What makes this Jack Nicklaus Signature Course unique?

It’s a unique location. Campeche sits on the west side of the Yucatan Peninsula and the bay of Campeche is very calm. It’s got a lot of mangroves. It’s called the tarpon coast, and there’s tarpon all up and down the coast. The property sits right on the beach, it’s actually one of the places where we actually have some nice beaches.

And then they’ve cut a marina into the site; obviously there’ll be some hotels and some units there, several thousand units, and we’ll weave the golf course in and out of there. It’ll be environmentally sensitive, we’ll watch that pretty closely. There are several Mayan ruins on the property.

The property doesn’t have a lot of elevation change, it goes up to about 8.5 metres down to sea level, and we will create some lakes through there. We’ll create what will be a golf course sort of woven through a Yucatan jungle. You might just say that. It’ll be a nice golf course, we’re trying not to make it a really fancy golf course, as I don’t think you’re going to have any golf tournaments or tour events down here, I don’t think that’s necessary. We just want a good solid golf course, for the people who come here on vacation to enjoy and have fun.

How unique is it to have a course with as many diverse characteristics?

We’re going to come to the ocean on 3 holes; the 11th hole’s a green that comes into the ocean, the 12th hole’s a par 3 and the 13th hole plays away from the ocean. It’s the only time we’re going to come to the ocean, it’s the only place we’ve really broken through the mangroves into the beach to do so.

And then we have the variety of actual open areas which are back through an estuary area you might say. We’ll have some golf through that and then back in through the jungle so we have a wide variety of different things. I think it’s the 8th hole that has some really very old ruins, now what are ruins per-se are a pile of rubble actually, but still, they are ruins. They’re identified as a house and there’s an area like a church and so-forth, but you know it has pretty much all fallen apart. We will preserve that however, we’ll utilise it, we’ll have the history of it, and we’ll use that and play around it and through it. We’ll respect the culture that was here.

Is there an overall design philosophy for this property?

Not really, I think the overriding approach is that we just want to make sure it’s going to be enjoyable for the people who are going to play it.

Can you talk about the new Golden Bear Residences?

We’ve entered into an arrangement with the developers here, Julio Noval and his father. They were branding the condominium residences on this property as Golden Bear Residences and we all feel that that would give it an identification and quality standard that people will recognise from the golf course itself and from what we do. And so when people hear “oh that’s a golden bear residence”, we hope that they will feel that they are getting a quality situation and a quality experience.

Can you talk about the lifestyle and amenities offered by Campeche Playa?

Well I think that you’ve obviously got a beautiful beach. You’ve got miles of beach, or kilometres as they say down here, and they’re beautiful white beaches. They’re very gentle going out. It’s not a windy place, yes, I’m sure you’re going to have some wind but by the look of the coastline and the look of what is here, it’s not something that is eroded away. As a seashore it’s fairly calm. I think they’ll have varieties of water-sports, they’ll have varieties of fishing, they’ll have ocean fishing as well as the tarpon fishing.

They’ll also have the Mayan ruins, there are several very close to the project and some of our people visited them this week. You’re obviously going to have good food; basically they’re going to have good whatever they want. I think they’re going to have a nice experience, one that they’re going to enjoy and one to have fun.

¿What about the environmental aspect of Campeche Playa?

One thing that’s going to be here is that the golf course is going to be environmentally sensitive; we’re going to used paspalum. Paspalum is a grass that can be irrigated solely with eh salt or a very high salt content in the grasses, and we will use that here as it’s environmentally sensitive. It doesn’t take up a lot of fresh water, we will have a de plant here, but we will utilise that and I think that makes a beautiful clean landscape.

Is it an organic golf course?¨

It’s an organic golf course and therefore part of their permitting process is that no chemicals are to be used; it’s an organic golf course. The paspalum will help an awful lot, it’ll make it a lot easier to develop and maintain a quality golf course organically.

Campeche Playa has been called the biggest ecotourism complex in Latin America. Any comment?

The biggest ecotourism project in Latin America, that’s a pretty big undertaking. It’s nice to be involved in such a great project.

What is the climate like at Campeche Playa?

The climate here is beautiful, it’s ideal, I mean, the wind is not heavy. The prevailing winds come across Yucatan Peninsula and are quite calm by the time they get here. You have gentle wave action on the beaches, so you’re not going to be playing golf in a wind storm. You’re going to have a very, very nice climate. On a year round basis, I think you’re probably going to find one of the nicest climates in the world.

What do you think about the fishing?¨

We went fishing today and we fished from Campeche up to Merida. There’s about a hundred kilometres of estuary mangrove area which is just loaded with small tarpon and snook, which they call ‘robalo’ down here. And we saw thousands of fish today, thousands of tarpon rolling. They weren’t as cooperative as I would like, we only caught a few but we did catch some. Anybody who has fished tarpon knows that as soon as you get it on the hook, it’s in the air, it’s acrobatic, it’s fun to watch, it’s fun to catch. You don’t keep a lot of them on the line, they usually jump off, but people are going to have a blast down here fishing. It’s just a lot of fun.

(source: Campeche Playa Resort newsletter. November 2007)

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