The owners of The Phoenix Gold Golf and Country Club, one of the leading Championship courses in Eastern Thailand, recently announced a major investment to redevelop their club in Pattaya.
At a press conference held in Bangkok last month, the club’s new owner, Chanya Swangchitr, signed agreements with Thai course designer Pirapon Namatra, to completely redevelop the Lakes course.
Chanya Swangchitr (centre), along with General Manager Nathawat Aksornchat (left) and golf course designer Pirapon Namatra oversee redevelopment work on the Lakes course at Phoenix Gold.
Chanya also announced that in 2016 Phoenix Gold Real Estate will be launched to develop luxury homes on 1,000 rai adjacent to the golf course.
Opened in 1993 the clubs three nine hole courses, named Mountain, Lakes and Ocean, were originally designed by Denis Griffiths, the world renowned golf course designer.
Over the past two years, Ms Swangchitr has already invested heavily on improving the golfing experience both on and off the course.
Nathawat Aksornchat the club’s new General Manager said: “Having created the new look for Thana City in Bangkok, I joined the Phoenix Gold team in late 2014, and am very excited that we are creating a world class facility here in Pattaya. Although the three courses were offering some great challenges, we felt the existing 27 holes needed to be brought up to date. Therefore we were delighted when top Thai course designer Pirapon Namatra agreed to work with us to upgrade the courses.”
Pirapon Namatra has created some of Thailand’s most original courses including Banyan Golf Club in Hua Hin, Nikanti in Bangkok and recently with IMG, the Siam Country Club’s Waterside.
Pirapon commented: ‘’Our team at GolfEast has been at Phoenix Gold over the past two years, first working on the Ocean Course and more recently the Mountain Course. We worked on the bunkers, tee tops and some drainage and fairway work too, but it has not changed the look of these courses too much.
“Our company has now been awarded the contract to re-design the Lakes course with new lakes, tee boxes and greens. The renovation of this Lakes course will be the most comprehensive renovation to date for our design team. We are re-routing a few holes, while also working on the bunkers and the greens, which as you know is the most important part of any golf course.”
The Lakes is the shorter of the three courses, but Namatra’s brief is to make it more interesting, and he feels it may become the most fun of the three courses when it reopens. Hole 6 will become a sharp dogleg right par-5 over a couple of lakes and hole 5 will turn into a teasing little par-4.
During the current low season golfers can take advantage of special offers at Phoenix Gold Golf & Country Club, including free golf carts every Tuesday until the end of August 2015. For more information, go to website: www.phoenixgoldgolf.com.
