to the design side of the project: “He will work with the technician on the plans, and then come on site and play
the course, to achieve the correct sights in a way that a layman
cannot do.”
Quality of construction is vital to this project, since the course is being designed to host future championships. “We need people who can absolutely deliver the best quality,” adds Davies. “Turnpoint has an international track record, and Septech has
the local knowledge.
“This project will reinforce the emirate of Dubai as a golfing destination, as well as a place for local people to play. On top of that, it will enhance tourism and attract people from all over the world.”
After 12 to 18 months of preparation work, construction of Victory Heights has now begun. Els was in town last week with his design team to assess the build progress of the course, which is due for completion by the end of 2007.
“We’re now finalising the infrastructure, including the roads and drainage, and we’ve already done the initial shaping of the land,” says Davies.
The main focus now is to concentrate on keeping the sand for the bunkers in place as construction work progresses: “This means shaping and watering, then putting in the sub-base and other material to grow the turf on, and then constantly water it during the growth period,” he adds.
As Dubai forges ahead in its quest to become less reliant on oil-based revenue, the emirate is increasingly turning towards tourism (such as golf-playing holidaymakers) to help supplement its income. But this expansion comes at a price. While Dubai aims to attract 15 million tourists a year by the year 2010, this figure — coupled with its own rapidly expanding population — is placing increasing demands on the emirate’s natural resources.
In a part of the world that is facing an ever-growing water shortage, finding new and innovative ways to minimise irrigation requirements is more important than ever.||**||
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