Never a man to shy away from innovation, architect Frank Pont devised the reversible 9-hole layout at the Links Valley golf facility just outside Ermelo, allowing the North course to be in play one day then the South course the next day.
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Never a man to shy away from innovation, architect Frank Pont devised the reversible 9-hole layout at the Links Valley golf facility just outside Ermelo, allowing the North course to be in play one day then the South course the next day.
Links Valley
The Veluwe region in the province of Gelderland is quite unlike many parts of The Netherlands in terms of its topography as it’s far from flat and featureless. Instead, this 1,100 square kilometre area is hilly and forested, formed many thousands of years ago by glaciers pushing sand deposits sideways from the Rhine and Maas deltas.
It’s a popular place for Dutch people to visit, discovering beautiful nature reserves like De Hoge Veluwe National Park and Veluwezoom National Park, museums such as the Kröller-Müller and Het Loo Palace, along with many other little attractions like small zoos and animal parks located in among the woods, the heaths and the sand drifts.
Situated outside the small town of Ermelo, near one of the Royal Netherlands Army barracks, The Links Valley golf facility occupies 65 acres of an old landfill site which was given a new lease of life with the introduction of a new golf facility in 2018. Designed by Frank Pont and shaped by Conor Walsh, this layout is billed as Europe’s first reversible course.
It’s basically an “inland links” layout, cleverly incorporating several large sandy scrapes into the design. And because the site is sand-capped, the fairways play remarkably firm and fast. The North course features one par five (at the 1st) and two par threes (at the 3rd and 8th), while the South course has a couple of par fives (at the 1st and 9th) and three short holes (at the 2nd, 5th and 7th).