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NEIL
WILKINS NAMED SIENNA PLANTATION GOLF CLUB DIRECTOR OF INSTRUCTION
Brooks Simmons, director of golf and head professional
of the Sienna Plantation Golf Club, is carefully assembling
an outstanding team of professionals, in a quest to provide
members, community residents and guests the finest golfing
experience available.
Simmons recently named Neil Wilkins director of instruction
for the Sienna Plantation Golf Academy. Wilkins has been teaching
full-time for the past six years, most recently at Lakeside
Country Club, and is fast becoming one of Houston's top teaching
professionals, said Simmons.
"A full-time instructor should love every minute of teaching,
from 7 a.m. to late in the evening, have great enthusiasm
for the game and the creation of programs that encourage others
to learn, enjoy teaching beginners and juniors and succeed
in developing young players into fine golfers, and have nothing
else on his agenda but teaching golf," said Simmons.
"Neil more than meets all of these qualifications. He
loves the game of golf and the intricacies of the golf swing.
He has had great success with many local high school players,
collegiate golfers and professional players. I have no doubt
that he will be a great asset to Sienna Plantation Golf Club."
Staffed by top-notch, full-time PGA pros including Wilkins,
Simmons, Joey Perez and Michael Waters, the Sienna Golf Academy
offers a variety of programs for men, women and juniors, as
well as private lessons and weekday, evening and weekend clinics.
A full-service pro shop is now open and a plantation-style
clubhouse with a bar and restaurant is scheduled to open February
10, 2001.
Sienna's large driving range offers a tremendous amount of
hitting area, target greens and chipping and putting areas,
said Wilkins. When using the learning center, golfers stand
indoors on hitting mats and hit out onto the driving range.
That allows the teaching pros to position cameras at exactly
the right angles to observe students in action, providing
golfers immediate feedback. "We can analyze a golfer's
swing by reviewing the videotape," said Wilkins.
The
Sienna Plantation Golf Club, designed by Arthur Hills, officially
opened for play on April 17, 2000. The new club is within
Sienna Plantation, a 10,500-acre master-planned community
near Houston, Texas. The course winds through a forest of
live oaks, cedar elms and other native trees. Broad lakes
intertwine with golf-course corridors, offering distinctive
risk/reward shot values and stunning home sites.
Contoured for dramatic elevation changes, the Sienna course
will challenge golfers at all levels of proficiency, said
Hills, one of the world's leading golf-course architects.
Among the more than 150 courses Hills has designed are The
Hyatt Resort in the Texas Hill Country and Collier's Reserve
in Florida. Collier's Reserve was the world's first Audubon
International Cooperative Sanctuary Signature Golf Course.
"Spacious corridors afforded us the opportunity to build
a variety of golf holes," said Hills. "Our goal
was to design an easy-to-maintain course that fit naturally
onto the site, enhanced the beauty of the property and provided
variety in the shots required. We wanted to be sensitive to
the environment while keeping in mind the elements that give
a course character."
"Sienna Plantation is a destination resort for its residents,"
said Simmons, "and the golf course is one of its premier
recreational amenities. With special membership programs available,
the daily-fee course will offer all the benefits of a private
club."
During his 25-year career as a PGA pro, Simmons has managed
the day-to-day operations of some of America's top golf courses,
including Jones Creek Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, which
was recognized as one of the best new courses in the United
States by Golf Digest and is consistently ranked among the
top 100 daily-fee courses in the nation. Simmons also has
directed operations at Palmetto Dunes Resort on Hilton Head
Island, South Carolina, one of Hilton Head's two signature
Arthur Hills courses. Over the past 15 years, Simmons has
been involved in the development and management of 20 golf
courses, including BridgeMill and Towne Lake Hills in Atlanta.
Sienna spent close to a year identifying and delineating sensitive
environmental areas within the community and designed the
course to have zero or minimal impact on the wetlands environment,
said Doug Goff, general manager of Sienna Plantation, a 10,500-acre
master-planned community in Fort Bend County. Sienna worked
with wetlands consultants to create areas of interest around
the golf course and within neighborhoods, preserving the wetlands,
and, at the same time, integrating them into the community.
On the golf course, the wetlands will be treated as hazards.
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