Golf
“
Tom MacKenzie was briefed to design a signature island green on which to market the resort, and the end result is spectacular
work. In 2006, the course was completely closed for over a year whilst the reconstruction work took place. At this time, various experiments were
carried out in order to find out which soil conditions were most favourable to grow grass in this environment. Some greens were rebuilt to USGA
specification, whilst others retained their original clay push-up form. The tees and bunkers were all rebuilt and the fairways reshaped. Some fairways were built with a 10cm sand cap, others were left clay based. A new reservoir and irrigation lake were constructed, as well as the installation of a brand new pump station and irrigation system. Numerous open, concrete storm drains were added as features and to harvest as much rainfall as possible into the new reservoir. The course was also completely reseeded with cool season grasses and was re-opened for play in April 2007. When I arrived in 2008, the church were in
the process of selling the club to Pafilia, a real estate development company whose aim was produce one of the top golf resorts in Europe, beginning with renaming the
We are currently in talks with the local government to increase the capacity of our main reservoir in order to receive treated sewage effluent water from Paphos
” 12 I PC APRIL/MAY 2014
complex Minthis Hills. However, it was clear to all involved that the golf course was not anywhere near this level, so Tom Mackenzie was asked back to completely redesign the complex to give Pafilia a platform on which to market their houses. My brief was to help oversee the complete
rebuilding of the golf course. Most of this work was outsourced, but a great deal of it was my responsibility. The new plan for Minthis Hills was for the
development of around 500 new top of the range villas as well as a spa, village square and other exclusive facilities, including a new, modern, geometric style clubhouse. The layout of the course was now parkland style, with a par of 71 measuring 5,843 metres from the back tees. Maintaining a cool season golf course in a
Mediterranean environment was completely unsustainable in the summer months, mainly due to the fact that we could only produce 80% of the water needed each day to keep the grass healthy. We were also lacking about 300 sprinklers for full irrigation coverage. With Tom’s approval, we decided to completely reseed the fairways and
roughs with Bermuda grass, which is more drought tolerant and compatible with the Cypriot climate. In May 2009, we closed the front 9 for
four months, killed off the old cool season grass, reseeded and grew-in a new Bermuda grass golf course. The following year, we did the same on the back 9 and practice areas. We also had to undertake a number of other projects in order to improve the aesthetical appearance and playability of Minthis Hills. We removed around 800 trees, mainly unsightly, water sapping Eucalyptus, but also a great deal of Cypress trees which had originally been planted in lines adjacent to the fairways, giving an artificial appearance to the place. Tom redesigned the planting patterns and
replaced these species with native olives, carobs and pines. This was an incredibly demanding time, with special care having to be taken in order not to damage the existing irrigation system. All irrigation lines had to be identified beforehand in order to prevent any damage to pipes and sprinklers. The previous irrigation layout was my main gripe. Together with Giles Wardle of
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