Colt in Europe cont'd: - Koninklijke Haagsche GC (Royal The Hague)***pics!

[Cristian]

My favourite Colt in the Benelux and in the whole of continental Europe;

Heavily contoured fairways with heroic carries, tons of strategy, high dunes and some typical Colt holes. The renovation by Frank Pont has recently been completed and the course looks superb;

Kyle Phillips who also did some work here around the turn of the century has been quoted as listing Haagsche in his personal top 10; and indeed I think it is an absolute must play when in the area!

The club is private but does allow weekday greenfee play.

Because the Dutch Open has not been held here for quite a while this course is under the radar internationally, certainly compared to the likes of Noordwijk and Kennemer, but I think it is even better than those two.

I do not have photo's of all holes, but following pic's will give an idea of the course.



1st: Typical Colt fairly long fairly easy starting hole;



a dune blocks part of the green, the other half of the green is protected by a collection bunker that gathers anything rolling even a little bit in its vicinity. Does the player take on the bunker or play over the dune? A tee shot to the right of the fairway will give the best view of the pin and a chance to reach in two.



a look back to the green of 1 from the second fairway.



Hole 2: Blind tee shot; player must aim much more to the left than anticipated because of left to right sloping landing area; a long drive will leave a blind wedge shot, a slightly shorter one still needs a 7 iron uphill.





Hole 3: beautiful tee-shot over a chasm, needing a 180 yd carry from the back tee along the ideal line of play; The player can elect to play more to the left to shorten the carry, but that will make the hole longer as it doglegs left to right, also a good drive may run out of fairway on the left side...
The green, not visible is raised with heavy fall offs to the front left and right.



Hole 4: Glorious par 3; long downhill.


Hole5: Short par 5 with heavily contoured fairway; the bunker on the right, although it looks to be greensite is well short of the green.



Hole 6; brutal par 4 (used to be par5 from the back tee's or still is for the members).
Most heavily contoured green on the course; contourse on the green are much bolder than on many other Colt courses. Apparently it is thought that this has to do with Allison's involvement in the design of the course.



an idea of the contouring on this green and its surrounds...


Hole 7 (not pictured) is  a short par 4 with a totally blind tee-shot over the top of a dune, also not very common on Colt courses. Hole 8 is a long downhill par 3 with a bunker guarding the right side; a running shot can reach the green from the left side (no pic).

Hole 9 is a medium long par 4 which doglegs to the left; heavy gorse guards both the left and right side of the fairway, hence no bunkers needed in the fw. Green is raised and slopes away on the sides.


more later...

[Cristian]

The back 9:



In the picture the fairways of 10 (bordering the trees, 11 and 13 green are visible; the course has moved on to more open country, before turning right at the 13th green into more wooded holes with dense bushes where keeping your ball in play is a must.

hole 12; the green to the par 3 12th with interesting collection area's.


hole 14: Although not too long, difficult, and a potential card wrecker; A narrowish fairway with dense gorse on both sides climbes to a massively raised green, although the ball can be bounced onto the green from the side slopes anything long or short is disaster and if your approach is too far offline it means reload.


hole 15: Bunkerless, but what a hole. Beautiful diagonal playing angles to a fairway half shared with the 14th. A buried elephant sits under the left part of the fairway, kicking balls back to the right and in view of the pin, which is on a green half blocked by a huge dune eating into the fairway some 20 yards short of the green. A good approach has to be played alongside or over the foot of the hill. He who chooses to take the shorter route on the right flirting with lost ball bushes can be awarded with a roll down the hill to within wedge range of the pin.


looking back:


hole 16; A short par 4, especially from the medal tee's as it is drivable. from the backtee the drive is akward over a greenkeepers area, and from there the least hole of the course by far, the green is beautiful though (no photo).

Hole 17; Since the Pont renovation it is almost like a redan green, again with rolling collection area's where one is asked a difficult question to putt up and down for par. Because of its modest length (155-160 yds) it probably cannot be called a Redan proper but the green site has all the other characteristics.


The 18th; a high tee with tree's on the left. Near the green there is a bunker short left gathering anything not long enough to reach the par5 18th in two. If the drive is long enough one can play an approach left of the green, over the bunker to a slope kicking it back to centre green.


In 1938 Colt built this course; although at the time it was not played at by the Haagsche GC, which as a club is much older. The course was privately owned and called Wildhoeve.

[Scott Macpherson]

HI Cristian,

Thanks for posting your pics of what is a wonderful course indeed.

The premise of you thread is floored however. This is not a Harry Colt course. Is was done by his partner Charles Alison in 1936, and therefore there are no such holes on the course as 'typical Colt holes'.

For a more complete design history, I believe Guy Campbell was also involved at some period in between Alison & Phillips. But I don't know what year.

Again, thanks for posting, but it is important you fact check.

regards,

scott

[Cristian]

HI Cristian,

Thanks for posting your pics of what is a wonderful course indeed.

The premise of you thread is floored however. This is not a Harry Colt course. Is was done by his partner Charles Alison in 1936, and therefore there are no such holes on the course as 'typical Colt holes'.

For a more complete design history, I believe Guy Campbell was also involved at some period in between Alison & Phillips. But I don't know what year.

Again, thanks for posting, but it is important you fact check.

regards,

scott

Of course as they were partners, they might have worked together, with Alison by this time doing most of the on site work perhaps. But are you sure that Colt never had a hand in this course?

It seems that around this time it would be very difficult to establish whether Colt Alison or Morrison would NOT have had at least a hand in the design of a course done by their firm/partnership.

[Frank Pont]

Alison did all the work on site, Colt might have been involved in the routing. You are right that the general design principles were that of Colt & Co. However the course, and esspecially the greensites are much more extreme, maybe even penal, than on the other Colt courses on the continent (for more info see my GCA interview Jan 2008).

[Tom MacWood]

Cristian
What a fabulous looking golf course, thank you for sharing the pictures.

Frank
What year was the course designed and built? I've seen different dates.

[Frank Pont]

Tom: course was built in 1938.

For more info see following article about Royal Hague:
http://www.infinitevarietygolf.com/PDFfiles/GCA%20Magazine/GCA17%20Royal%20Hague%20article.pdf

[Cristian]

Tom: course was built in 1938.

For more info see following article about Royal Hague:
http://www.infinitevarietygolf.com/PDFfiles/GCA%20Magazine/GCA17%20Royal%20Hague%20article.pdf

Frank:

Great article!

Thanks for chiming in. I have played the Haagsche regularly for quite a few years and I am quite enthusiastic about the renovation, the course looks and plays great. I really like the renovation on 17, and wonder whether the hole played like this formerly. Do you agree with my assessment that it is kind of a short redan?, when it is windy I think it can pay to hit a low drawing wind cheater over the bunker on the right to feed towards the pin (if it is back left), but then again I have never been any good at hitting fade's...

The boldest of the changes I think is the extended 13 green, with the new, might I say penal, back right pin placement. Would you have built something like this on a 'genuine' Colt course? (as opposed to a bolder more Alison influenced design).

Cristian

[Tom MacWood]

Nice article Frank. In one of his letter to Colt in the book Colt & Co Alison mentions his involvement at Haagsche. One of things that stands out about Alison's courses in the US is the scale, everything seems to be bigger than usual. Greens are perched up higher, bunkers are larger, and elevation changes are more dramatic. Is that the case with The Hague? Alison has to be one of the more under appreciated architects.

[Pete Lavallee]

Great photos Cristian, I've wanted to travel to the Low Countries for some time now; these shots make me want to jump on KLM right now. It seems like I was better off waiting as most agree that Frank's work at RH has indeed made the course much better.

The article indicated that the sandy site was capped by clay! Was this a common construction technique or a one off experiment? I would love to hear how Frank handled the green reconstruction; are they USGA based?

[Frank Pont]

Tom: you are spot on in your analysis. I quote from my interview lat year with Ran:

Royal Hague is different from the other Colt courses in the Netherlands. First of all the bunkering is larger, deeper and bolder than on the other Colt courses. Not only that but very few bunkers were used on the course, only one fairway bunker and18 bunkers in total. This was less than half the bunkers that Colt would normally use on a course and a third of what he used at Kennemer.

Furthermore the routing, and also the green locations were more adventurous, one might even say extreme, than Colt had shown in his work up to then.Royal Hague to this day remains a stern walk, and probably being a member there will add years to one's life due to the healthy exercise. What remains quintessential Colt are the typical false flat looking greens, the beautiful shaping around the greens and of course the infinite variety and strategy of the holes.

How would you compare and contrast Alison's work and that of Colt based on your experience in the Netherlands?

Hard to draw a conclusion based on one data point. For that I would need to take a closer look at what remains of Alisons work in Japan, South Africa, Canada and the U.S. (and I hope I will get the chance one day to do just that!). But Ill give it an educated try anyways.

From what I’ve seen of old pictures of his Japanese and American work here on GCA my conclusion would be that Alison’s style was a lot wilder, provided more drama and was tougher on the player than most of Colt’s designs, maybe even in certain situations quite penal/heroic. Royal Hague clearly gives one much more opportunity to lose a lot of balls than Kennemer, Eindhoven or De Pan do.

The other thing that is striking is that his hazards were built on a much larger scale, something I think he scaled back once back in Europe during the 1930âs (I think that without Colts moderating influence on Alison the bunkers at Royal Hague would have been even bigger and wilder).

The final thing I noticed being different from other Colt designs is the fact that a lot more of greens (15 out of 18) were crowned, making it easy for a shot not perfectly hit to run off the green.

[Frank Pont]

Cristian:
Hole 17 is a redan in that the green runs away from you to the left backside. But the bunkering is different in that there are two bunkers right front which make the bump and run shot maybe even harder than on the original. Also the green has a step which the original does not have.  For a contourplan of the green see the interview ith Ran last year. The old hole was rather one dimensional in play (it was semiblind and all sloping to the left) and did not fit in the landscape very well.

Hole 13 is the sister/brother of hole 6. Both are very tough par 4 holes, but with completely different green complexes (the plan is to make the hole 20-30 meters longer from the backtees). The pin righ back side either requires a long fade or a bump and run punch shot to the right of the green bunker. I would just try to hit the middle and risk a long put. Colt was in favor of defending the green by its location and its hazards, not by an extreme putting surface. I think this green in the end is mellower than green 6. Only thing which I would have changed on a normal Colt course is to have the green be farther away from the large dune, which wasn't possible here due to safety issues regarding the teeshots of hole 11

For a comparisson of the greens before and afterwards see:
http://www.infinitevarietygolf.com/Webgalleries/R-Hague-project/index.html

[Frank Pont]

Peter, 

the clay capping technique was used at Kennemer as well, mainly because the dunes landscapes were so barren that otherwise there would have been nog grasgrowth. Obviously nowadays we wish they would not have done this, since it makes the fairways too soft in winter. However both Kennemer and Royal Hague are making great efforts to sand the fairways.

Greens were not USGA, but rather were built up with local sand except for the top 30 cm which were filled with a mix of sand and very small amounts of  heather compost to provide just enough organic material to get the grass growing. The greens are 100% fescue, and are quite firm, even in winter.

[Tom MacWood]

Frank
Are there any other Alison courses left in Holland? I recall a course he did, I believe near Amsterdam, where he dug a moat around the golf course.

[TEPaul]

Cristian:

Thanks for posting those photographs. I've got to tell you----I've seen a lot of golf courses in my life but never one that looks all that much like that one. Extremely interesting topography (read=close rolling and dangerous), and seemingly some kind of semi-blurred distinction between really narrow fairways and very low cut rough. All in all that course (particularly with its firm and fast look) looks to be the functional definition of "iffy" narrowness!

[TEPaul]

Green #12!!! Wow, talk about cool "natural landform"!!

Hole #15!!!! OH MY GOD!

[TEPaul]

I don't believe this golf course is a Colt or Alison. I think Holland's top golf architect Jan Sprengers did it in 1264 before the Dutch decided to transport the game of golf to Scotland!  

[Philip Gawith]

Thanks for the pictures Cristian - great to be reminded of this dramatic course. If anything i would say the pictures understate some of the undulation/elevation change - for example, the huge rise to the green on 9 and the fantastic rolling fairway on 10. It is a very dramatic course by any standards - and Hague/Kennemer/Noordewijk/De Pan compares favourably with just about any golf destination i have visited. I would love to revisit since when i was there in Oct 07 Frank's work was still WIP on the second nine. The 6th is one of the hardest holes you can ever hope to play!

 It was nice, btw, to see Kennemer on the TV over the weekend as they played the Dutch Open there - though i find some of the holes difficult to recognise owing to the blended routing of the different nines!

[TEPaul]

"Alison did all the work on site,"

FrankP:

Did he? In that case, do you know if the club has anything left from Alison such as drawings and conceptual text? The reason I ask is Alison did some work for Pine Valley in 1921 (three years after Crump died) and the club still has maybe 4-5 pages of what might be described as "field drawings" combined with some really interesting "architectural concept" text.

PS:
I love the unique look and style of Alison's drawings (field drawings?). They look like the howling wind is actually blowing all the lines in the drawing sideways. 

[Paul_Turner]

TEP

The clubhouse burned down not so long ago so anything they did have was probably lost then.

Nice to see this great course in a more burned up and scruffy condition.  And Frank the 17th looks a great improvement on the previous version.

My feeling is that Hague would have been quite a severe course regardless of the architect.  It's just the nature of the terrain and it would have been impossible to build a mild subtle course here!  

The only courses I've played that have a similar and sustained wildness throughout the round are Perranporth (Braid) and Eastward Ho! (Fowler).

I'm doubtful that Colt ever set foot on The Hague, since he was nearly 70 in 1938.  Morrison definitely did though.  Colt does mention Hague in his letters to Morrison and Alison referring to the course that "we" built, but I suspect the "we" just means the firm rather than Colt's direct involvement.

[Mark Pearce]

BUDA 2010?

[Andrew Mitchell]

BUDA 2010?

Looks and sounds good to me.

[Sean_A]

Cristian

I keep going back over these pix.  The course looks awesome!  Though, it does look severely narrow on a lot of holes.  How does it play in a decent wind?

Ciao

[Scott Warren]

BUDA 2010?

Looks and sounds good to me.

De Pan is only a 45-minute drive away as well! And Kennemer is suppose to only be an hour!

[Richard Hetzel]

That looks like an extremely natural and awesome golf course!Great pics.