Evolution of Royal Porthcawl

[Andy Levett]

I was looking into Royal Porthcawl to whet the appetite pre-Buda and couldn't find much about the architectural history of the course.
This is Tom Simpson's 1933 plan. Only major change since seems to be a new 12th, but how much did he inherit?

Club website rather vague after Ramsey Hunter's first 18 hole layout in 1895 but Cornish and Whitten list an impressive roster:
1910 Braid, 1913 Colt, 1925 Hawtree/Taylor "added four holes", 1950 Ken Cotton.
Club website only mentions 1913 and 1933 changes, suggesting Colt and Simpson's contributions were most signifcant but no mention of Porthcawl at all in Colt and Co!
Anyone know anymore about who did what?

[Scott Macpherson]

HI Andy,

Nice plan. Where did you get that from?

As regards the course. There have been various lay-outs. The original 9-hle course opened in 1891. Colt got involved in 1912, but I don't think any copies of his plans remain, but his layout seemed to last until 1925. Then Hawtree & Taylor made some changes. These lasted until 1933/34 when Simpson made his alterations.

Their Club History talks about the changes up until 1991.

Hope that helps.

scott

[Tom Dunne]

As far as I can tell, many of Porthcawl's basics are in place with this plan. I love how the tees for numbers 1 and 3 were hard by the coastline. That would have created some interesting angles. I'd guess it was erosion that caused them to be moved inland.

[Ben Stephens]

Andy

The main changes from Simpson's 1933 map to the current course is the location of the 8th and 12th greens and location of 13th tee which makes it a dogleg left rather than a dogleg right.

The 12th recently was extended by 100 yards to a new green to replace the old 'new' green as it was far to close to the 13th tee shots. The new green was designed by David Williams who is now with RAW Golf Design alongside DJ Russell and Ian Woosnam. There were proposals of extending the 17th into the practice ground area - we could find out a bit more at BUDA.

There have been a number of new tees since 1933 - the first crosses over the 18th fairway as opposed to the original beach tee which is now defunct.

Cheers
Ben

[Andy Levett]

Scott
The plan's from the gallery section of the Tom Simpson society website. www.tomsimpson.org.uk
Shame there's no Colt plan, it would be interesting to know what Simpson chose to change and if it shed any light on the animus between them. Looking back through the fog of history you would expect them to be respectful rivals like Doak and Coore, or MacK and Abercrombie but maybe there were some philosophical differences about GCA.
Tom
Looking at Google Maps small old tees for 1 and 3 still seem to be maintained. Will have a look on Friday as 3 in particular appears a much more spectacular teeshot over the beach. Erosion seems likely as there appears to be an alternate second green already constructed further inland.
Ben
Yes, probably a bit cavalier for me to say "only major change new 12th". But the post-1933 changes don't seem enough to stop crediting the course to Simpson - question is how much of that 1933 plan was there already.Look forward to pondering at Buda.
Cheers

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