Photo courtesy of USGA and Gil Hanse Design.
According to CBS Sports, American architect Gil Hanse will design the 2016 Olympic golf course in Rio de Janeiro, winning the selection Wednesday over perceived favorites Jack Nicklaus and Robert Trent Jones, Jr. There were eight finalists total.
The Rio 2016 committee said Hanse Golf Design was “the candidate that most aptly met the selection criteria” issued by organizers, proposing a strong legacy component that prioritized a golf academy to help the sport’s development in Brazil.
“Hanse Golf Course Design tackled the challenge of designing a course for use by both elite and amateur athletes, one of the main legacy objectives,” the committee said in a statement. “It addressed the environmental sustainability directives for the games and efficiently conformed to the building restrictions on the land.”
According to CBS’s Steve Elling, “Hanse plan calls for Oly course end on series of “half-par holes,” meaning short par-3, drivable par-4, reachable par-5.”
