After a long period I finally got to Harborne recently and I’m very glad I did.
Lovely use of pretty undulating terrain and lots of really fine and noticeably Colt-ish features still in place with tees and greens on higher spots, subtle use of angles, greens benched into side slopes etc. I’m afraid I don’t have the words to describe the features as I would like to......but I very much liked what I saw. Not too many trees either although I wouldn’t want to see any more.
But it’s the green complexes that were especially nice to view and play. One view that particularly caught my eye was looking left from just in front of the 17th tee where the delightful earthworks supporting the 2nd, 3rd and 7th greens could be seen in all its glory....apologies for no photo, unusually no camera with me.
Like many a course of a similar era technology in terms of ball and clubs hasn’t done it any favours, a couple of ‘bombers’ playing behind us were killing it with their distance off the tee. However, there was plenty of interest to challenge or provoke thought for those of more modest length.
The course was in very fine condition, which was amazing, staggering even, given the by U.K. standards horrendous floods and thunderstorms that had passed through a couple of days earlier. Well done to the greenkeeping crew! The bunkers alas, particularly those that had been re-done with some kind of coated stone underlay, had been well and truly trashed by the water flow. I wish the Club well in repairing them.
If you like golf architecture and Harry Colt designs in particular I recommend you put Harborne on your list of courses to play.
Atb