Professional Golfer Fred Couples’ Masterpiece: Twin Dolphin Golf Club in Los Cabos Mexico
Near the shore of Santa Maria Bay among Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo at the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula is the Twin Dolphin Golf Club, home to a outstanding golfing direction. The course is part of the 1, four hundred-acre Twin Dolphin master-deliberate network encompassing Montage Los Cabos Resort & Residences and the non-public residential community, Maravilla Los Cabos. But what makes the direction in contrast to such a lot of others changed into the particular technique taken by the previous global champion golfer who designed it.
Designed To Be Enjoyed By Golfers Of All Levels
World-famend journeying expert Fred Couples, who changed into number one within the international and maintains to compete at the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions, didn’t have simplest touring professionals like himself in thoughts he designed the 7,156-yard-lengthy, par seventy-two routes. Instead, Couples’ intention becomes for it to be loved by people of all levels of playing capability, from beginners to immensely superior gamers. And, Couples, who has designed courses all over the international, considers the direction at Twin Dolphin Golf Club to be his pleasant paintings.
“Most homeowners at Montage and Maravilla aren’t going to be players with a four handicap,” says Couples, who won the Masters in 1992, amongst many other tournaments. Couples wanted the direction to be fun for everybody who desired to play it and took the time to keep in mind all forms of players within the design procedure. “It, without a doubt, needed to be playable. And because it has become out, every person simply likes it.”
Not to say that the course isn’t going to the assignment the low handicap golfers who play from the back tees. In reality, Couples himself has now not mastered the curriculum. “I played six straight days, however, struggled to analyze the greens,” recalls Couples, whose scoring ranged from sixty-nine to seventy-one. “I did not make many birdies, and I had one horrific tee shot in which I hit into the desolate tract. I did have a few, in reality, suitable games, but I want to parent out the greens better to shoot a sixty-five or sixty-six.”
Views Of The Ocean From Every Hole
Perhaps Couples changed into distracted by way of the endless breathtaking views of the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Ocean seen in the distance. Indeed, Couples felt it turned into so essential to gain the ocean perspectives that he designed the path to making sure they would be seen at each possibility. For example, on the second hole, he noticed an opportunity to move the vicinity of the green so that players ought to enjoy an extra expansive view. “So now, when you play the hollow, you’re looking in the direction of the Bay,” he explains.
During the layout manner, Couples and golfing architect Todd Eckenrode of Origins Golf Design visited the belongings limitless times to walk the terrain time and again. “I am very visual, and I want to examine every nook and cranny,” says Couples. Repeatedly walking the route with Eckenrode enabled Couples to check where a participant’s eyes might be looking at some stage in the play. “The perspectives make the route,” he says. “And on this direction, you may see the water at nearly every shot.”
The Course Incorporates The Natural Terrain
Starting with a sleek palette, Couples changed into no longer limited design around planned homesites, permitting adequate flexibility with the layout. Eckenrode and Couples agreed to include the herbal terrain into the direction and did now not pass boulders, along with the one seen at the ninth hollow. “We did now not stage whatever,” he explains. “People come and say they love how raw the direction is. All we did become put grass down and permit it to develop. We attempted to preserve it lovely, however genuinely rustic and no longer phony to the land. We desired it to be natural.”
And natural, it’s miles. Designed alongside a hillside, the course carries the beauty of the desert landscape. There turned into no mass grading, and the encircling local landscaping was left intact with every hollow deliberately designed to mix seamlessly with the land around it. The direction incorporates herbal arroyos, rocks, elevation adjustments, bunkering, or even native cactus.
A Family-Oriented Club
Another specific issue to the route is that it caters to the members’ needs and visitors who play there. Wanting it to be an enjoyable experience for players of all degrees, there are a couple of sets of tee packing containers, such as Niños tees for younger kids. And searching to convey the clubhouse environment in the direction, Twin Dolphin introduced Red Doors, which are indoor-outside eating and relaxation regions on the course with a residential feel, featuring an open kitchen that offers snacks, sandwiches, and liquids.
Members are invited onto the course without tee time reservations and are welcome to play any range of holes. The essential clubhouse gives an eating place and bar with indoor and outside eating similar to a pro keep and locker rooms. The clubhouse opens to a garden equipped with a soccer spinner (shooting out soccer passes), and there is a dream installation for choose-up football games.
Couples love these amenities and recollect going out to play golf together with his girlfriend’s eleven-year-antique son, who performed the kid’s tees; however, after 9 holes wanted to hang out in the clubhouse where he ought to watch TV and kick around a soccer ball. “It is all approximately family right here,” says Couples.
Even the riding variety was designed with careful consideration. “We put in a bunker at the left side, and it is a superb area to exercise,” he says. “It is lovely and one of the great holes at the course. You stand there searching on the water the whole time.”
A local of Seattle, Washington, Couples is unique in more significant ways than one. Not driving through ego, he remains enormously humble (especially given his predominant accomplishments) and says he isn’t trying to stamp his name on publications all over the globe, which makes the course at Twin Dolphin Golf Club that much more special.
Couples are proud to have performed a function in the development of the route at Twin Dolphin Golf Club. “This direction is using a long way the high-quality one that I was worried about,” he adds. “To be part of Twin Dolphin, for a man like me, is a large blessing.”
