A few miles south of Eindhoven is one of Dr Anton Philips’ grand gestures; Eindhoven Golf. Anton Philips was the brother of Gerard, founder of Philips. At the age of 20 Anton was called from London (he worked on the stock exchange) to help his brother manage the fledgling company. Anton took it upon himself to create a market for the newly developed light bulb. He was a driving force in transforming a light bulb company into a global electrical engineering company which was now selling radios and x-ray machines while being the Netherlands largest public employer. By 1932 1,000,000 radios were sold!
Philips was a progressive company for the times and were keen to promote mental physical wellbeing for their employees and Eindhoven in general. A 25-acre park was donated to the city in 1920. In 1921 Anton set up the Philips-de-Jongh Recreational Fund to provide many types of recreation. Two projects carry famous international legacies. First, the creation PSV Eindhoven (Philips Sport Vereniging) in 1913. Second, the creation of Eindhoven Golf in a large wooded tract of land. Anton Philips apparently enjoyed golf and would have known of HS Colt. Although it isn’t clear if Anton was directly involved in hiring Colt. Yet Colt was hired and by 1930 a new course was ready for play. Eindhoven is laid out in two large clockwise loops each of which returns to the handsome house. A centre piece of the course is a lake which is never in play…not unusual for Colt. The site can fairly be called heathland and plays through mature trees, pines and over mildly undulating, sandy terrain; perfect for quality golf.
It seems many classic Dutch courses suffered during the world wars, especially WWII. Eindhoven was one such course occupied by the Germans. The present 16th was used for storing planes and the 17th was a runway. Since 2003 Frank Pont has been consulting at Eindhoven, originally to offer his opinion regarding the redesign of the 16th. Extensive bunker work, improved mowing lines and a new irrigation system were major elements of the eventual renovation. I presume trees have come down, but despite most playing lines not being affected, many hundreds if not thousands more could be removed to open the course up somewhat.
Straight off, there is the unmistakable sense of heathland. A rather staid opener, the 1st is a straight three-shotter over some of the more rolling terrain at Eindhoven...the approach is blind for mere mortals.
A short par 4, the second is interesting.
At over 200 yards, the short 3rd is bunkerless.
The rough looks more brutal than it is. I think many balls end up right of the sloping green.
More to follow.
Ciao