Vietnamese Hoiana Shores Golf Club in Hoi An has earned GEO Certified® Development status from the Scotland-based GEO Foundation. This is the golf industry’s international standard-bearer for sustainable course design and construction practices.
The punch list required for GEO certification is comprehensive, including many workaday items ranging from waste disposal to hiring practices to energy efficiencies at the clubhouse.
Hoiana Shores also restored 23 hectares of degraded former fish farms to native coastal shrub vegetation. This without importing any growing materials.
The vegetation on site today is 100 percent native and locally sourced, while an additional 44 acres of native landscape habitats, plus 6 acres of coastal dunes, were established in and around the golf course designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr.
“The result is a golf links wrapped in the dynamic eco-tones of an authentic Vietnamese coastal landscape,” Thomas said. “Backed by careful and experienced management methods means this golf course and its wider environment remain respectful to the native setting and create a memorable, genuine experience for golfers for years to come.” said Sam Thomas, Director of Golf Development at the GEO Foundation.
Sustainability and pure golfing concerns
Architect Robert Trent Jones, Jr., tells that the sustainability and pure golfing concerns spirit was certainly embraced by the RTJ team:
— When you’re working in sand, we architects start to salivate and the quality of the sand at Hoiana is by far the highest quality sand pit we’ve ever dealt with. No screening required. We were able to manufacture some wonderful shapes and contours, a lot of created architecture. It’s a great luxury to pile the sand up, shape the heck out of it, then let the wind shape it again.
— On holes 16 and 17, for example, where the wind is coming right off the sea, we shaped it and let Mother Nature further shape it. Then we came back and refined it. Ultimately, we created windswept areas that were different from original shapes. And more sustainable, because those shapes were created by prevailing winds. At 16, it really changed the strategy of the hole. It became a more risk-reward par 4, where now you can cut 50 yards off your approach by being aggressive. Of course, if you miss, you’re down on the beach.
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