Bates Golf Design Group - Architect of the Year and the Home of Fred Couples Golf Design

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Bates Golf Design Group

Couples Bates Golf Design is an affiliation between PGA Tour Pro Fred Couples and Golf Course Designer Gene Bates. This collaboration of competitor and designer creates the highest level of focus available for outstanding integrity in golf course design. It is this blending of disciplines that creates quality golf course designs. Couples Bates Design offers a variety of design services, from initial concept to finished product. Our objective is to design courses that challenge, yet are uniquely memorable as a great round of golf.

We take great pride in the experience which Fred Couples brings to our design team. He helps create a golf course with unquestionable standard of beauty, challenge and reward. Fred’s unmistakable passion for golf course design is evident in the award-winning projects he has created and the pleasurable experience for golfers of all ages and abilities.

Introduction Couples Bates Golf Design

As your Golf Course Architect I am extremely pleased to share with you this book, which provides you a sampling of my golf course design work over the past 25 years. As I reviewed its contents, I am struck with the wide variety of golf course architecture in varying climates, terrains and soils that my clients have given me the privilege of working on. Wherever the challenge of golf course design has taken me - and some locations have been more difficult than I could have imagined - my staff and I have delivered high quality golf course designs, on-schedule and on-budget project completions. Regardless of whether the assignment was to create a private golf course design or equity golf course design, a memorable resort attraction or a functional and enjoyable daily fee or municipal golf course facility, I have approached each golf course architecture opportunity with the same enthusiasm. Whether we provide a Fred Couples Signature Golf Course Design or a Gene Bates Signature Golf Course Design, our responsibility is consistent, outstanding design, playability and quality of golf course architecture.

Gene D. Bates

Disclaimer notes and website Clarifications:

The following index of text is information within the page but does not appear in print and is provided below.
Golf Course Architect Introduction for Fred Couples:
Couples Bates Golf Design is an affiliation between PGA Tour Pro Fred Couples and Golf Course Designer Gene Bates. This collaboration of competitor and Golf Course Designer creates the highest level of focus available for outstanding integrity in golf course design. It is this blending of disciplines that creates quality golf course designs. Couples Bates Golf Course Design offers a variety of golf course design services, from initial concept to finished golf course design products. Our objective is to design golf courses that challenge, yet are uniquely memorable as a great round of golf.
We take great pride in the experience which Fred Couples brings to our golf course design team. He helps create a golf course design and golf courses with unquestionable standard of beauty, challenge and reward. Fred’s unmistakable passion for golf course design is evident in the award-winning golf course design projects he has created and the pleasurable experience for golfers of all ages.
Golf Course Architect Introduction for Gene Bates:
Welcome to The Bates Golf Design Group. I am pleased to share with you our web site and company overview. My career as a Golf Course Designer in the US and in the international golf course market over the past 29 years has produced golf course designs in every imaginable climate and type of terrain. My staff’s unique blend of golf course design and golf course construction experience has led to our distinction as a group that knows how to meet all project goals. We are pleased to offer Fred Couples or Gene Bates Signature golf course designs and delighted to announce a new member of our design group, the world renowned golf course architect Ron Kirby who will be collaborating with us on many future projects. Incidentally, Ron Kirby is Gene’s mentor, best friend and father-in law.
Thank you in advance for taking the time to review our web site and the collection of golf course design projects in our work history. Please don’t hesitate to contact us or call me personally should you require additional information.
The Boardroom Renovation Golf Course Architect of the Year.
All Rights Reserved Bates Golf Design Group

When great players look for experience in golf course design, they turn to Gene Bates.

During Gene's career as a Golf Course Architect he has served as Vice President of Design Services for Jack Nicklaus and Director of Design Services for Johnny Miller. Gene also has one of the longest Tour Player-Golf Course Architect relationships in the golf course design industry with Fred Couples. The domestic and international golf course design expertise of Gene Bates is unsurpassed.

His team approach in working with owners, superintendents, land planners and civil engineers is admired throughout the industry. He clearly has a gift for golf course design and golf course architecture, it is readily evident in every property that carries his distinctive touch. Attention to detail and quality assurance are only a few hallmarks by which Gene Bates is known.

Gene Bates is recognized in Ron Whitten's book "The Golf Course Architect" as one of those golf course architects that rose up through the ranks. At one time Gene was known as one of the best shapers in the golf course industry. He graduated from Colorado State University in 1969 .

In 1978 Gene Bates became a project administrator for the world renowned golf course architect Ron Kirby. Gene Bates joined the Nicklaus Design family in 1983 and worked on many award-winning golf course designs in Nicklaus' profile. Gene formed his own firm 1989 and now has over 160 golf course design projects to his credit. Some of Gene's other achievements are being named the 2004 BoardRoom Magazine 'Renovation Architect of the Year,' 15 Signature golf course design projects with Fred Couples (and counting), and over 30 projects with over 129 accolades.

Sentosa Golf Club challenged Golf Course Architect Gene Bates with the assignment of upgrading the Serapong Course to a Tour quality golf course for the Asian Tour's Singapore Open and additional women's and men's events while maintaining an enjoyable course for the members.

When Gene approaches golf course design and golf course architecture he first starts with a creative routing, then he focuses on the strategy. This is where he likes to "put the teeth into the design."

Not only has this golf course been named as the 2007 No. 1 Championship Golf Course in Asia but it also has been the No. 1 golf course in Singapore in 2007 and 2008.

Sentosa is the host of the Asian Tour's richest golf tournament, the Barclays Singapore Open. The true success of the golf course design is that the course provides a great test of golf for the world's best players, yet the members enjoy a playable and exciting course through the rest of the year.

Golf Digest Magazine produces a biennial list of the 50 Toughest Golf Courses in the United States.

Bayonet Black Horse Golf Club, the 36-hole facility on the Monterey Peninsula, has joined thisaward-winning list of golf courses. Bayonet Course is ranked No. 35 in Golf Digest's list of the "50 Toughest Golf Courses in the United States."

The "50 Toughest" list is part of the magazine's 2009-2010 edition of "The World's Greatest Golf." The list is also a veritable roll call of America's greatest golf courses. The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island ranks first, and included in the 50 are such famous names as Pine Valley, Winged Foot (West), Whistling Straits (Straits), Bethpage (Black), and TPC Sawgrass (Stadium).

Bayonet and Black Horse re-opened in December of 2008 after a renovation by Golf Course Architect Gene Bates.

Golf Digest magazine produces a biennial list of the Best 100 Public Golf Courses You Can Play. We are proud to say that Circling Raven Golf Club in Worley, Idaho has debuted at No. 61, ahead of Torrey Pines, the site of the 2008 US Open.

This is the second Top 100 ranking for the golf course as it debuted on GOLF Magazine's list of Top 100 courses for 2009 and 2010.

Gene Bates, the golf course architect, was selected to design the golf course in the golf rich state of Idaho by the Coeur d' Alene Indian Tribe. The golf course has also been ranked as the No. 1 Native American golf course in the nation by Native American Magazine two separate years, 2006 and 2008 and the No.1 golf course in the state of Idaho by Golf Digest.

Golf Course Architect Gene Bates first reviewed the property so he would know exactly how to approach the 800 acres, creating a golf course design that met and exceeded all expectations.