Special Places - Amata Spring Country Club

Luke Donald finished third on Sunday at the season ending Dubai World Championship to comfortably win the European Tour Order of Merit and secure an unprecedented and historic double after also topping the 2011 US PGA Tour Money List. This week sees a strong field in the final event of the year on the Asian Tour battling for the honour of winning the inaugural Thailand Golf Championship. Current Major champions Rory McIlroy, CharlSchwartzel and Darren Clarke head up an impressive field that also includes Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia and Ryo Ishikawa at the Amata Spring Country Club in Chonburi, about 75kms East of Bangkok.

Amata Spring is a spectacular world-class design by Schmidt-Curley Design, founded in Scottsdale, Arizona by two protégés of iconic golf architect Pete Dye. Lee Schmidt and Brian Curley have established a stellar reputation over the past two decades, especially in the Asia-Pacific region where their credits include all 10 courses at Mission Hills new Hainan Island resort, amongst which is the Blackstone Course that hosted the Omega World Cup last month.

Opened for play in 2004, the lush Amata Spring layout is quite long at just under 6800 metres, with the front nine considerably longer than the hazard-packed more compact back nine. Power and accuracy are the order of the day on the outward half, precision and finesse on the home holes, with stiff prevailing winds from the late morning onwards, adding further to the mix. The course flows naturally around two large lakes and a river, with water coming into play on half of the holes. There is excellent bunkering on every hole, and the often wickedly undulating greens are frequently also protected by run-off areas that put chipping skills to a severe test. The signature hole is the short 17th, a par 3 that is 130m of pure intimidation claiming to be the only true floating island green in Asia. A small boat is on hand to ferry players from the tee to the 750 square metre green that is built on bulkheads in the lake and weighs in at 700 tons.

Amata Spring Country Club was named Best New Course in Asia in 2006 and has been the four-time host of the Royal Trophy, Seve Ballesteros' brainchild to give Asian golf the boost of a Ryder Cup style event against Europe.

Golfweather Editorial