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(Sent from my iPad)
Wednesday morning was a nice catch-up morning. We had a few informal meetings in the resort lobby and as a group traveled to the airport to head to Ho Chi Min City Vietnam. The flight was about four hours.
HMC airport is in tired condition, but despite all of the visitors the customs line moves very quickly. All of these airports are efficient, security, check-in, customs are all designed to handle large lines. This was the first time for me while in Asia where language really became a challenge. Exchanging US dollars for the Dong is very interesting! With the conversion rate of nearly 20k/1, it is hilarious to put over $1 million in your pocket. It is also crazy to tip someone 10k or pay for a cup of coffee with a 100k bill.
There is no way to describe the insurmountable number of people that drive scooters. The city population is estimated at 8-10 million with nearly all on scooters. Endless lines of them hauling everything from a family of four to their pets and even construction scaffolding. You think you are risking your life the first time you try to cross the street, yet quickly realize this is their daily routine and manage to Dip Dodge Duck and maneuver around you.. I kid you not, there are hundreds of thousands of scooters moving about the town.
We only had about an hour to walk around HMC before our reception that evening.
The reception was hosted by Sports Turf Solutions, a distributor of SandTrapper, CTI, David Golf, Hunter Irrigation, Phillip Jennings Turf Farms, Floratine, and Phoenix. Special thanks to the team of Pham Tu Tai, Mark Ecott, and Tien Huynh (Max). Guests included Michael O'Keeffe with Ohio State University. Mike oversees their International Internship Program that connects future golf course superintendents and operators to US facilities. It is a phenomenal program and we hope to feature more information in future publications. Earlier that day Mike and Mark Ecott were on a site visit at the Vietnam Golf Club. GM Andrew Jon Bowles and GC superintendent Nguyen Thi Kim Thoa joined us for the reception. The course was reported to be in excellent shape. Unfortunately our schedule did not allow for a visit. Another club joining our reception was Palm-Song Be Golf Company of Song Be Golf Resort. The golf project that is the talk of the city is the Greg Norman project managed by Saigon Development & Investment Corporation located about 10 kilometers outside of the city. This project began in the early 90's and stalled. It gained new momentum a few years ago and is nearly 1 year away from course opening. Rick Blackie is the Golf Course GM (With SDI) on the project with Raymond Lobb, Project Manager with Linksshape Golf managing the course construction. Rick and Ray were hosting us the next day for a site visit. Other guests joined us including Nguyen Van Huan with Viet Garden, another distributor of some of our members products along with Nguyen Phuong Thao with Witgang.
Thursday morning we were up early to head off to the Saigon Golf Course project site. Although close in proximity to the city center, challenges of traffic (scooters) makes for a nearly 40 minute drive. New roadway infrastructure under construction will eliminate that problem as the area develops. (Estimated to be surrounded by the city in less than 10 years) On site we were introduced to the project agronomist Alan Healey. After a quick tour of the nursery and turf farm we began out walk of the grounds. The project was first conceptualised about 1994/5. It became a reality in about 1999 when the land procurement and permitting statrted. In actuality it started construction around 2006 with stripping and sand filling.
The site is 7km from the center of the CBD and once the new highway is completed at the end of 2012 it will be no more than 15 mins to get to the club.
The site is 127ha not including a 2nd phase which will be a country club and serviced appartments. It will have 22ha of realestate, 15 ha of waterways, and 90 ha for the rest, including, golf, irrigation lake, roads, boundary fences and other infrastructure, spa, clubhouse, range, GCM platform. A nursery will have roughly 50 ha of turf and is using Platinum Paspalum fairways and roughs with Mini Verdi greens.
The site was a mangrove swamp either at or below the river level depending upon tidal conditions. There were multiple natural waterways across the site that needed to be filled. The entire site has had to be cleared of vegitation and sandfilled. The final estimation will be in excess of 6Millm3 of sand imported onto the site. The sand has to be pumped onto the site. Currently it is being pumped from 5km as there is restricted access to the river for barges due to bridge construction. The segments fo pipe are 5m long and there are currently 11 lines pumping. The sand for tees and greens is being trucked in where possible to avoid the creation of mud areas due to the pumping methodology.
The general principle was to fill the site to 3m, let everything settle and then bring in the additional sand. Let that settle and then build the course. Obviously there are higher and lower areas with the waterways being excavated and the course mounding requiring extra fill. The issue for reaching desired contour levels was the amount of settlement that might occur. The engineers have devised a contour plus settlement program which is closely monitored at multiple points around the site.
The realestate areas have been preloaded and will ultimately have some excess sand removed prior to construction. To speed up the land consolidation process a system of wick drains were incorporated which has proven to be very successful. All pipe work on site will be HDPE to allow for movement, and all structures will reguire significant piling. The north and half the west side of the project have had to be sheet piled along the riverside, this was roughly 2km. These then have to be anchored back to the site. This process has taken roughly 9 months. Then there is dewatering to allow for sand filling along the piled areas, followed by shaping once the machines can access the area.
Construction of the waterways is done in phases with the removed soil/muck requiring multiple handling before being removed off site, roughly five moves per bucket full. Due to the preloading of certain realestate areas some of the waterways have had to be constructed post rough shaping of the fairways which is obviously not the best solution. All sand filled areas need roughly 30 days before shaping can start and with an average of 700mm of rain for the past 5 months this has proven tricky. The rain also means the ground water on sight is artifically higher, plus the water form the sand pumping process is retained on site, further raising the water levels on site.
Shaping the course once sand is in place and dry is straight forward, invert levels for catch basins and all other drainage issues are not. The construction of the course is expensive but due to the location the developers are not overly concerned as this will be an exceptional golf course community in the middle of a major city. Possibly the only one of its kind constructed so close to the city in the next few years. Water quality is an issue. Ho Chi Minh's climate is dry winter, so for 5 months from Nov to Apr, there will be no rain. All the bores are very high in iron. They will be looking at ways to treat this problem, from aeration to treating the water in the waterways and pumping back to the irrigation lake.
Lots of problems for them to solve in the future. Plans already made for dealing with the sand issue by topdressing a lot and aerification. (Site stats provided by Rick Blackie, SDI)
Driving from the site this project is another example of the needed skill of construction companies and the utilization of professionals that understand their products to create the best end result. This is a very technical project with a number of changes they have learned along the way. One might wonder why invest so much time and money into a golf course... One of the only other courses in the area further from the city was also constructed outside of developed areas. The course created hundreds of jobs for local residents and has since created an entire community and township for those that benefit from the course.
There are a number of conflicting reports on golf development in Vietnam. Visiting with our guests we were told there are approximately 80 projects that have been reviewed and approved for master planning with around 3-40 of those that will begin construction next year. Vietnam will most likely build more courses that the US next year.
Jeff and I headed for HMC airport for our next step of our tour. We were to have a quick layover in Guangzhou as we head to Hainan Island however our plane is delayed. This gives me a chance to catch up on some notes and reading. Our schedule has us loading at Mission Hills tonight. It looks like we will arrive around 2am...
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