Bodrum course almost finished

The course is being developed by Fikret Öztürk, owner of Carya GC in Belek, which Tim designed under the banner of Thomson Perrett & Lobb. He also owns a nine hole course in Bodrum.

“The site is about 2km from the sea, and up in the mountains above Bodrum town,” says Tim Lobb. “It’s a big site – about 300 hectares – and runs through a working olive grove, which we have retained. The site has great topography, but it is extremely rocky, so it has been a challenging build. The bunkers, for example, have been placed and designed hole by hole during construction, depending on ground conditions – and there aren’t many of them, less than 30 on the whole course.

We have really built the course in the field, with lots of hand sketching and field notes, rather than predetermining the design in the office. That’s a new process for me, and I’ve been fortunate to work with an excellent contractor, Naki Evandir of GolfTek – in fact it is the fourth course I have built with him over the past eighteen years.”

Lobb said his favourite hole on the course was the thirteenth, a downhill par four with a split fairway. “There is a rocky channel that goes through the left side of the fairway, creating stormwater drainage but also setting up the playing strategy really nicely – the safe route is down the right, while the tiger line goes to the left,” he explained.

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