Tiger Woods to be named as designer of Bellarena's £30m golf course
One of the world's greatest golfers has been signed up to design Northern Ireland's first new links course in 100 years, the Chronicle has been told.
Plans for the £30m championship course at Bellarena near Magilligan were unveiled last year.
Hotel company, Galgorm Collection, which already owns and operates parkland courses in Ballymena and Limavady, said it wanted to help to cement the region’s reputation as a world class golfing destination.
The Chronicle has since reported speculation that one of the biggest names in the sport had been attached to the project.
And this week a Causeway Coast and Glens councillor has revealed that Tiger Woods has been enlisted as the course designer.
“We received a briefing and it was confirmed to us that Tiger Woods has been signed up to design the course at Bellarena,” they said.
The Chronicle has contacted Woods' Florida-based design firm TGR Design but is yet to receive a response.
A Galgorm Collection spokesperson said: “We are progressing plans for a proposed championship course at Bellarena, on Northern Ireland's Causeway Coast. We look forward to confirming a design appointment in due course.”
If Tiger Woods is confirmed, it will be the 15-time major winner's first design project in Ireland.
In August, Galgorm took a major step in the planning process by filing a Proposal of Application Notice (PAN).
Under the heading 'description of proposed development' the firm's planning agents described the development as a “new championship standard, 18-hole, links golf course.”
It's to include a clubhouse with bar and restaurant areas, practice areas, short course, driving range, putting greens and eight 'golf lodges', presumably offering accommodation to visiting players.
In addition, planners were told the developer wishes to reconstruct historic military buildings associated with US WWII camp that once occupied the site.
The 151st Field Artillery Battalion of the US 34th 'Red Bull' Infantry Division was stationed at 'Camp Bellarena' before moving on in 1942.
According to drawings lodged alongside the PAN notice, Galgorm's project has provisional been named 'Last Man's Club'.
It's understood the name recalls a pact made by Bellarena veterans who acquired bottle of liquor and pledged that the last man alive from the group would drink it in honour of the others.
The site is described as agricultural land and woodland west of Bellarena House adjacent to and north of the River Roe.
The scheme extends to terrain bordering Lough Foyle and straddles the railway line connecting Coleraine to Londonderry.