This was my favorite of the courses I visited during my Paul-Turner-inspired, Frank-Pont-assisted tour of Holland a couple of months ago. Kennemer a close second, and I'd only chalk that up to personal taste. Haagsche is just such a dramatic landscape and one hell of a walk. I drew an absolutely perfect, sunny, 65* day and somehow had the course pretty much to myself, playing as a single. I loved the blind tee shot over #7, and seeing the fairway rumple out the moment I crested the dune. I loved the gaggles of pheasants wandering around the course with their red plumage "helmets". I loved the sheer challenge of holes like #13 (the green of which is perched almost as high above the fairway as, say, Shinnecock #10) and #14. Perhaps a bit unsung, I think, might be the lovely par 3 #12. It sits on a wide open piece of the property, but very high ground, and the wind swirls around there more than down in the valleys. Tricky little devil. Oddly enough, I thought the two least interesting holes on the course were #1 and #18.
One thing that Frank said to me (at Toxandria, actually) was how impressed he was by how Colt used fairways as a kind of (what I imagine to be quarter-, even eighth of a stroke) hazard. And when one plays these courses of his in the Netherlands, it starts to become uncanny to see that he did indeed use natural wrinkles in the landscape to separate great drives from merely adequate ones, and not just by kicking a long drive even further down a speed ramp, but by providing a better view of the green to a well-positioned shot, etc. This is especially the case with something like #6. I think it would take a good amount of time to fully understand the *fairways* at a place like Haagsche, much less the greens.
Great stuff. Great pictures. Makes me want to go back!