As many of you know I am a proud member at Notts Golf Club (Hollinwell) and I’ve been lucky enough to host quite a few of you there over the years.
To those that first discover the course, it is often referred to as a “Hidden Gem”, but to the golfing
cognoscenti it is often unclear how such a wonderful course isn’t better known? Afterall, for us GCAers the course was the host for the 2015 Buda Cup, is one of Ran’s 147 Custodians and is one of 18 within Tom Doak’s Gourmet Choice in his Confidential Guide.
Perhaps it is the courses location, which while being in the heart of England’s Midlands is not a typical golfing destination in the same way as the Surrey ‘sandbelt’ or the links courses of the south east or the north west? Or maybe it is in the name? Notts or Hollinwell? Notts Golf Club playing at a course called Hollinwell seems easy enough, but there isn’t a town or place called Hollinwell as there is a Deal or Brancaster or Baltray and the name instead is derived from the Holy Well on the course.
Recent findings in the clubs archive have helped the club embrace its past, especially with the ‘Original’ Willie Park Junior layout being discovered which I hope is of interest to many of you here! I’ve briefly outlined the findings below, but a new eBook on the history of the club explains this in more detail along with many other recent findings, and can be downloaded from the link below:
http://hollinwellhistory.co.uk/But the club is also looking to the future, and as part of this the decision has been taken to concentrate the clubs identity around the course name of HOLLINWELL. But how and why did we come to this decision?
The Archive When I first joined Notts Golf Club (Hollinwell) the clubs historian was an elderly gentlemen who didn’t play much golf anymore. It became noticed that I had an interest in the history of the club, but especially the history of the development of the course, even though in all honesty all I had done was actually read the clubs history book 100 Years at Notts Golf Club by Valerie Collins from the clubs Centenary year of 1987. This interest lead to the secretary manager from time to time sending me queries related to the history of the club and course, to respond to.
Fast forward several years and I’d stuck my head above the parapet to joined the Committee. One area of responsibility for me was therefore naturally the clubs history and archive. The archive room was a small room at the back of the first floor of the clubhouse, that was bursting with files, books and ephemera, all pretty much in an unsorted state. Without the time to catalogue this properly I’d looked through the room in search of any hidden gems (“There couldn’t be an original Willie Park Junior plan of the course could there?” No there couldn’t!) without really making progress. My experience as an architect working on projects to save historic buildings often lead to seeking volunteers to help with the research but before I could ask the membership, another member of the committee had volunteered. Nick Jones had just recently moved from Chair of Greens to Vice Captain so was surely to busy? A retired surgeon and remarkable man (who is too modest to notice this himself) when it comes to the time and passion he puts into the golf club, it was about a month after I’d passed him the keys to the archive that he informed me he’d done it. He had tidied and catalogued the entire archive and was already starting to write an updated history of the club!
History of the Course at Hollinwell Anyone who has tried to write a book or paper on the history of anything will know that its not as simple as regurgitating all the information you come across. I’m certainly no expert in history writing but as well as the legwork of finding the raw information there is always an element of interpretation of information that could as easily mean one thing as the other. With my specific interest in the history of the course, Nick and I poured over the historic photos but struggled to equate the hole numbers to our understanding of the history of the course and the topography we new and were seeing in these photos.
It was well known that in 1913 Tom Williamson had designed the 3 holes to the west of the driveway, that are the 1
st to 3
rd holes on the course, and that the remainder of the course was altered at this time with both the current 6
th and 17
th par 5s being formed from short par 4s followed by short par 3s, the current downhill par 3 13
th being built and a few other changes. It was always assumed that the layout that existed before this was the same as that designed by Willie Park Junior in 1901, for which a line diagram dated 1912 was in existence. That is until further research by Nick at the British Library discovered an article from the Nottingham Evening Post in 1901 which described the very original course designed by Willie Park Jnr.
The course described didn’t match up with the plan of what was thought to be the old course. Therefore further looking at the historic photos once again and Nick going through the archives and minute books started to form a clearer picture of the history of the course. But the only way to finally figure this out was to walk the course and its wider setting searching for archaeological evidence of the previous layouts. As the military historian James Holland says, there is no substitute for walking the ground to get an understanding of the historic situation, and so it proved with the history of the course layout. This was especially true when we ventured into the hillier parts of the course no longer used for golf holes.
What we have discovered is that there have effectively been three layouts of the course at Hollinwell. The first in November 1901 was the 'Original' course by Willie Park Jr. but almost
immediately alterations took place because of the introduction of the Haskell ball and from 1902 until 1905 JH Taylor and Tom Williamson modified not just the bunkering as was previously thought but the original layout as a whole removing holes and creating new ones. This resulted in the 'Old' course that lasted until 1912. Then as we know, more land to the west was obtained and the three new starting holes and several alterations to the rest produced the 'New' course in 1913.
The “Original” course certainly follows a similar routing to the “Old” and the “New”, staring at what is now the 4
th and for several holes following a similar route, but the big changes were the removal of some holes that involved some interesting and challenging tackling of the hills in the area. The current 11
th and 12
th both tackle the hills well, and are in essence original Willie Park Holes, the 11
th climbing up through a valley and the 12
th cresting across the top of the ridge with far reaching views. However most of the remainder of Willie Park’s efforts through the hills were eliminated by Tom Williamson. A drop shot par 3 which was the original 7
th would have required a steep climb up to the tee, while several holes later the original 9
th was a 450yard uphill brute. The former was replaced with a par 3 earlier in the round (now played as the last 150yds or so of the current 6
th) while the later was shortened in length and another hole across the top, of which little archaeological evidence could be found, was also eliminated. Lastly, the original 15
th and 16
th ran across the top of a steep ridge, which they were very much clinging to the top of with the gap between the ridge and the northern boundary of the course being very tight in places. There is also evidence in the clubs minutes that these greens struggled due to any natural irrigation from above running away so swiftly, another factor in their elimination.
Sketch plan by Nick Jones of the “Original” layout form 1901 to circa 1905.
Sketch plan of the “Old” layout, circa 1906 to 1912.
Sketch plan of the “New” layout, from 1912 till present, the main changes since it was laid out being to lengthen the holes.
Other Gems from the Archive But it wasn’t just the history of the layout that had been revealed by Nick going through the archive. Plenty of new information came to light, including the history of many of the trees on the course. Since 2000 the club has been working hard to restore the heathland setting and this has meant removing many of the trees on the course, while still retaining some on the periphery and in select spots as part of the heathland mosaic. It was discovered that in 1938 the Duke of Sutherland had gifted the Duke of Portland, a member at NGC, 1,100 trees to be planted on the course, from his estate at Dunrobin (which many of you will know from Dunrobin Castle, near Golspie, north of Dornoch). There are a good number of broad leafed trees across the course that have always thought to be self set, but it would now appear were deliberately planted, though there is no evidence of Tom Williamson suggesting this.
It also became clear how often both the course and the club (all be incorrectly in the case of the club) were referred to predominantly as Hollinwell in many of the historic articles in the early part of the 20
th Century. In addition, the history of the name of the club and the development of its logo became much clearer. The club started as the Nottingham Golf Club then became the Nottinghamshire Golf Club before Notts. Golf Club in 1893. The name Hollinwell relates to the course that the club moved to in 1901, based on the Holy Well now a charming feature on the 8
th hole of a natural spring from which to take a refreshing drink, but before this in December 1900 the Notts. Golf Club was incorporated as a limited company and no logo was used on notepaper, leaflets, or literature until 1986.
In 1933 a logo was devised for a club tie with Robin Hood holding a bow and arrow in red on a background of Lincoln green. In 1983 when the stock of Robin Hood club ties ran out that it was decided to redesign the tie. It was then that two historic medals were found originating from 1893.
1893 Medal for the 'Nottinghamshire Golf Club'.
This emblem is derived from the City of Nottingham shield with its colours reversed and so this was developed to place Notts. G.C. Hollinwell underneath instead of the latin and from 1986 has been used as the clubs logo. The connection with the club to the Nottingham shield while understandable isn’t the strong clear connection of many traditional appearing logos.
Hollinwell and Tom Williamson As mentioned above, Nick has pulled all of these findings from the archive and his further research into the club and its wider context, into a wonderful eBook titled “The History of HOLLINWELL and Notts Golf Club” that can be downloaded from the below website:
http://hollinwellhistory.co.uk/From here you can also download “Tom Williamson, Father of Midlands Golf” which looks at the life and works of the clubs long standing professional and course architect. Tom’s career is a subject that could be a separate post in itself!
Identity of the Club? What has all this got to do with the clubs identity? For some years the possibility of changing from Notts Golf Club to just Hollinwell had been muted, especially after another course in the county at Cotgrave, rebranded to become The Nottinghamshire Golf and Country Club. While you would never mistake the 2 courses, a simple internet search in this modern world could easily lead to confusion, with Notts being the recognised shortening of Nottinghamshire. Nick’s findings of the regular use of Hollinwell in the past and also the logo being less historically significant than it might at first appear, only strengthened the case for a change in this modern age.
A combination of this golfing heritage, future ambition and excellent heathland management credentials have all spurred the club on to adopt this bold new identity concentrated around the name HOLLINWELL with transformed branding of a new logo of a stylised wisp of heather above the Hollinwell name. You can see the new logo on the website below or probably the next time you see me playing on one of my polo shirts:
https://www.hollinwell.co.uk/ We feel the logo better connects the historic name to the natural beauty of the heathland golf course, where players and wildlife are now benefittingfrom considerable investment in the Heathland Restoration project over the last 20 years. Some of you may be aware that this work has been rewarded with the coveted GEO Certification for high standards of nature conservation and environmental sustainability and the Course Manager Phil Stain, awarded “UK Conservation Greenkeeper of The Year”.
Lastly, I mentioned the course appearing in Tom Doak’s Gourmet Choice in the recent vol 1 of his Confidential Guide. The Doak scale gives us plenty to discuss and while some will agree with his scores, others wont. However, one thing Tom (and Ran) got spot on is where we appear in this list. Don’t look under ‘N’ for Notts, the course is listed under ‘H’ for HOLLINWELL.
Cheers,
James
ps Yes I know my avatar is the old club badge but I've only just managed to post pictures again so one thing at a time!