The 2024 D+D REAL Czech Masters marks the DP World Tour’s first visit to PGA National OAKS Prague, where renowned course architect Kyle Phillips has received widespread acclaim for his design.
The tournament, which has been held at the nearby Albatros Golf Resort since its inaugural run in 2014, moved this year to a venue near the Prague suburb of Niebrenice, which only opened in 2020.
David Ravetto was one shot behind leader Jesper Svensson going into the final round and was unsurprisingly very happy with the course setup. “I think it’s a really good course, very open from the tee, which suits my game because I can hit driver anytime. The greens are really good and hold really well, so it’s fun,” he said.
California resident Phillips revealed that the project has been a long time in the making to reach its current stage.
“This is a long time coming,” he said. “This started 18 years ago, and I was actually here almost 20 years ago.”
“We were involved in a planning process that took us down a number of different paths, and there were a lot of environmental issues here that we had to address.
“In its current form, the idea of extending the existing hamlet nearby into the new development and building a golf course around the village, making golf a central part of the project, is not dissimilar to the origins of golf.
“It started in a number of towns, the most famous of which is obviously the Old Course at St Andrews, where courses are located in and around towns. So there's a bit of a 'back to the future' concept in the development process.”
Atlanta-born Phillips founded his own firm in 1997 after studying golf course architecture under Robert Trent Jones Junior.
Since then, his courses have included Hilversum and Bernardus in the Netherlands (both of which have hosted the DP World Tour's KLM Open), Kingsbarns (one of three co-hosts of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship) and Yas Links in Abu Dhabi.
Despite the inevitable delays due to storms in the area, the OAKS layout was still a hit with players this week.
Richie Ramsay commented that the course was in “excellent condition”, while Max Rottluff said on the first day: “The greens here are probably some of the best we’ve had all year when we’ve played, so it’s a fantastic venue.”
“One of the things I love about what I do is the diversity of what we do and the people we work with every day,” Phillips says of his design process. “It ranges from planning and creativity, especially on the front end of ideation, to the technical side, working with engineers and navigating all the rules and regulations.”
“We’ve worked in all these different countries and continents, which in itself adds new highlights and interests.
“It actually helps sometimes to bring things that we’ve done elsewhere that might not have been imagined as solutions for the region to the fore and help our projects.
“But every stage was fun and I really enjoyed being involved in the construction and being in the dirt.
“I come out here and the clock just goes by — ‘One more hole, one more hole, one more hole’ — and it’s just an amazing feeling to be able to see it from the front end, all the way to Opening Day, and even come back when we have events like this.
“Any stadium will improve over time and even the surface will change.
“Bernards was not originally designed to host tournaments, it was conceived as a private club. The new owner is interested in the venue being able to host tournaments, so this may require you to have an initial concept in place and then make some improvements.
“There was nothing I didn't like. It was very entertaining.”
