63 enthusiast for golf course architecture. As such, it wasn’t hard to see what lay underneath a hundred years of tree growth and mismanagement at The Addington, and he resolved to try to put it back. After opening, The Addington was so successful that a second course was built on the other side of Shirley Church Road. The New course was taken over by the military during the Second World War and was compulsorily purchased for housing by Croydon Council after (users of the historical aerials function on Google Earth can go back and see the hole corridors filling up with houses in the late 40s). Because of the construction of the New course, the originally planned clubhouse site, higher up the hill, was abandoned, and a house built at the very bottom, next to the road, so it could serve both courses; this explains The Addington’s rather unsatisfactory start, with a severely uphill par three. That clubhouse burnt down in the 1950s – taking with it the club’s historical records – and what was built in its place is now starting to wear out and will soon be in need of replacement. Ryan and his advisors see this as an opportunity to put the new clubhouse in the position that was originally intended for it – which would see the course played in its planned routing, with the fifth hole becoming the first. He points out that the fourth, a long, tough par four, is a classic closer, and that the fifth, a four of similar length but without too much in the way of complexity, is a classic Colt opening hole. Ryan Noades hired Clayton, DeVries & Pont to lead the restoration, and all three of the firm’s widely spread partners are deeply involved. Naturally, Frank Pont has been most often on site, but Mike Clayton, who spends a lot of time in the UK, is there regularly, and Mike DeVries has visited several times and has built a new short-game facility. The most dramatic part of the restoration has already been carried out, in the form of massive tree clearance. To anyone who had seen The Addington before the work, it is quite remarkable how much it has changed, with holes that were choked by tree growth now having a wide and airy feel. The whole course shows this, but there are several holes where it is most notable: the eighth, where some of the huge tree removal actually took place (by agreement) on the property of the neighbouring Addington Palace course, has opened up the hillside on the left; the unique twelfth, which, when Photo: David Cannon
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