Automatic promotion to premier division

A little over 18 months ago, standing ankle deep in mud and surrounded by CAT dump trucks, it was extremely hard to visualise what the outcome would be as one of the men involved in the eradication of existing tee-boxes and greens waxed lyrical about the design company's great plans. All around us, excavators ploughed into old greens with the abandon of kids let loose on a bumper ride in a fair ground and, to the outsider, general mayhem seemed to reign.

Talk can be cheap but, in the world of golf course design, or redesign as the case may be, it is an expensive business. And, for a club, it takes bravery to undertake such radical change. Yet, the finished product at Beaverstown Golf Club, in an area of north county Dublin that has blossomed into a golfing mecca, indicates that the money expended in redeveloping the course has been well spent. If not quite a miracle in the turning water into wine category, it is a transformation nevertheless that is mightily impressive.

"I'd say we've managed to take a pretty average club course and turn it into one that is right up in the Premiership," remarked Peter McEvoy, whose company McEvoy-Cooke Partnership undertook the project. Indeed, it is hard to argue with that assessment. Although much of the old lay-out has been retained, the changes that were undertaken - like the re-routing of the 14th and 15th holes and the complete turnaround of the short 17th - are significant. In all, the course has been extended by slightly over 200 yards to 6,637 yards, but it seems a good deal more than that, which is a tribute to McEvoy's design talent.

The quality of the greens - all constructed to USGA specifications, naturally enough - and the tee-boxes, meanwhile, are first class. The undulations on the greens, which measure between 450-550 square metres each, are such that they are testing without being ridiculously severe. But they are true. As McEvoy joked: "Every putt I hit off line, stayed off line."

The redesign of the course, originally designed in the old Lamb fruit orchards by Eddie Hackett, is the core element of a club initiative that also saw the upgrading of the clubhouse and the installation of a new irrigation system. The cost of such modernisation has run to close to £1.2 million but, as club captain Brian Morgan explained, "the cost and inconvenience to the members during the work has been worth it when you see the product that we now have".

On top of the costly upgrading, the club has also planted an additional 10,000 trees within the past month to complement the old orchards that are a throw-back to the land's previous existence. Nobody knows quite how many trees are planted on the land - the number runs comfortably into six figures - but they contrive to provide a unique characteristic to the course.

McEvoy and Craig Cooke, the other half of the partnership, have helped create a quite splendid course that offers tremendous variety. Although the trees are a natural hazard, they have also imaginatively increased the impact of water. From the opening hole, which backs on to the estuary, one of the new water features that fronts the first green is immediately in play while, later on, the stream - known by members as "the canal" - that has always run through the course has been cleaned and is featured on a number of holes, most memorably the 14th.

"We've been fortunate here in that we had a very interesting site to work with," said McEvoy. "The orchards, the sea, the canal . . . they all lend themselves to the course and, I would say, we have a very demanding course that would test players of any ability. There is a genuine quality about the course. It is as demanding an inland test as you will find anywhere."

ALTHOUGH a number of holes on the front nine - particularly the fourth, a Par 4 measuring 408 yards that has the estuary to the right and lines of apple trees to the left of the fairway - are exceptional holes, it is the finishing stretch that is set to make Beaverstown's reputation as a testing course.

In the old days, the 14th was a sharp dog-leg right. However, the impending construction of houses on land to the right of the tee led to McEvoy's re-routing of the hole which, in turn, meant the creation of a new 15th and, so, the start of an imposing finishing sequence.

The 14th hole now dog-legs to the left and, measuring 422 yards off the back stakes, it requires a good drive and, then, an even better second shot over the canal - that is actually hidden from view - to the green.

McEvoy himself reserves much of his contentment about the way that the redesign has worked for the impact of the 15th hole, a Par 5 measuring 515 yards. A month after the bulldozers and excavators moved in on the site in September 1999, the area where his green now lies was nothing more than wasteland, a swampy marsh with seemingly little to offer to the course. McEvoy's eye saw something, however, that no-one else did and the result is that this area of the course has been transformed into a hole that will be remembered by anyone who plays it. There are three different water hazards down the left hand side, with another hazard behind the green that has materialised in the area of old marshland.

The tee-shot on the 16th is a demanding one, requiring accuracy to a water-guarded (on the left) fairway with a line of trees to the right side and then another accurate shot to probably the most undulating green on the course.

The old 17th was considered the course's feature hole, but it has been changed completely. For starters, it now faces the other way. It was argued by McEvoy that the hole, as it stood, was dangerous with a railway line and housing to the right. Something like 87 per cent of all mis-hit shots are pushed right and, so, the decision was made by McEvoy to reverse it.

Given that the 17th was a particular favourite of the members, it was a potentially controversial move. But it has worked out, and the result is a Par 3 that is every bit as good - if not better - than the hole that was previously there as players play from an elevated tee-box to a small green.

"I'd love to see really good players playing that finishing stretch in a top competition, just to see how they would manage it," observed McEvoy.

Although Beaverstown is just 16 years old, it is an indication of the advancements that have taken place in that time that the members of the club felt it necessary to modernise so that they would not be left behind. The reward for that bravery is that they have a course that has now itself become a trend-setter, and one which others will perhaps seek to emulate.