From ¡¶Golf Travel¡· Artical Gamon photo YongHeng Fan
Beta Soong owns two courses, Shanghai Silport and Tiger Beach , one is business and another is pure links, one is in his mind and another is in his heart, if one day, Beta send a course, that one must be the business but not the pure links as his each friends knows.
Dubai's Mysterious phone calls
There was an anecdote talked by Beta that one day he got a secret phone call from Dubai and a friend of him in Malaysia Penang who is engaged in real estate investment. What made Beta surprised is the friend want to invite Beta to design a course and no matter how expansive the design fee and how longer the time all no problem the only one thing was if Beta want to be the designer. His friend had this invitation after seeing the Tiger Beach course photos. Beta declined with thanks finally. He has his own opinion that as he said, he cannot take the case for his design of Tiger Beach all come from his interest and his love on links but not a business task.
 Beta became famous as a designer just base on one course design is really one and only. Maybe the Korean Media is the first discoverer of Tiger Beach and honored the Korean famous Mr. Kim Myong Gil, Japanese Master Course Designer Mr. Shunsuke Kato and Beta as the Asian Top 3 designers. And also Japanese Medias and tens of other Korean Medias¡¯ praises in the club house. So it is not strange that Beta become famous in Dubai. After all, Beta is a boss but not a business designer and he had his own understanding and love of links. He cannot pay more attention to a course design out of his own mind.
Scotland Genistas and the Old Bridge.
Tiger Beach Golf Links has three elements of pure links style, and all of these are the full satisfactions of Beta¡¯s, the Scotland Genista, the Old Bridge and the sheep flocks. There are also lots of stories about Beta on the pure link design, the Scotland Genista is one.
Tiger Beach had planted covers of pure Scotland Genista which were taken by ALISTAIR POLSON of Volvo, but the little plant dead dry after last year¡¯s Blossomy; the main reason was the different weather condition of the Shandong and Scotland. Beta felt worried about his precious plant which he takes meticulous care nearly 10 years.
The old Bridge on the 5th hole of Tiger beach is another pure links element which Beta loves so much. The model of it is from Scotland St. Angus old course. How many time Beta modified the design could not count, and every time Beta been to the old course he always seek the details of the old bridge and get some new change on his own.
Famous Japanese Designer¡¯ Visit
Beta, as the CEO of Shanghai Silport, he feels easy about it just like Silport is a business, while the tiger beach , he shows his full passion and love. Early in the year 1997, Beta had find many famous designers like Nicklaus Group (Shanghai Links) and the Japanese Shunsuke Kato who designed the Shanghai Tomson. And he also visited many of the courses in Shanghai and Taiwan. He feels the links courses of them were not so pure. So he decided to design himself.
Beta¡¯s major of his college was Landscape Architecture and he followed the whole building process of the Shanghai Silport golf course. So he mastered the design and his assistant did the following job. Also he becomes the regular customer of the famous Scotland old course after that. And an coincidence, a Mr. Zhuang ,a friend of Beta in Tomson showed the Tiger Beach photo to Shunsuke Kato and made the famous Japanese designer surprised, ¡°this is a real and pure links¡± he exclaimed.
And Kato visited Tiger Beach for two times, and as we know Kato is famous for the course design and tens of famous cases in Japan, he knows links well and had special study on this style, even twice or three times visiting to England and Ireland every year. Kato said to Beta that he did not satisfied on his case some times because he is just a designer but not the boss. And many times he cannot keep his idea in the final form. He admired Beta for he can design and also he is the boss himself. After 3 years building, Tiger Beach welcomed a delegation of Scotland and one of the guests came from Carnoustie Course. And then the two courses become Sister course and there were two roads named from Silport and Tiger beach to prize Beta¡¯s excellent design and his special love of Links.
Beta loves links, and I can say I have never met such a person who can compare him who shows the enthusiasm on the links in China in my impression. And once I asked the reason why he praises so high on links, he said: links shows natural, honest and wild. Just like the human being should be, but you could see many courses around the whole world, full of business and materialistic, so the golf lost its natural characters. And this experience had come from his journey to Scotland. Beta is also a frequenter of US courses, like Las Vegas Shadow Creek, when he came to US, he must book a tee time of the course, but he did not really prefer the style which made me feel unexpected. He said if you have money, you can built such a course, but if you want to built a pure links, you need to pay more attention and feeling on the links design inside of so much money . he mentioned about the Great Eagle in Scotland, the classic links , he had experienced three style of weather like sunshine first, then wild wind and heavy rain followed. All the players had to change close from T-shirt, rain cloth and even cotton clothes. This experience was really opened his eyes as he recalled, it is too unique and the human being came back to the nature.
Wilder than Links.
The two courses, one is in Shanghai, the most commercial style near the hustle and bustle of downtown Shanghai and another is in Shandong, like a an untouched paradise, most of the time Beta stay in Silport as a merchant and infect Tight Beach is always in his heart, and when he came to Tiger Beach, he just like a free man who has an easy life. He is just planning a new course with full of Dunes style he called it Tiger Beach No.2. Once he said for the Tiger Beach course No.1, he built just for fun but for the No.2 he feels like engaged in archaeological studies.
Which kind of course can be called a good one?
Beta
1. To built a course seems like making wine which need time to ferment and can eliminate the fickleness and immature, and complete the work with the help of the God (the natural wind, rain, snow, frost and sunshine).
2. No matter how the clubs innovated, and how far you hit the ball, you needn¡¯t to worry about the built course will become obsolete for the fixed lengths. In fact, a 7300 yards length is enough, if you think the fairway is short which may cause the competition not so exciting, you just need to narrow the fairway or lower the par to 70 or 71. If you keep increase the length, you may neglect the skill concept.
3. More and more occupational designers and the fairway Stylists¡¯ jobs made the natural course less and less.
4. A quality green can test a player on different kinds of skills, like how to use revolves on the front, the back, from the left to the right and right to the left.
5. The light of the course is changeable during a day time and in different seasons, so you had better modify the course started from the green to the fairway and the tee.
6. Greg Norman had a word that: the space of the green should be broadened and when the player lost on the green, the ball can roll further, and this can stimulate the player¡¯s imagination and creativity to save. So the space around the green can be said a needed design element of a good course.
7. You should broaden the placement of the first hit which can make the high HDCP player on the fairway, but the choice of the first falling site will affect the second shot of the lower HDCP, so it will not only challenge the skills of the lower HDCP but also encourage the higher fresher.
8. Do not design so many rough areas in a links falling site to avoid the time waste on finding balls.
9. A rumpled and complex green design is a best way to text a player¡¯s skills.
10. A perfect course and fairway is not depending on manmade but by the nature chance, so the more you deliberate pursuit of perfection it will be farther away from perfect.
11. A broaden fairway can diversify the playing skills but a narrow one may make it single.
12. Lots of perfect natural shapes had been destroyed by the designers and Stylists.
13. A links built by intuition can call out the power from the deep heart and can recall the passion of life and feels of the days. |
