Story & photos by Mike Besa
The Masters Course at the Manila Southwoods Golf and Country Club is one of the great golf courses in the country. It has been the site of the Philippine Open, the Eisenhower Cup and many professional tournaments both foreign and local.
One of just three signature golf courses of golf great Jack Nicklaus, it is his championship course, it was meant to test the best players in the game. Ingeniously designed on what is essentially a flat piece of rice land, the Masters twists and turns into the prevailing wind. As such, the wind comes from a different direction on each successive hole adding an unseen hazard to your game.
The golf course is up to par by modern standards at just over 7,300 yards from the gold tees. It’s on the long side from amateurs at just under 6,900 yards from the blue and close to 6,500 yards from the whites. In spite of its length, thoughtful placement is required as you make your way through the former rice paddy.
The greens are set at oblique angles to the fairway, putting a lot of pressure on the accuracy of the tee shot. The greens are usually quick and roll the golf ball almost flawlessly. But there is the fly in the ointment.
The only thing wrong with that is the Legends Course on the other side of the property has better greens than its more celebrated sibling. The Legends is the easier, more enjoyable of the two Southwoods tracks and its greens are better and less troublesome to care for in the bargain.
The club has long recognized this but fought to keep the standard of the greens on the Masters Course to as high a level with what they had to work with. Eventually, the tifdwarf greens on the Masters course fell victim to indigenous invasive species. The turfgrass on some greens started to mutate, which was the sign that it was time for a comprehensive renovation.
The work began right after the final Resorts World Manila Masters in 2017. Four greens at a time were renovated so as not to unduly upset the playing membership. It’s taken two full years, but the end is in sight with only four greens left to complete.
The club took the opportunity to address other issues, such as shrinkage or unwanted settling of the green complexes. Some adjustments were made to enhance playability, as well. All the changes were made under the watchful eye of former Nicklaus consultant Arch. John Cope. Cope has an interesting relationship with both of the golf courses at Manila Southwoods—he was Nicklaus’s supervising architect on the ground while both courses were being built.
Cope now lives on the property and serves the club by using his intimate knowledge of the golf courses to care for them day to day. He kept his hand in golf architecture by keeping busy with other renovations such as the one at the Alabang Country Club and the redesign and rebuilding of the 18th green at Forest Hills Golf and Country Club’s Nicklaus Course.
It’s been a labor of love for John and the move to tifeagle on the Masters’ greens should make his life much easier. It’s so much easier to prep a surface for play when the grass is healthy. If it isn’t, efforts revolve around keeping it alive and not preparing it for play. Tifeagle has a very good track record in the country. It sees duty in Sta. Elena, Ayala Greenfield Estates and Anvaya Cove just to name a few golf courses that swear by the micro bermuda. Many other golf courses are switching to tifeagle in the desire to provide better playing conditions at their respective properties.
We’ve had the privilege of seeing the club’s progress with the Masters over the two intervening years. We are impressed with the results thus far. Some of the new greens are larger, others have more undulations than before. Even when the remaining four greens return to play, it will be another two years or so before the root system is deep enough to receive a golf ball and allow it to hold. Only then will the years of work have been worth it.
It will be worth the wait. The Masters is the complete package—it’s a golf course that will challenge anyone. Its beauty and quality are obvious to all that walk its fairways. The golf course has seen some of the most exciting finishes in the annals of Philippine golf. Each of the four closing holes is a scoring opportunity ensuing such exciting finishes. It’s no surprise then that two of the five Resorts World Manila Masters tournaments were decided in playoffs.
We wait with bated breath for the renovation to wind down to completion and look forward to hacking it around on one of the best golf courses in the country. Manila Southwoods’s Masters Course has been one of the best golf courses since it opened for business some 25 years ago. It’s greens always ranked very highly but were always admittedly just a slight step down from the country’s very best.
All that is about to change and we can’t wait.
Image credits: Mike Besa