The 2024 D+D REAL Czech Masters marks the DP World Tour’s first visit to PGA National OAKS Prague and has brought widespread praise for the design by renowned course architect Kyle Phillips.
Having made its home at the nearby Albatross Golf Resort since its inaugural staging in 2014, the event moved this year to a venue opened only in 2020 around the village of Nebřenice on Prague’s outskirts.
David Ravetto, one shot behind leader Jesper Svensson going into the final round, was unsurprisingly happy with the set-up and said: "I think it's a really good course, it’s really open from the tee, it suits my game because I can bomb the driver whenever I want. The greens are really nice, they’re holding really well, so it’s just fun."
California resident Phillips revealed the project was a long time in the making before getting to this point.
“This had a long history,” he said. “It started 18 years ago now, I was actually at the site almost 20 years ago.
“We engaged in a planning process that led us down many different paths, there were a lot of environmental issues here that we had to address.
“In its present form, this notion of taking the existing small village nearby and extending it into this new development and building this golf course around the village, making golf the central part of the project, isn’t really that different than where golf began.
“It began in towns like - the most famous is obviously the Old Course at St Andrews, which plays in and out of the town. So there was a little of this kind of ‘back to the future’ concept in what the development could become.”
Atlanta-born Phillips learned the ropes of golf architecture under Robert Trent Jones Junior before forming his own company in in 1997.
He has since been responsible for courses including Hilversum and Bernardus Golf in the Netherlands, which have both hosted the KLM Open on the DP World Tour, Kingsbarns – one of three co-hosts of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship - and Yas Links in Abu Dhabi.
The OAKS layout has been a hit with players this week, despite unavoidable delays due to storms in the area.
Richie Ramsay described the course as being "in fantastic condition" while Max Rottluff said on day one: "The greens are probably up there with the best greens we'll play on all year, so a fantastic venue."
Phillips said of his design process: “One of the things I love about what I do is the diversity of what a day really is and all the people we work with. The variation of working in a planning sense, in the creativity – particularly on the front end when you’re concepting – then in the technical side with engineers and all the rules and regulations.
“Working in all these different countries and continents we’ve worked in, just by itself, adds new wrinkles and interest.
"Sometimes actually it’s really been helpful to be able to take things that we’ve done elsewhere, that haven’t maybe been imagined as a solution in this region, and bring that to the fore and help our project.
“But each phase is a lot of fun, I really enjoy being out on the construction side of things and being in the dirt.
“I get in the field and the time just passes – ‘Just one more hole, one more hole, one more hole’ – and it really is great to be in a situation where you can see it from the front end, see it all the way through to opening day, and then even coming back when we have events like this.
“With any course, the refinements take place over time and even how venues change.
"Bernardus initially wasn’t conceived to have championships, it was conceived as a private club. The new owner was interested in having championship venues, so that can take maybe an initial concept and cause you to make some refinements.
“There isn’t a part of it that I don’t like. Lots of fun.”
