ASIAN GOLF INDUSTRY FEDERATION

Limelight for Schmidt-Curley Design Course

The par-three 17th at Amata Spring. Picture by Thailand Golf Championship.

The par-three 17th at Amata Spring. Picture by Thailand Golf Championship.


Bangkok, Thailand: Schmidt-Curley Design’s award-winning Amata Spring Country Club will be thrust into the limelight once more next week.
Major champions Bubba Watson, Martin Kaymer and Darren Clarke will spearhead an all-star cast at the fifth edition of the Thailand Golf Championship.
To be held from December 10-13, the Asian Tour’s season-ending flagship event boasts a prize purse of US$1 million and will be part of the Open Qualifying Series for the second year in succession.
The event will be broadcast globally by Asian Tour Media and in Thailand by TrueVisions.
For three years in a row, Amata Spring has been voted the Asian Tour’s Best Golf Course.
Brian Curley, Principal at Schmidt-Curley Design, said: “We are honoured that Amata Spring Country Club continues to receive so many positive comments from the players and to win so many important accolades.”
Co-founded by Lee Schmidt and Brian Curley in 1997, Schmidt-Curley is recognised as one of the world’s most innovative golf course design firms and has sculpted more than 150 layouts in 25 countries with 80 courses across the Asia-Pacific region.
For the fifth year in succession, Schmidt-Curley Design – a long-time member of the Asian Golf Industry Federation – captured the top prize in the Asian Golf Awards’ Best Architect category.
Testament to the quality of their work, Amata Spring will be the sixth high-profile Schmidt-Curley Design course to have hosted a major professional event in 2015.
Siam Country Club’s Pattaya Old Course was the venue for February’s Honda LPGA Thailand while the Faldo Course at the Wildfire Golf Club at JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa – sculpted in conjunction with Schmidt-Curley Design – played host to the LPGA Tour’s JTBC Founders Cup in March.
Also in March, the Blackstone Course at China’s Mission Hills Haikou staged the World Ladies Championship.
The following month, Mission Hills Haikou’s Sandbelt Trails Course hosted the Buick Open, the opening leg of the 2015 PGA Tour China Series.
In June, meanwhile, the Plantation Course at Siam Country Club received plaudits from players and officials after staging the 45th edition of the Thailand Open.
Curley said: “We are honoured that so many of our courses continue to be selected as venues for top-level professional tournaments. We are proud also of our record of consistent design achievement, master-planning expertise and client satisfaction.”
Such is the appeal of Amata Spring that two-time US Masters champion Watson is returning for the fourth occasion hoping to improve on his best outing there, a tied-second finish in 2012.
The left-handed American said: “I love visiting Thailand and I love competing in the Thailand Golf Championship. It’s a week I really look forward to – the hospitality we players receive is second to none and Amata Spring really suits my eye.”
 
The original plot of land designated for the Amata Spring was completely flat with a massive lake in the middle of the property.
To help create and deliver a change in elevation, the water level of the lake was lowered by approximately 10 metres which was crucial in helping to create the elevated tees and rolling fairways.
 

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