Golf’s return to the Games: Building a course out of nothing

Editor’s note: In the second of a three-part series about golf re-entering the Olympic Programme at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, the focus pivots from getting the sport back into the Olympics after a more than 100-year absence to finding a suitable place to hold the men’s and women’s competitions. Ty Votaw, the former International Golf Federation Executive Director, provides an inside look at how the Olympic Golf Course came into existence and what had to happen to build a world-class facility in Rio de Janeiro.

In 2009, Rio de Janeiro, a city with a population of more than 12 million people, one of the 20 most-populated cities in the world, had two golf courses.

I was privileged to be a part of a group responsible in getting Rio its third.

With golf now securely on the Olympic Programme, set to appear as an Olympic sport for the first time since 1904, we knew we needed a championship golf course to host the men’s and women’s competitions at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Of Rio’s existing golf courses, we immediately ruled out Gavea Golf and Country Club as a potential site. It was just too short yardage-wise, and it sat in a landlocked location. There was no way we could even consider renovating or lengthening the course. The adjacent property simply wasn’t available.

Itanhangá Golf Club was intriguing. It had previously hosted a DP World Tour event, the Brazil Rio de Janeiro 500 Years Open, in 2000, a tournament commemorating Brazil’s 500 years as a nation. The LPGA had also played at Itanhangá just a year earlier—the 2009 HSBC Brazil Cup. Itanhangá had enough length that it could easily host the women’s Olympic competition, and there was room to expand the course to make it longer and more challenging for the men.

The problem, we learned, was the course’s topography. As originally constructed, Itanhangá sat atop red clay, only a couple of inches beneath the grass. Clay and water go very well together in many instances but not when it comes to golf courses and tournaments.

Our experts immediately pointed out that drainage at Itanhangá was, in a word, terrible. Because of the clay, and with the Games’ tournament schedule calling for two 72-hole competitions in under a two-week period, we knew any rain during the Olympics could cause delays that would be difficult to overcome. Tearing up the course and putting down a sand base over the clay made no financial sense, especially since constructing a course specifically for the Olympics was always a possibility, and both projects came with approximately the same price tag. Besides, the Itanhangá members were in no mood to pay for such a project. Ultimately, we rejected Gavea and Itanhangá, and the Rio 2016 Olympic Organizing Committee agreed with our recommendation.

I remember telling the New York Times during an interview that the great thing about golf is that pretty much every major city in the world has a golf course capable of hosting a golf tournament, but they—the IOC—picked the one city that didn’t. We had to overcome that fact.

After doing our due diligence with Gavea and Itanhangá, Peter Dawson, my partner with the International Golf Federation and head of The R&A, and I joined Michael Johnson, Rich Brogan, Steve Wenzloff and Tyler Dennis, my colleagues at the PGA TOUR, on an afternoon visit to the Marapendi Natural Reserve in the Barra da Tijuca zone of Rio de Janeiro. It was not far from where the Rio organizing committee planned to build the Olympic Village and was the location of many other Olympic venues.

Pasquale Mauro owned the 140 acres our group visited. To say he was eccentric and a colorful figure would be an understatement. He lived nearby on a farm, raising ostriches and buffalo. The property we envisioned as a golf course had previously gone through the process of a preliminary golf course design years earlier. Mr. Mauro had ideas well before the IOC announced Rio as the site of the 2016 Games that he would build a golf course on the property adjacent to the ocean as an amenity for his surrounding condominium owners. Mr. Mauro had already overseen some rudimentary site-preparation work, and we could see there was an enormous amount of potential in building a golf course there.

But, as we traipsed around the mangroves on a sand-capped property—a fortuitous part of the landscape considering what we had encountered at Itanhangá—I would say you had to have a real imagination to look at what was in front of us and picture that as a golf course. And even with the imagination running wild, could we turn it into one in time for the Games?

We knew two to three years was the typical time needed to build a golf course, but since we were doing this in Brazil, we had to acknowledge the many other obstacles we would have to overcome even before a bulldozer began moving dirt. Behind-the-scenes politicking and negotiations, with Mr. Mauro and with national and municipal governments, was a reality.

We also had to hire a course architect from a long list of suitors who were all interested in securing the Olympic Golf Course contract.

The Rio 2016 Golf Advisory Committee, of which I was not a member, formed to ultimately decide who would design the golf course. The members were Peter Dawson; Carlos Nuzman, the head of the Brazilian Olympic Committee, Rio 2016; Eduardo Paes, Rio de Janeiro’s mayor; and Arminio Fraga, a big golf fan and afficionado of golf course design who was also the former president of the Central Bank of Brazil. Over the course of the next seven years, we would have several dinners at Arminio’s home, and he would always show us his library of golf architecture books. He was a passionate advocate for the piece of property we wanted to build on, and he had strong opinions about who should get the job and why. The committee worked together and had in-depth, sometimes spirited discussions, as it considered all the applicants.

The committee relied on Michael Johnson, Rich Brogan and Steve Wenzloff of PGA TOUR Design Services, veterans of golf course construction, who consulted and provided valuable insight. All applicants had the opportunity on Dec. 11, 2011, to travel to Rio to walk around and inspect the 140-acre Mauro property. The committee then informed the applicants it would shorten the list to a group of finalists, with interviews and presentations taking place approximately six weeks later.

Eventually, the committee chose eight. On the last day of January and Feb. 1, 2012, all eight had the opportunity to make their cases. Mayor Paes ended up having a conflict that week, and he didn’t participate in the presentations, instead sending Augusto Ivan, an urban architect who Paes tabbed as his “environmental advisor.”

The designers began lining up to share what they envisioned doing with the property. The first two to present were World Golf Hall of Fame members, South Africa’s Gary Player followed by Australia’s Greg Norman. The applicants truly made up a who’s who of golf course design. Jack Nicklaus and Annika Sorenstam joined forces, as did Peter Thomson and Karrie Webb. Beyond those designers with Hall of Fame playing accomplishments, Martin Hawtree and his partner Marc Westenborg wanted the job, as did Tom Doak, Robert Trent Jones Jr., and Gil Hanse and his partner, Jim Wagner.

One charge I had, as a PGA TOUR employee, was to make sure arguably the greatest golfer of all time on the men’s side—Jack—and the greatest golfer on the women’s side—Annika—be given every opportunity in a high-level way to secure the bid. And that not-so-subtle pressure came from none other than Tim Finchem, the PGA TOUR Commissioner.

But I did not have a vote.

The committee had to take so many things into consideration: What was each designer’s style? How would they route holes? How many other projects did he or she have going on at the time? What did the designer’s portfolio of previous designs look like? There was also the reality that Brazil, in the Southern Hemisphere, was not exactly close to where most of the architects lived.

Gil and Jim, along with design consultant, LPGA legend Amy Alcott, also made their presentation, and it was impressive.

Gil had only designed his first course 11 years earlier, in Pennsylvania, and he didn’t have the long resume of some of the other architects. But Gil had done some amazing work that impressed all of us, including a renovation of TPC Boston in 2007. Plus—and this was important—of all the applicants, Gil and Robert Trent Jones Jr. were the only finalists who said they would move to Brazil to oversee the Olympic project on a day-to-day basis. Everybody else said they would fly in and out, as needed.

The committee went back and forth, knowing each presentation had its pros and cons. Naturally, there was not a consensus from the start of the deliberations, and there was a lot of back and forth. Jack and Annika received fair consideration, just like everybody else, but there would be no thumb on the scale in their favor. The committee truly wanted to build the best golf course possible and that meant hiring the person who could make that a reality.

In the end, the committee chose Hanse Golf Course Design, with Gil’s commitment to move to Brazil playing a large factor. He had an impressive plan, and Gil made good on his promise once he signed the contract. Eventually, off to Rio he went, taking his wife Tracey and their youngest daughter with him.

Unfortunately, as we anticipated, during what was a long process to build the Olympic Golf Course, there were starts and stops, and it took Gil about three-and-a-half years to really get underway with the actual construction as we navigated all the red tape and bureaucratic issues.

What made the entire proposition dicey was, first, would the Mauro family donate the land for the project? They had a certain reputation in the city that was occasionally considered notorious. Rio’s mayor, Eduardo Paes, was also a very colorful figure and somewhat controversial, and he was someone who had the ultimate say in giving the go-ahead to build.

Add in environmental concerns in the area, with protesters making their opposition to golf course construction well known, and speed bumps sometimes turned into roadblocks. I always found the environmentalists’ objections interesting because what we were proposing was the building of a golf course, one we knew would be environmentally friendly. The alternative? A bunch more condos made of cinderblocks, something that the Mauro family had previously considered for the property if a golf course didn’t work out.

There was also a faction of people who didn’t necessarily understand golf, and they wanted to know why we didn’t just play the golf competition on one of Rio’s two existing courses. As guests in their country, we patiently answered every question from every entity as we attempted to move the process along.

Meanwhile, the clock continued to tick, and it seemed on our visits to the site or on phone calls, we would hear about more problems arising. It sometimes felt like we were playing a game of Whac-A-Mole. Each time we’d knock the proverbial mole into the hole, another one popped up.

After navigating all the opposition along the way, construction finally began, and as you can imagine, a whole new set of problems arose.

For instance, Mr. Mauro had some equipment—trucks and tractors, most of them old and outdated—and he wanted to be a part of the construction process despite his lack of background in what it took to build a golf course. Eventually, Mr. Mauro retreated and hired Neil Cleverly as the course superintendent. Neil knew his stuff and took over the day-to-day assignments, working from Gil’s plan.

One of the biggest challenges was there simply weren’t a lot of people who had experience building golf courses. Neil would get this haphazard collection of enthusiastic and hard workers, but they didn’t have the inherent knowledge about the complexities of golf course construction. Neil would literally have to explain how a particular piece of equipment worked. Because of that, Gil and Neil, along with Rich Brogan and Michael Johnson, rode a lot of bulldozers and moved acres of sand themselves.

Gil was tremendous from start to finish, and from our side of the project, Steve Wenzloff, Michael and Rich joined Gil, Jim and Amy as true heroes. I once asked Rich and Michael how many separate trips they made from Florida to Rio during the course of the project, and they couldn’t produce an answer.

I didn’t make them go to their records and count.

There were also differences in the way the Brazilians did things vs. how Gil and his team were accustomed to working. To build a wet well and a pump station used to irrigate the golf course, for instance, Gil had a standard way of going through that process. The Brazilians, however, did things a little differently, and it took considerably longer using their method. Sometimes, the equipment was up to the standards we were accustomed to on our TPC projects, and sometimes it was not. Gil and his team simply persevered in order to get the course built.

That’s where the topography of the course played to our advantage. There was approximately a 20-foot elevation difference between the upper part of the land and the lower. Almost from the start, once construction began, the team could take a bulldozer to the upper section and begin shaping holes, which is what they did. By Day 3 of that process, they had shaped a hole due to the minimal amount of tree and brush clearance needed. The sand base certainly helped, no red clay anywhere to be found. On the lower section is where they built the lakes for water retention. Then the construction continued around those giant holes in the ground that would eventually fill with water.

Rich told me that because of how ready the land was, had this been a normal process he felt Gil and his team could have completed the project in about a year under traditional circumstances. That was a true blessing, to have such a magnificent piece of property.

I distinctly remembered my first visit to Rio in early 2010 and the difficulty in imagining a golf course on this property. I was amazed at what I was seeing. The course truly had come together. It not only resembled a golf course, it was a golf course. The greens were mowed and smooth, the fairway grass had grown in, the rough was rough, sand filled the bunkers and water in the lakes reflected the sunlight. The Olympic Golf Course was green and lush and beautiful.

There were still nuances to address here and there, but, overall, the golf course was complete—and basically finished a year ahead of the Olympics.

It was time to show it off to the world.

Next up in the final installment: Two weeks of Olympic golf competition.