56 TRUMP NEW Swedish architect Christian Lundin of (re)Golf was also hired in early 2024, visiting the site on a regular basis with particular attention to strategy and shotmaking (Lundin has a business partnership with Henrik Stenson, and is himself a scratch golfer), which included decisions on placement and style of hazards, and – together with O’ Reilly – green designs. As construction approached, and with O’ Mahony’s encouragement, the club adopted some fundamental changes to the initial plan and the final routing plays “more or less in reverse”, according to Hawtree. This switch means the round begins close to the clubhouse and finishes with a home green on a high plateau. “Another change was the introduction of a seventh hole in the Southern Dome,” says Hawtree. “The incentive for as many holes as feasible in this dramatic landscape was understandable but left some difficulties in stretching the last four holes back to the home green, one of which would probably need to be a par three. “The development of the design focused on the need for this course to be spectacular, challenging, but introducing a quite different experience from that of the first course. There needed to be a reason to play this course and not the first course.” Parts of the course are routed on former arable land, and the site also had some existing areas of wetland. By expanding these, and introducing new wetland, the construction team gained material to extend the dunescape into holes that would otherwise have been completely flat and out of character with the rest of the course. So in places, as Hawtree explains, “it became a created links with dunes where we would like them, as well as the addition of an unusual links feature – water on a grand scale.” The final design has water in play on holes two to four, six, seven and fifteen, which could have given the layout something of a split personality, were it not for considerable craftmanship to tie everything together. “The real challenge in working with distinct natural zones is maintaining flow and ensuring the transitions “ The routing moves from high ridge lines to low-lying basins, through expanses of marram, open linksland, and coastal heath”
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