In any business venture, it helps to have an angle. And the owner of the new Oasis GC in Tozeur, Tunisia, is not content with simply developing the first 18-hole course in the Sahara. Camel and four-wheel-drive safaris are planned, deep into the desert, along with balloon rides over the dunes and exotic dinners at tented encampments.
The course, which sits on an ancient caravan route from Timbuktu to Carthage, has been designed by American architect Ron Fream and is expected to be completed by the end of this year. And the landscape is so other-worldly that film-maker George Lucas bought 1,000 acres close-by, to shoot his Star Wars movies.
Interestingly, water is one of the least concerns. Fream plans to draw one million gallons per day from a sewage treatment plant six miles away and usage will be controlled by a valve-in-head irrigation system. And from the 200,000 date-palms in the oasis, which people don't pick any more, he is moving 3,000 of them around the course, with the help of donkeys and camels. Sands great!
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