61 might not seem ideal, but there are consolations. Most prominent of these is the environment in which the course sits. Von Hagge’s Old course is quite low-lying and heavily forested; it has water hazards on twelve of the eighteen holes, and the soils are far from ideal for golf. Rick Baril says: “The soils were miserable and variable. It seemed like they would never drain.” Hanse’s New course is very different. If it is higher, it is subtly so, but it is much more open, and in places the soil is quite sandy. Although there is currently very little evidence of heather, it feels like a heathland. “We were instantly drawn to the vegetation on the site,” says Hanse. “The beauty of the broom, the bracken, the heather, the trees, led us to believe that we had a terrific opportunity to plug a golf course into great mature vegetation. When we discovered how much of the site was sandy we knew we could use exposed sand to aid in the transition from features to existing landscape. All of these site-specific positives led us to building perhaps our most ‘lay of the land’ golf course.” This lay of the land feel is what struck me most about Les Bordes New. Director of golf Jack Laws, who formerly worked at Sunningdale, compared the course to Harry Colt’s work at the famous old club. I can see what he means – the holes lie gently on the land as Colt’s course tend to – but in many ways it has been built with a much lighter touch than the great English architect would have. In particular, Colt pioneered the use of elevated greens, for visibility and drainage, and a course with most of the greens up in the air is a common sign of his fingers being on the design. Les Bordes New, by contrast, has most of the greens at grade level, at least at the front; if they are pushed up at all, it is usually at the back. The light touch feel of the course is enhanced by the rapid growth of vegetation, which has helped to naturalise it and hide the inevitable construction scars. It’s true that most of this growth has been in the form of broom and, ultimately, if a heathland environment is the goal, the broom will have to be cut back severely to allow room for the heather to grow. But in the short term at least, it is no bad thing. Those greens, by the way, are contoured, but not dramatic: elegant is a good word to describe them. The course has strategy aplenty. The short par-four fifteenth hole has two bunkers in the middle of its wide “ The light touch feel of the course is enhanced by the rapid growth of vegetation, which has helped to naturalise it” Photos: Les Bordes The par-three seventh and, top, approach to the par-four eighth
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