Golf Course Architecture - Issue 61, July 2020

68 W e were supposed to be meeting at Winged Foot in New York, during the US Open. The three principals of newly-formed golf architecture practice Clayton, DeVries & Pont, plus chairman Edward Cartwright, would be converging from their respective corners of the globe to, among other things, tell me about the first project in which they would all collaborate. One of those ‘other things’ was a caddying job. Mike Clayton, who spent most of the 1980s and 90s playing on the Australian and European tours, was due to be on the bag for Lukas Michel, a fellow member at the Metropolitan Golf Club on Melbourne’s sandbelt. Michel qualified for the 2020 event, as well as the Masters, by winning the US Mid-Amateur. But the US Open was one of the many sporting events postponed by coronavirus, so we are all still in our corners, at home, staring at each other through a video screen. In the winter before lockdown though, Clayton, Mike DeVries, Frank Pont and Cartwright had all spent time on the property of The Addington in London. A little over 100 years earlier, another collaboration was taking place there – JF Abercromby and Harry Colt creating one of the English capital’s most distinctive layouts. “It’s got some incredible landforms,” says Clayton. “Sixteen’s a crazy good hole, and holes like six and nine have amazingly interesting land to play golf over. In that sense, it’s really unique – it’s just a really fun place to play.” “I first saw the course about fifteen years ago,” adds DeVries. “I was just blown away, it’s really cool and different. “It’s noted for the twelfth and thirteenth, for some the sixteenth, but right out of the block – the second and fourth, for example – it has great strategy,” says DeVries. “They are really cool holes.” Aside from the eleventh – which “they’ve changed around 15 times” says Pont – there has been very little work done to the course since Abercromby and Colt left. But time has taken its toll. Toby Ingleton hears from the principals of Clayton, DeVries & Pont about their plans for The Addington Bringing it back CLAYTON, DEVR I ES & PONT INTERV I EW