Harry Colt was the youngest of six children born to a solicitor father who died when he was only two years old. His mother then moved the family from London to Malvern, where he played golf at Worcestershire Golf Club’s original course on the common, becoming a proficient, plus-handicap player.

After attending Monkton Combe School in Bath, Colt studied law at Clare College, Cambridge. Twelve months after his 1887 enrolment, he joined the committee of the Cambridge University Golf Club and in 1889 became the club's first captain. After graduation he was admitted to the bar, becoming a solicitor and partner in the Hastings law firm of Sayer & Colt.

In 1894 he laid out the new course at Rye with Scottish professional Douglas Rolland and in 1895 was appointed Honorary Secretary of Rye Golf Club with Rolland becoming the club’s first professional. Between 1901 and 1913, Colt served as Sunningdale Golf Club’s first Secretary. Interestingly, when he first took up his appointment at Sunningdale his annual salary was £150.00, about a tenth of what he would have earned had he remained in the legal profession.

In 1907, twelve months after he reached the semi-final of the Amateur Championship, 

 (the first Honorary Secretary at Alwoodley Golf Club) called upon Colt to help him design a new course on the outskirts of Leeds, and the doctor later joined 

 becoming Colt’s second business partner. Two years later, Colt’s new course opened at Stoke Park, framed by the iconic backdrop of the 18th century mansion house, designed by James Wyatt, architect to King George III.

His “least bad course”, Swinley Forest, quietly opened for play in 1911. Authors Henry Lord and Peter Pugh, commented in 

Masters of Design – Great Courses of Colt, MacKenzie, Alison & Morrison

 as follows: “One of the most astonishing things about Colt’s routing was that it was mapped out in his mind’s eye before any of the thousands of pine trees covering the site were removed.”

Already within his portfolio were Blackmoor, St George’s Hill and Camberley Heath. Colt had also visited France and laid out Golf de Saint-Cloud in Paris. He had also sailed to North America and designed new courses for the Toronto Golf Club and the Country Club of Detroit. Additionally, Colt worked with 

 at Old Elm Club and routed Pine Valley with Philadelphian hotelier, George Crump.

In 1913, prior to the outbreak of the First World War, unable to remain committed to his duties at Sunningdale, Colt resigned as Secretary, having now established himself as one of the world’s leading golf course architects. He was now utilising the services of Suttons Seeds, along with George Franks and Claude Harris, who had formed the first golf construction firm, Franks Harris.

“When peace returned at the end of 1918”, remarked Henry Lord and Peter Pugh, “Colt wrote to all his old golfing contacts offering the services of Colt, Alison and MacKenzie… in 1920, [MacKenzie] was increasingly keen to branch out on his own, following Alison to North America and the prestigious commissions he so craved.” MacKenzie left the Colt and Alison partnership in 1923 so “Colt brought a new assistant, the 30-year-old 

, into the fold… In 1922 he began helping Colt with the building of Sunningdale’s New course… In 1928 Morrison was made an official partner and the new company of Colt, Alison & Morrison was formed.”

“Colt had really stopped designing courses in 1939, happy to let his two partners stand out on their own while he remained in the peaceful seclusion of East Hendred with his wife, Laura, until she passed away in 1948.” Henry Shapland "Harry" Colt died three years later in 1951.

 by Donald Steel: “He was the first captain of Rye in 1894, a mere five years after holding office as captain of Cambridge University. His is the first name to be shown on the Honours Board in the dining room at Worlington, although Colt’s Cambridge days preceded the club’s foundation in 1893.

Colt courses are always eminently playable, not heavily-bunkered and with no long carries. Denham is a good example of his handiwork; a stiff enough test to make good players think without posing too much of a handful for the rank and file.

Donald Ross may have had Colt in mind in his general reference to ‘golf as it was meant to be played’. Both were pioneers of a new art whereby great thoughts went into the process of providing a coherent sequence to the layout with interesting green design as a separate study.”

 by Cornish & Whitten: “Several firsts in golf course design are generally attributed to H.S. Colt. He was the first to consistently use a drawing board in preparing his course designs. He was the first to prepare tree-planting plans for his layouts.”

: “In Britain, Harry Colt was the first amateur golfer – rather than professional – to earn a reputation as an architect. Some say he is still the greatest of them all.”

“Colt had a few simple dictums. The early holes should ease you into the round; nothing too demanding at the start. Ideally, every club in the bag should be used, regardless of skill. The routing of the course would be determined by the land, and there would be no hard and fast rule about the numbers of par threes or fives on any given nine… Colt had no peer as a designer of short holes.”

 – such is the capricious nature of ceremonial awards Harry Colt is shamefully absent from the Hall of Fame despite the inclusion of a number of Colt’s contemporaries.


Creating Classics: The golf courses of Harry Colt 

Such is the capricious nature of ceremonial awards, Harry Colt is shamefully absent from the World Golf Hall of Fame despite the inclusion of a number of his contemporaries.

Harry Colt

Harry Colt studied law at Clare College, Cambridge. Twelve months after his 1887 enrolment, he joined the committee of the Cambridge University Golf Club and in 1889 became the club's first captain.

Hawtree is the longest continuous practice of golf course construction and design on record. Currently, Martin Hawtree is the third generation practitioner in a business started by his grandfather, 

, more than a hundred years ago. His father, 

, ran the firm after World War II before passing on the baton to Martin.

Grandfather Fred Hawtree’s involvement with golf saw him start out as a greenkeeper at Sundridge Park before forming his own construction company in 1912, working mainly with 

, with whom he had worked with at Sundridge Park. After serving with the Army during World War I, he resumed his construction business then teamed up with with 

, another of the “Great Triumvirate” in 1922.

Hawtree looked after the technical aspects of the jobs, whilst Taylor handled early meetings with clients and official openings. They had a team of Irish foreman who worked on the construction side of things and, all told, around fifty new layouts were built and another fifty redesigned up until the end of the 1930s.

Hawtree’s son, Frederick William Hawtree, was born in 1916 and educated at Tonbridge School then at Queen’s College, Oxford 1935-38, reading modern languages. During World War II, he served in the Royal Artillery and was held as a Prisoner of War by the Japanese when Java fell in 1942.

The construction part of the Hawtree company was closed when Fred Sr. passed away in 1955, allowing his son to concentrate on golf course design. During the next twenty-five years, around eighty new courses were completed by the company across four continents. Perhaps Fred Jr.’s most famous work was the re-modelling of Royal Birkdale in 1967 and 1974.

Martin Grant Hawtree joined the family firm in 1973, having secured a BA Hons degree at the University of East Anglia then a Masters and later a Doctorate at the University of Liverpool. As his father Fred wound down his involvement in the company to concentrate on writing, Martin took more control of the business.

Simon Gidman was an early associate – co-designing courses at the likes of Brampton Park, Ramsdale Park and Thornbury – and several other designers have been employed by the practice down the years, including Stephen McFarlane, Caspar Grauballe and (currently) Russell Talley.

Martin has worked as a consultant for the R&A since 2006 and has been involved in renovation work at Open venues such as St Andrews, Royal Birkdale, Royal Liverpool, Carnoustie and Muirfield. He’s also carried out remedial work on classic courses at venerable establishments like Royal Aberdeen and Sunningdale.

Before Martin’s arrival, the Hawtree name was well known in Great Britain & Ireland and on the continent of Europe in France and Belgium and he set out to consolidate this position.

Several new courses were built in France but it’s the new millennium renovation work at Chantilly (three holes on the Vineuil course), Fontainebleau (new greens, tees and bunkers) and Les Aisses (a total revamp of the 18-hole Les Aisses layout) that really stands out in this country.

Next door in Belgium, Martin has worked on upgrading the courses at Rinkven, Royal Ostend, Royal Haiunaut and Royal Belgium and he’s recently laid out a modern 30-hole golf facility at Naxhelet, overlooking the Mehaigne and Meuse valleys, which is built around a very chic 35-bedroomed hotel.

Elsewhere within Europe, Hawtree has worked on projects in the following countries: Denmark (Simon’s in 1993); Turkey (Titanic in 1997); Portugal (Vilamoura (Old) remodel in 1997); Poland (Mazury in 2002); and Sweden (Elisefarm in 2005) – interestingly, the Swedish design was the first undertaken in that nation since Martin’s grandfather completed the Old course at Bastad in 1929.

Nearer to home, he has rejuvenated a number of Ireland’s finest links layouts: several greens on the Championship course at Portmarnock have been reworked; the Old course at Lahinch (host venue for the 2019 Irish Open) was restored at the end of the 1990s; and there have been more recent alterations made to Dooks, Royal Dublin and The Island.

Further afield in the English-speaking world, Martin has undertaken a couple of Canadian assignments. The first of these was a new course in Springfield, Ontario for Tarandowah Golfer Club in 2006 and this was followed up shortly after with a total restoration of the old 

 layout at Toronto Golf Club in Mississauga, Ontario.

The architect has also operated in Australia, acting as a consultant for Huntingdale, Kooyonga, Royal Melbourne and Yarra Yarra.

Hawtree has occasionally set off at a bit of a tangent into other markets – Golden Greens in India (1992), Djerba in Tunisia (1995) and Royal Kiev in Ukraine (2008) spring to mind – but much of his architectural effort is still concentrated closer to the firm’s base in Oxfordshire.

Some of Martin’s work has been controversial, to say the least. The changes made to Royal Birkdale (and the new 17th green in particular) prior to the 2008 Open got tongues wagging but that was nothing compared to the howls of derision aimed in his direction when he made alterations to the Old course at St Andrews (including modifying the 11th green) in 2012/13.

If Hawtree felt those jobs with the R&A were high profile, then they were small potatoes compared to working for Donald Trump at two of his most prized golfing assets. His first commission was to construct the owner’s new links outside Aberdeen in 2011/12 and the second project two years later involved the redesign of the 

Planetgolf.com: “Hawtree Junior is best known for renovation work at venerable classics such as Royal Birkdale and Royal Liverpool in England, Lahinch and Portmarnock in Ireland, Fontainebleau in France, Yarra Yarra in Australia and the Toronto Golf Club in Canada.

His work at Lahinch was quite wide reaching, and involved restoring some lost 

 design features as well as building a couple of new holes.

Hawtree is an interesting architect, he clearly has great design pedigree and the quality of some of his renovation work is first-rate – such as Portmarnock, Lahinch and Toronto.”

Writing in The Architects of Golf, the authors commented as follows: “While families such as the Dunns and the Maples may have worked longer in the business world of golf in general, the Hawtree dynasty – Frederic G., Fred W. and Martin – was probably involved in the longest continuous practice of golf course architecture on record, dating from 1912.”

Martin Hawtree

Martin Grant Hawtree joined the family firm in 1973 and took over the practice in 1984. To date, Hawtree is the longest continuous practice of golf course architecture on record.

Dublin

Irish Amateur Open

Irish Open

PGA Seniors

Irish Women's Close

Ireland

Royal Dublin Golf Club is located on Bull Island, in Dublin Bay. The island was formed following the building of a sea wall in the early 1800s. The result is a perfect sandy island, superb terrain for a golf course and an excellent home for flora and fauna. Bull Island is the only UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in a capital city.

The Dublin Golf Club, as it was originally called, was founded in 1885. The club moved twice before the course finally came to rest on Bull Island, in 1889. Two years later, Queen Victoria granted the club royal patronage. The course was severely damaged during the First World War and was rebuilt by Harry Colt in 1920.

This is a classic traditional “Scottish” out and back links, relatively unusual for an Irish links! It is highly rated by the pros, and one pro in particular has fallen in love with Royal Dublin. Christy O’Connor became the club professional in 1959 and his association with the club lasted more than half a century, until he passed away in 2016.

The course is fairly flat and narrow with long stretches of out of bounds, calling for accurate drives, and the wind tends to swirl around Dublin Bay, generally making the back nine tougher The greens are outstanding and there are some brutally deep greenside bunkers here too; the ones on the fairway aren’t much easier. “There are some fine, towering hills at Dollymount,” wrote Darwin in his book, 

, “but it is not these that make the player’s knees to knock together; it is the little pots of innocuous aspect that most emphatically decline to be ignored.”

Royal Dublin has seen its fair share of professional tournaments and has hosted numerous Irish Opens, Ballesteros and Langer amongst the winners. But surely Royal Dublin’s favourite champion was Christy O’Connor, who won the Irish Open here in 1966.

Martin Hawtree was engaged in course redevelopment work between 2004-2006 and Royal Dublin has improved as a consequence. Today's championship layout stretches to an impressive 7,269 yards from the tips, so bring your "A" game, especially if the wind is up. But regardless of the weather, you can be assured of a warm welcome because Royal Dublin is one of the friendliest “Royal” clubs to be found anywhere.

In late 2019, the club appointed Clayton, DeVries & Pont to undertake a detailed bunker study of the course.


Royal Dublin

Castle Golf Club

Britain & Ireland

Royal Dublin Golf Club is located on Bull Island, in Dublin Bay. The island was formed following the building of a sea wall in the early 1800s. The result is a perfect sandy island, superb terrain for a golf course...