The ideal aiming point on the par-four fourteenth is the Shard skyscraper are architects whose entire business is focused on restorative projects on courses (mostly, to be fair, designed by Donald Ross). In Britain, though, we continue to believe, in general, that today we know better than Harry Colt, Alister MacKenzie or Willie Park. Part of the problem lies in golf club governance. It has proved extremely difficult to get clubs to buy in to the restorative process. Committees have a reputation for designing camels when trying to produce horses, and it is true that getting the sort of support from a committee – and from the membership as a whole – has proved extremely difficult in Britain. It’s also true that British golf operates on a much tighter budgetary model than the game in America, so persuading them to invest significant sums in anything is tough. Golf architects and committees are not always the best of bedfellows. The architect Donald Harradine famously said that a committee should have an odd number of members, and three is too many. Back in its heyday of the 1920s, The Addington was regarded as one of the best inland courses in Britain. It was designed by JF Abercromby, with Harry Colt as his consultant. It is unclear who did what, indeed, there is at least one contemporary newspaper article that describes it as a Colt design, with no mention of Photo: David Cannon 61
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