RIFFA, Bahrain -- Riffa Views Golf Club will break ground this summer on the first residential golf community in the United Arab Emirates. Riffa Views is located 15 miles from the capital, Manama, and 20 minutes from the King Fahad Causeway link with Saudi Arabia.
The new Riffa Views course will replace the existing layout at Riffa Golf Club, which opened in 1999 as Bahrain's first international-standard, 18-hole layout.
The first nine at Riffa Views will be completed in fall 2007, with the second nine scheduled to open in fall 2008. The course is the inaugural Middle Eastern design effort from Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest and Associates.
"Our charge at Riffa Views is to create an entirely new golf course experience," said Steve Forrest, the Hills/Forrest partner and principal who will personally direct the project. "Only three fairway corridors from the original routing will be incorporated in the new design, so our work here is tantamount to creating an entirely new golf course. We will also add residential parcels to Riffa's long-term development footprint."
Because Hills/Forrest will create 15 new holes at Riffa Views, many of them located outside the existing development footprint, the old course will remain open throughout the first year of construction -- an important consideration as Riffa is home to the Arcapita Seniors Tour Championship, a stop on the European Seniors Tour.
This fall's event will be held on the old course, with the 2007 event will be conducted on a combination of nine old holes and nine new holes. Come 2008, the Arcapita Seniors Tour Championship will take place entirely around the new 18 at Riffa Views GC.
Par will remain 72 but the yardage will be significantly increased from 6,817 yards to more than 7,300. The layout's look and feel also will undergo a radical transformation.
"Right now there are too many forced carries at Riffa, making the course difficult for high-handicap players. That will change," sais Forrest, who worked closely with Riffa Director of Golf Michael Braidwood and London-based land planning firm EDAW in formulating the renovation plans. "Our goal is to create a more interesting, playable golf course that takes better advantage of the wadi and other natural features, thereby adding value to these new residential parcels.
"The most intriguing natural features here are the wadi that run through the property. They are an eroded desert feature, somewhat like the arroyos we see in the American Southwest," Forrest added. "This is a dry climate, of course; once or twice a year there are flash floods -- these wadi are the channels where these flood waters are released. They are dry most of the year but they are 4 to 5 meters deep -- perfect for creating physical drama within a golf hole."
The wadi will come into play on nine different holes, but not all the drama at Riffa Views will be natural. Several holes venture out into a desert landscape crisscrossed by pipelines and dotted with oil wells. The course features will be bold throughout, thanks to the fill created by five man-made lakes.
"The layout will also be heavily landscaped, as we have carried the development's three residential themes -- the Wadi, Lagoon and Oasis -- through the golf course itself," Forrest said. "To moderate the desert heat, we've worked hard to introduce shade and water features wherever we can. And nine holes at Riffa Views will be lighted for night play."
Copyright 2006 PGA.com. All rights reserved.
