IMG Design has been inked to design yet another golf course in Vietnam, this one for a “new urban area” that’s to be built in southwestern Hanoi.
The to-be-named community is being developed by Geleximco Group, a 15-year-old, privately held conglomerate with interests in banking and finance, insurance, telecommunications, information technology, and what it describes as “industrial production.”
Mark Adams, who operates out of IMG’s office in Singapore, has called Geleximco’s site “dramatic” and says it’ll allow his firm “to create some very memorable golf holes and a golf course that is unique to the others in Hanoi.”
The community will take shape on 1,150 acres in Hanoi’s Quoc Oai District. Geleximco hasn’t provided many details about it, except to say that it’ll include environmentally friendly houses, a trade center with office space, a resort-style hotel, sports and entertainment areas, and an enclave for what’s been described as “hi-tech agricultural production.”
“Our target is to create a world-class golf course and build a new urban area that will be well-known throughout the Vietnam market,” a company representative said in a press statement.
No doubt, IMG Design knows this territory well. The firm, a division of the Cleveland, Ohio-based sports colossus, has been working in Vietnam since the mid 1990s, and it currently has four golf courses to its credit: Dalat Palace Golf Club in Dalat City, Ocean Dunes Golf Club in Phan Thiet, Montgomerie Links in suburban Da Nang, and Tam Dao Golf Club in Hanoi.
In addition to Geleximco’s course, IMG has several others either in planning or under construction at other planned communities in the nation, including Ba Na Hills in suburban Da Nang and Dong Trieu in Quang Ninh Province.
All of the aforementioned courses have been designed or co-designed by Brit Stenson, IMG’s director of design. Over the years, Stenson has “ghost-designed” many courses that carry the “signatures” of IMG-managed golf pros, among them Nick Faldo, Colin Montgomerie, Bernhard Langer, and Annika Sorenstam. For now, at least, he’s working on his own at Geleximco’s property.
Geleximco aims to break ground on the course in 2012.
This story originally appeared in the World Edition of the Golf Course Report, in a slightly different form. For a sample copy of the World Edition, call 301/680-9460 or write to WorldEdition@aol.com.