Harry Shapland Colt

Harry Shapland Colt (born August 4, 1869 in Highgate , † November 21, 1951 in East Hendred , Berkshire ) was a major exponent of the Golden Age of golf architecture as a golf architect .

life and work

Harry S. Colt developed, among other things, a near-natural bunker design with which he replaced the geometric shapes that had been common up until then.

After studying law at Cambridge University (1887–1890), Harry Colt (actually Henry Shapland Colt, often referred to as HS Colt) worked from 1894 as a lawyer and partner in the law firm Sayer & Colt. He also assisted the professional Douglas Rolland in building the golf course in Rye. In 1895 he was made the club's honorary secretary, and in 1897 he was a founding member of the R&A rules committee.

When looking for a club secretary in Sunningdale, he applied and in 1901 was awarded an annual salary of £ 150 . From this secure position he started his career as a golf architect. First he redesigned Willie Park junior's club seat , and from 1907 he acquired his first external contracts: Alwoodley (with Alister MacKenzie ) and Royal Zoute (with Knokke ). With Stoke Poges (1908), Swinley Forest (1910), Woodhall Spa (1911), the Eden Course in St. Andrews (1913) and St. George's Hill (1913) he created some of today's most prestigious courses in Great Britain before the First World War interrupted his career in Europe. His first holes overseas were opened in 1912 (GC Toronto) and 1914 (Hamilton GC), in the USA he also worked out the routing for Pine Valley in 1914.

As early as 1906 he had recruited Charles Hugh Alison as an assistant and later promoted to partner, in 1923 John Morrison joined and from 1928 the company was named Colt Alison & Morrison Ltd. Major golf courses all over the world were built under this logo. Harry Colt himself was responsible for the redesign of Royal Lytham and St. Anne's (1919), for the second courses in Sunningdale (New Course, 1922) and Moor Park (West Course, 1923), and for Prestbury (1920) , St. Germain (France, 1921), Wentworth (1924), County Sligo (redesign 1927), Kennemer (Netherlands, 1927), Muirfield (redesign 1928, with Tom Simpson), Utrechtsche De Pan (Netherlands, 1929), La Mer in Le Touquet (1930) and, as the culmination of his career, Royal Portrush (1932).

He also helped John Morrison achieve his breakthrough in Germany by designing the courses for the Aachener Golf Club (1927), the Frankfurt GC (1928) and the Hamburg GC in Falkenstein (1930), among others. Colt, Alison and Morrison, as well as Alister MacKenzie, with whom they had a loose partnership, came to more than 300 golf courses worldwide, around 115 of which were created by Harry Colt himself.

Colt was the first golf architect who did not come from the ranks of professional golfers . Like a conventional architect, he made drawings for his routings and planting plans - another innovation at the time. Along with this professionalization, he also advised the golf clubs on agronomic issues and did pioneering work in the integration of residential developments. In accordance with the program of the golden age, he stood for a strategic and as natural as possible design and was of the opinion that a good course must be so varied that every club can be used. He tried to achieve this with different track lengths and economical, but extremely variable and effective bunkering. He was one of the first to think in angles: He defended the advantageous line of play more strongly than the safe path to the green.

literature

• Harry S. Colt, Charles H. Alison: Some Essays on Golf Course Architecture . The Country Life Library, London 1920.
• Fred W. Hawtree: Colt & Co .: Golf Course Architects . Cambuc Archives, 1991. ISBN 0951779303
• Peter Pugh, Henry Lord: Masters of Design: Great Courses of Colt, Mackenzie, Alison and Morrison . Icon Books Ltd, London 2009. ISBN 1848310900
• Geoffrey S. Cornish , Ronald E. Whitten: The Architects of Golf . HarperCollins, New York 1993. ISBN 0062700820

Web links

• The Colt Association