European Course Aerial 5

[Mark_Rowlinson]

An aristocratic course in every way. I've sung its praises many times on GCA. I'd love somebody to give me an independent appraisal of it. I've rotated it slightly to fit the frame to advantage.

[Andrew Mitchell]

Looks like we need some clues Mark

[Mark_Rowlinson]

The King decided that golf was good  to promote business and diplomatic relations in his country. He didn't play golf, but his son did and his grandson represented his country internationally.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Guess Royal Zoute (SP)?

[Joe Andriole]

Ravenstein?

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Yes, Royal Belgique aka Ravenstein and Tervuren. I really fell in love with it when I played it some ten years ago. At the time they were altering one of the late holes (16 perhaps?). I like the way that the course record still stands to Flory van Donck since before WWII!

[James Bennett]

Yes, Royal Belgique aka Ravenstein and Tervuren. I really fell in love with it when I played it some ten years ago. At the time they were altering one of the late holes (16 perhaps?). I like the way that the course record still stands to Flory van Donck since before WWII!

Flory Van Donck.    I reckon that must be one of the best names ever in professional golf.

Enjoying the aerials Mark, keep them up.

James B

[Mark Bourgeois]

Mark!

Yes I played it (Old) this summer and thought it was very, very good.  I am so glad to find someone with whom to discuss -- blast that search engine!

The starting five is fantastic.  The opener for example is a neat lesson in angles -- I think that left-side fairway bunker is new (it's not in the posted Google aerial) but regardless improves the decision off the tee.  Come as close as you dare for a go-for-it angle.

Here's a post on the 8th from this summer:

The ingenious use of slope and mounding on the 8th at Golf Club de Belgique. This par 4 turns sharply left around 210 yards. A shelf roughly 15 yards wide on the left falls off a good 10 yards to the outside of the dogleg.

The mounding provides the brilliance: a golfer who lands on the shelf has a clear view to the green, but the one who misses the shelf will face a second shot made blind by the mounds, which are only a few feet high but effective due to fall off in the fairway.

So the genius is not the generic use of mounds but the designer's conception of them as a solution to the problem of using this wonderful topography (which of course is the sign of someone who knew how to route a course) like a "POV hazard."

16, 17, and 18 are very good in their own right -- and as a finisher an excellent example of how to give good (match-play) rhythm to the close: gamble, hard, gamble. This is TOC-like.  Individually, 16 seems to be the hole that gets the ink, such as the course gets any, but for my money 8 and 17 are the ones to really study.

The holes on uninspired land hold it back, but 1-5, 8, and 16-18 for me make it a course worth returning to.  (In fact, were the weather not so poor last week I might have had a go.)  The apres-golf, in a lovely chateau, is icing on the cake, as is the arboretum quality of the course, something that normally does nothing for me but here it works for some reason.  (The king actually wanted the course to double as an arboretum.)

Please do share your impressions.

Mark

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Mark, So glad you liked it. I think your assessment sums it up perfectly. I even enjoy the flatter holes. For me it is just right as there are lots of different length par 4s from very short to quite long and so often the design is centred on clever angles. The detail is good, too, with lovely shaping. And, as you say, the clubhouse is something special. Have you played Royal Antwerp? It's only 45 minutes from Brussels and another well-designed course. Mark.   

[Mark Bourgeois]

Mark

Do you know anything of the architectural origins, namely what is Dunn and what is Simpson? As your post suggests, Simpson must account for most of it, yes?

No I haven't played Royal Antwerp. My Belgian golf education is very incomplete, but it would appear that for such a small country, and one so regularly derided, she punches above her weight in many earthly delights, namely towns (Bruges and Leuven for starters), restaurants, chocolate, golf, battlefields, and, my children would like to add, waffles.

The looming prospect of her death casts a pall. But then my family once ran the place, so what should we expect!

Mark

[Mark_Rowlinson]

'My family once ran the place.' I have never been put in my place so efficiently before. It reminds me of a Beecham story of his being in an art exhibition somewhere with a woman he couldn't quite place. Eventually he tumbled to the fact that she had a brother that he knew.

'And what is your brother doing?'

'He's still King.'

In that case you absolutely have to play R Antwerp, R Zoute, RGC des Fagnes and R Sart-Tilman as a priority. There's great golf in Belgium. R Hainualt is worth an expedition as well. After all, nowhere in Belgium is further than an hour from Brussels.

As I said in another recent post, my wife and I went to Antwerp for a long weekend very recently and ate like lords. The gastronomy is special - expensive, for sure, but worth it.

[Mark Bourgeois]

By chance would any of these courses stride a lake and lack bunkers?

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Nothing to do with another European Course Aerial, so far as I know, but we may be getting so cryptic that someone will find a connection between El Saler and Royal Blackheath.

[Cristian]

Dear Mark and Mark,


Couldn't help noticing your review of the great Belgian courses, played all of them; the courses are very good, but there is one you haven't mentioned: Houthalen or Limburg (F Hawtree). A very good heathland course; some of the holes are reminiscent of the London heathland courses.

www.lgcc.be

[Mark Bourgeois]

Many thanks, Christian.  One of the photos on the website's slide show looks like two holes surrounded by some sort of plant in bloom.  I don't think it's heather; do you know?

Mark

[Cristian]

Mark,

The holes are 18 (right) and 9 (left). I think the plant is heather though. Most courses which have heather will have it mixed with fescue grass patches. At Limburg it comes in large areas unmixed with other plants. In bloom it gives a unique colour sensation, more purple than blue-ish. But maybe it is another variation of the heather that we usually see on the British isles (and in the Netherlands). I'm not sure. Now that you mention it, the colour does remind me of some pictures I have seen of Walton heath, or maybe the bright purple colour only shows during the apex of the bloom period? I'm not sure.

The last time I visited Houthalen the heath was not in bloom. The look and feel was ordinary heather. Included a picture of the par3 6th 183 meters, taken in May 2008.

Perhaps somebody can teach us on the variations of (the colour of) heather?

[Rich Goodale]

Mark

Do you know anything of the architectural origins, namely what is Dunn and what is Simpson? As your post suggests, Simpson must account for most of it, yes?

No I haven't played Royal Antwerp. My Belgian golf education is very incomplete, but it would appear that for such a small country, and one so regularly derided, she punches above her weight in many earthly delights, namely towns (Bruges and Leuven for starters), restaurants, chocolate, golf, battlefields, and, my children would like to add, waffles.

The looming prospect of her death casts a pall. But then my family once ran the place, so what should we expect!

Mark

Mark

I'm working on a Bourgeois Family Time Line.  Might this have been the time when everything went pearshaped?

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9D01E1D81130E633A25753C3A9669D94689FD7CF

Parodi de ForkaB