The revitalisation of a classic is the title I have chosen for the project at the County Sligo Golf Club, Rosses Point. This is one of Harry Colt’s most important works and so my proposal is to seek to preserve his work while adding onto it in what I perceive to be an artistic and sporting manner.
I have a particular feeling for Mr Colt having played a lot of my early golf at Rosses Point and then having lived for almost 40 years beside the second green of his lovely suburban course at Dun Laoghaire, the latter now sadly being dug-up for housing and a supermarket! I can no longer sit in my favourite chair gazing upon a Colt green every day!
Rosses Point is the venue for the West of Ireland Amateur Open Championship every Easter, it is on the rota for the Irish Amateur Close Championship and the Irish Ladies’ Amateur Close, it hosts the Interprovincial Matches and the Home Internationals and it has hosted numerous Irish professional events including the Irish Professional Championships themselves.
It was one of the world’s most important golf courses when built under Harry Colt’s direction in 1927. It has played a vital part in the history of Irish golf and has always been spoken of in the same breath as Portmarnock, Portrush, Lahinch and the other golden oldies. The plan is to review it from stem to stern to ensure that it is set to deal effectively and beautifully with the next few generations of championship players and is fit to house any major event – even if such event may never come there for obvious geographical reasons. Rosses Point’s charms are emphasised all the more by its tranquil setting.
Care is being taken to ensure the comfort of the club golfer after the work is done as much consideration is given to playability for all. The new tees, for example, are all championship tees. The changes around the greens will, of course, be for all players but there will be wider choices now between championship and everyday pin positions.
Colt’s greens will remain untouched at all but the third hole in phase one, which will embrace holes one to three, five to eight, ten to twelve and the eighteenth. The third was variously tagged a bogey four or five in the old days and is a par five today but vulnerable to the power hitters who seek to devour such holes. My proposal is to create a new green about 40 yards behind the existing one and slightly left in delightful mild dunes. This will introduce more yardage and more risk for the second shot and is likely to do a fine job for a few generations to come.
On holes one, two, seven and eighteen the plan is to extend the greens to the side. On holes five, ten and eighteen, the greens are to be extended to the back. The idea is to preserve Colt’s work while adding more green surface with traditionally devious contouring and to provide pertinent bunkering and run-offs to add interest to the existing pin positions while raising the championship tempo considerably with the new sections.
So, Mr Colt’s greens will remain untouched in most cases, there for all to see and play for generations to come. My extensions will give added options. I hope Mr Colt would be approving of my work and that we will co-exist harmoniously. I will not be asking him even to move over in the bed – I will just fit in alongside!
The changes to the tees all happen in the championship mode and are not just about added yardage alone but about added shot values by moving the drives from straight away bashes to slightly angled approaches to the target zones, asking for shot shaping.
The new tees are designed, also, to restore some of Colt’s marvelous challenges to play. A prime example of this is the terraced fairway on the lovely tenth hole. Players are nowadays over-flying this terrace and landing their drives down in front of the green. A new tee here will, in certain weather conditions, bring the legs back into play and I just know that any golfer of soul will relish this.
This article first appeared in Golf Course Architecture Issue 38