Golf Links
That’s how golf course architect, Kyle Phillips, who also designed the stunning and award-winning links course at Kingsbarns near St Andrews , describes his approach to designing golf courses. And this philosophy is clearly evident with his latest creation. Sitting serenely in 300 acres of prime, natural parkland, The Grove, which was formerly the home of the Earls of Clarendon, is a magnificent new 18-hole layout, situated near Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire. Read More…
Sacramento Bee
by John Schumacher
Kyle Phillips stands in the dirt on the eighth tee at Morgan Creek Golf & Country Club in Roseville, motions with his hands and starts speaking his favorite language – Landforms. Contours. Ridge lines. Heathland. Dust drifts by as a bulldozer rumbles past. Phillips, the course’s balding, personable architect, doesn’t flinch, pointing out bunkers where there is only dirt, and praising an irregular-shaped oak tree that hugs the right side of a soon-to-be fairway. “Trees like that are just fantastic,” he says. “It works with the golf hole. It’s lost a big limb. If it lives another 30 years, we’ll be thrilled.” Read More…
Golf Course News International 2002-2003
By Trevor Ledger
Kyle Phillips spent 16 years with Robert Trent Jones II before creating his own practice. His first course in his own name is the highly acclaimed World Top 50 course, the Kingsbarns Links near St Andrews. This summer he opens another spectacular new layout: The Grove in Hertfordshire. Trevor Ledger talks with him.
GCNI: 16 years with RTJII. What prompted you to branch out on your own?
KDP: Working with Bob and his team was really great and I could have stayed there forever. I just felt the time for me to start my own firm was right. I was 39 and our children were 9 and 12 years old. If I had waited, it would have become more difficult for them to relocate.
GCNI: Kingsbarns was a great opportunity for you, wasn’t it?
KDP: Indeed it was. To have such as strong location as St. Andrews and the natural coast line along the North Sea provided a good foundation. My good friend, Richard Wax, with whom I had worked closely during our years with RTJII, introduced me to the site. The original developers were looking to sell. I was then able to bring together an American developer for whom I had already designed a course, his financial partner and Southern Golf, the contractor with whom I had an excellent relationship during the construction of the Wisley Golf Club. This formed a solid team.
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Sacramento Magazine, March 2001
By Mike Bowker
If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to design a golf course, consider this. You are standing in the middle of a 300-acre oak forest , your view on all sides blocked by hillsides covered with poison oak and cut through by a half-dozen streams choked with blackberry bushes. If you can envision that perfect par 5 that runs up the glade, around the bend, across the creek and between the two big oaks to a perfect little green that slopes from left to right – not too severely, mind you, because this is a difficult hole to reach in two – then you might be cut out to be a golf course architect. Read More…
