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During the Golden Age in golf course architecture, many of the same master architects that worked in the United Kingdom came across the English Channel to Continental Europe. Two in particular were Tom Simpson and Harry Colt. They divided Paris rather equally but further north, Colt’s work dominates in the Netherlands while Simpson’s does in Belgium.

 

Of the ten courses built by the firm of Colt, Alison & Morrison in the Netherlands, eight still exist to this day. In many ways, his work here is better preserved than in the United Kingdom, making a tour of his Dutch courses a must for any student of architecture. The fact that his work has been well looked after here is particularly surprising, given the horrors of World War II and the German occupation of the Netherlands.

 

Take Kennemer for example as it was Colt’s first project in the Netherlands. At one point, there were a staggering 122 German bunkers on its property as well as anti-tank walls. After the defeat of the Germans, the course was slowly nursed back to life. The club covered over many of the German bunkers by dunes and today’s course is a pure golf landscape with no hint of the grim times of the 1940s.Several of the bunkers remain in use today, one asthe maintenance facility andthree as shelters around the course.

 

Crucial to the re-birth of Kennemer in the 1950s was the club’s archives of Colt letters, hole descriptions and diagrams.Itis morecompletethan any such collection at anyColt club with which the author is familiar. To this day, the club shrewdly uses its archives to guide future decisions.