RP-Korean firm to spend $48 M on Subic hotel

Filipino-Korean  firm Hanafil Golf & Tour, Inc. said it will invest $48 million for the construction of a hotel and the redevelopment of a golf course in Subic.

Benjamin John Defensor, president and chief executive officer of Hanafil Golf & Tour said they will redevelop Subic Bay Golf and Country Club’s 18-hole golf course  to make it an all weather championship fairways.

“We’re aiming for a full-blown country club concept,” Defensor said. “The fairways would have to be reconstructed from scratch and some of the holes would have to be relocated.”

The entire project will be done in tranches and is expected to be completed in six years.

In redesigning the golf course, Defensor said his company is planning to engage the services of topnotch golf architects like Arnold Palmer or Robert Trent Jones II, who have both designed some of the world’s most exciting golf courses.

Meanwhile, Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) administrator Armand Arreza  said that aside from the Hanafil project, two other leisure complexes will rise in the area in the next few years.

Arreza said another Korean firm will develop a golf course and resort in the 400-hectare site at Cawag in Subic’s Redondo area while a third golf links will be established at the Morong area, which is being eyed as a resort and convention complex.

”The three golf courses will be located in such a way that they won’t compete with each other, but instead ensure adequate facilities for the growing number of golf enthusiasts and visiting professional players,” Arreza said.

The redevelopment of the Subic Bay golf course came after the SBMA awarded the project to Hanafil in a public bidding earlier this year.