Royal Zoute-Major Colt

[Paul_Turner]

Colt built 2 courses at Knocke or Zoute.  One full length and the other a short course.  After WW2 the course was recovered and had some changes; the shorter course was changed the most, with a couple of holes being used on the current long course.  A chap called Lt Col. Allen was responsible for bringing the courses back into play;  on the long course, he changed fairway angles on a few holes and combined a couple of shorter holes into par 5s.  But from looking at a 1920s routing plan and comparing this with the current routing, the course is still mostly Colt's.

The greens look very interesting!  The player has to place his tee shot carefully to get at some of these positions!

If this course was in Lancashire, Fife, Long Island or Monterey it would be justly famous.  The pros loved it on the Euro tour.

One downer: why is it so GREEN?  And the old photos don't show so many trees!


2nd

3rd (not a Colt hole)

4th

5th

5th again

6th

6th

7th

7th

7th

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9th

10th

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11th

14th

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18th

[Rich Goodale (Guest)]

Paul

I got a peek at Zoute on Wednesday.  The area it is in is very posh, sort of Wentworthy.  The clubhouse would not look out of place at any of the old musty venues of England or central belt Scotland.  From a very brief walk around the place, the look and feel of the course and its topography and vegetation is more Ladybank than Lundin Links.  It's about a mile inland, I would guess, and the surrounding counrtyside is very flat, except for the coastal dunes which are not deep enough to fit much golf into, even if you could get the land.  Colt obviously searched low and not so low to find a place with more than a few feet of elevation.

The 18th green is really "Ooh, La La!".  I considered selling my two children into white slavery so that I could play on Thursday, as the pro said the course was wide open then, but........paternal instincts won over, this time at least.............

[Paul Turner]

Rich

Did you see much of the short course?  Was it as green as these photos?  Was it playing reasonably fast?  i.e. could you chip & run, or putt a shot up those false front greens, from the fairway, with confidence.

The kinks in the fairways look like real links terrain to me, but the old photos look more links like than these: more sandy.  I don't mind links sometimes having a few trees if it fits, like at Formby.  But it looks like Zoute has lost a lot of its seaside feel.  

Still looks a fine course though.  I think it gets close to the World 100 list.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Paul, I have to disagree with the both of you just to be disagreeing with the both of you.

-What was the club's mission statement?
-Does the course play as the greens committee intended?
-Who is the architect responsible for any or all of the changes here? (quite obviously there are some because bunkers don't look like that naturally)
-How many people do you know that are members of the club?
-How many more things can I come-up with at this very moment to disagree with the both of you?

O.K., now on to more serious stuff.

It seems to me that this one is also in the World Atlas of Golf. I'm not at home right now to check it out, but will do so later on. Just some really awesome golf architecture!

Please note on the image of the 10th, and how the hillside ties-in so perfectly with the green. Wait a second! I shouldn't be looking at that kind of stuff, I only look at bunkers*!!!! Damn me!

(* Something I base my whole ideal of a perfect golf course off of.)

Rich, looking at the pictures, and after you said it, I too had a Lundin Golf Club feel to it. But there is no need for comparison. Any would only cheapen what seems like a course one could never tire of.

Next time let the kids tend to themselves. Afterall, they are supposed to only be seen and not heard!:)

[TEPaul]

Thanks for the photos! There're some lovely old architectural "lines" on that golf course!

[Tom Doak]

Thanks for the photos!  They are the first I've ever seen of the course.  Honestly, I don't normally like seeing a course by photos before going to see it, but in this case I'm grateful because it reduces the shock of seeing it in person.  I thought it was much more linksy than it is ...

Michael Clayton has been the biggest positive reference on this course, and I'll still trust him on it, but it's not what I expected.

[bodgeblack]

great photos paul.  maybe it was just you trying to frame your photo's but they seem to capture a pleasant expectancy as you move through the golf course. (10 & 11 look like great examples)

Colt had an eye for slightly hiding greens behind whins/mounds in the foreground helping to create depth and complexity whilst still managing to make legible, coherent golf holes.  

If that all sounds weird, i have a essay in the "In My Opinion" section discussing the environmental psychology of golf courses.

cheers

[Paul Turner]

Tom

Hope you're not too disappointed! I assume you expected something more like Kennemer and Haagsche?  The older photos I've seen do look much more linksy, they need to start up the chainsaw and turn off the water!  I posted some pics of De Pan recently (a few pages back), I wonder if that's new too?

Hopefully, Mike Clayton will chime in.  The course was certainly highly regarded at the Belgium Open.  Or Jeroen Pit, who took these pics.

Tom and Jamie

Yes. I love the lines of the course too.  It just seems to work, everything in the right proportion, the green complexes in particular.  Even from first glance, you can tell it's an older course.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Ihave posted questions before about Kennemer, and for some unknown reason they have gone unanswered.

I first learned of the course from...Why of course, The World Golf Atlas!

Paul, please pull out of your magic bag of tricks some photos and other stuff from Harry Colt's solid masterpiece. I beg of you!

Maybe Pat will also be able to find something to disagree with on that one too!

[MikeClayton]

Paul

We played there ten years ago and the pictures bring back much of the course to me.
Back then any course that was half decent was elevated in status by tour players because so much was so bad -actually from what Greg Turner has told me its even worse now.
This one was clearly the best outside of the Open courses but it does look awfully green now and I suspect it was the same when we were there.
I suspect I would be more critical  now of the way it played  because I'm sure it was softer than the ideal -but since when did you see tour pros complain if a course was too soft.
There were a lot of very good holes there though and when it was windy it was pretty tough.
The courses at Kennemer and The Hague are much hillier but both have the same style of bunkering.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Mike, Do you happen to have any pictures of Kennemer?

[Mike Clayton]

Tommy
None at all -like all pros we travelled with practice balls not cameras. Now its the opposite -except they are filming their swings not the courses.
The only picture I can find is in Brian Morgan's World Portrait Of Golf and it doesn't show much.