Rios Olympic Golf Course is ready, but it almost wasnt
RIO DE JANEIRO — The standing appointment, every Friday at 10 a.m., lasted for six full years. The collection of people responsible for building the Olympic Golf Course — a renowned course architect, a man called “the grass whisperer,” PGA Tour officials and Olympic organizers among them — would discuss the progress of the past week and the deadlines to be met for the week ahead.
The great-big aim of competing the unprecedented project on time hovered over every call. Now that they have done it, now that a world-class golf course sits a few miles from Rio de Janeiro’s Barra beachfront, they can admit how much they fretted about not getting it done.
“At various stages of that process, we were often wondering, if this milestone doesn’t get hit, how much further behind do we get?” said PGA executive Ty Votaw, who coordinated the construction for the International Golf Federation. “How does a project get a year behind? One day at a time. That’s what we were worried about.”
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Thursday morning, golf will be played at the Olympics for the first time in 112 years. It will be played on a course designed by Gil Hanse, on a plot of land that seven years ago was gnarly scrub and sandy marsh, in a city where environmental concerns, legal quagmires and public distrust complicated every transaction.
Viewers will see only the finished product, a links-style course with firm, bouncy fairways and tricky driving angles that some of the world’s best players have raved about.
“I love it. The design is really interesting,” Brazil’s Victoria Lovelady said. “The angles that we have from the tees and even to the greens, the undulations on the greens, they can be a little bit sneaky. But it’s a fun course to play. It’s going to be challenging, especially if we have the wind.”
American Rickie Fowler described Hanse’s feat like this: “Turning nothing into a really great golf course without having time to make any adjustments.”
The development of the course happened through years of aggravation and work, but they hope they will leave behind a means to grow golf in Brazil. The Olympic Golf Course will be Brazil’s first public golf course once the Games end, and organizers plan to create youth-development academies.
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“The seven-year journey that took us here was one that had a lot of twists and turns to it, and was one that probably took longer than we expected it to,” Votaw said. “But now that we’re here and now that we’ve had the benefit of seven years of hindsight, all those twists and turns have brought us to where we think we have not only a great golf course, but also an iconic venue for these games.”
The first challenge of building the Olympic Golf Course was convincing organizers it needed to be built. Rio 2016 officials planned on using one of Rio’s two existing golf courses. Upon visiting them, golf officials knew neither course would be capable of hosting an event of the scope. “It took us a couple years to get people to understand those courses weren’t acceptable,” Votaw said.
While they grappled with Olympic organizers, the IGF team set about preparing choosing a destination. Votaw first walked the Olympic Golf Course land in 2010. The location, contours and terrain were ideal, but it was nothing but trees and bushes around a bog. For an idea of what it looked, the waste areas on the course are unchanged, and the course was nothing but that kind of land.
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The sand-capped earth, though, offered a significant benefit. It could be moved easily to create green complexes, and it would support growth of zeon zoysia, a strain of grass developed in Texas.
Once they chose the land, the challenge of acquiring it became clear. During land sales in Rio, ownership disputes commonly take years to wind their way through courts, and that’s what happened for the golf officials. Some Rio citizens began a campaign called “Golfe para quem?” – “Golf for whom?” – that questioned whether the course would benefit or harm Rio.
Once they could start working, they ran into the stumbling block of building next to an environmental reserve. Prosecutors sought to halt construction, claiming it had been sufficiently passed environmental impact tests. Olympic and golf officials say the course would provide environmental benefits. Critics disagreed, saying the course would encroach on the Atlantic Forest and endanger the Lutz tree iguana and the fluminense swallowtail butterfly.
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The controversy may never be fully settled, but construction went on, the designers needed to adjust holes 13, 14 and 15 to conform with environmental standards.
By the time legal squabbles were settled, the IGF team had 2½ years to build the course and another year to grow it in. Votaw credited superintendent Neil Cleverly for producing grass in two growing seasons, a less-than-ideal time frame.
“He’s a real hero,” Votaw said. “I refer to him as the grass whisperer. He’s been able to do a lot for this golf course without a lot of resources.”
The finished product will be unveiled Thursday. It did happen without opponents or challenges. But it had never been done before, either. Golf returned to the Olympics, and a handful of people who spent every Friday on the phone for six years delivered it.
“It’s amazing honor,” Hanse said. “That’s the only that I can use. It’s been a wonderful opportunity for us, and we’re really proud of what we’ve produced.”
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