The article below was written by Steve Carroll of National Club Golfer.
Michael Atkinson profiles the extraordinary career of the prolific golf course designer – one of the stalwarts of the golden age of architecture.
Henry Shapland Colt, more commonly known as ‘Harry Colt’, was born in Highgate in London in 1869.
As a youngster, he learnt the game and played golf at Worcestershire Golf Club where he was taught by Douglas Rolland, a former stonemason turned professional golfer from Scotland, who was also a relation of the five times Open Champion, James Braid.
Colt developed into a proficient amateur golfer, with a deep love of the game.
He studied law at Clare College, Cambridge, joining the Cambridge University Golf Club and becoming its captain in 1889.
Following university, he was admitted to the bar and for several years was a partner at a law firm. During this time, Colt became a founding member at Rye, a club which had opened with a basic course in 1894.
Respected as a very capable player and elected as the club’s first Captain, alongside Douglas Rolland (who was appointed the club’s first professional), Colt would be asked to lay out a new course at Rye in 1895.
That opportunity and experience at Rye, where he would become the Honorary Secretary, would eventually take Colt away from his law career and lead him to a full time focus on golf course design.
In 1901, Colt, by this stage an established member of the R&A and its Rules Committee (he had won the R&A Queen Victoria Jubilee Vase in 1891 and 1893), applied and became Sunningdale’s first Secretary, a post which he held until 1913.
During his time at Sunningdale, Colt reworked holes on the course (the original Willie Park Jnr designed ‘Old Course’) and his revisions received much praise, further encouraging his interest within the design sphere.
After his departure as Secretary, Colt would retain a strong connection to Sunningdale, eventually designing what would become its ‘New Course’, shaped from an independent nine hole course known as ‘Sunningdale Heath’, completely remodelled and extended to 18 holes, which was unveiled in 1923. He was Club Captain in 1924.
With his early involvement with Sunningdale, requests for Colt’s golf design ideas increased. He would meet Dr Alister MacKenzie, a founder member of Alwoodley and its first Secretary.
MacKenzie was also the course’s designer, the magnificent creation opened in 1907, setting MacKenzie on a path to becoming one of the most revered golf architects of all time, later producing the world renowned Augusta National, amongst many others.
Harry Colt: How respect led to partnership
When MacKenzie proposed his design for Alwoodley, it was not immediately approved, the club’s committee requesting Harry Colt be invited to review the designs and reassure the club that the designs were suitable.
Harry Colt duly provided his thoughts and it was an introduction that with mutual respect for each other’s ideas would lead to an eventual formal partnership with MacKenzie, alongside Charles Hugh Alison.
Alison was the Secretary of what is now known as Stoke Park, the original courses there designed by Colt and opened in 1908. After collaborating for a number of years, these three individuals would form the firm of Colt, Mackenzie and Alison, set up immediately after the conclusion of the First World War.
By this stage, Colt’s name was already associated with a myriad of revered courses. He had created the design for the much admired Swinley Forest, between Sunningdale and Ascot, which opened in 1911.
His reputation had also reached further than the British Isles. Founded in 1876, making it one of North America’s oldest clubs, the Toronto Golf Club in Canada turned to Colt to redesign its course, which was unveiled in 1912.
That same year Colt’s creation at the Country Club of Detroit was opened for play. He created the ‘Vert’ course at Golf de Saint-Cloud in Paris, one which provides views of The Eiffel Tower and has now gone on to stage the French Open on 14 occasions.
Colt would work on the design at St George’s Hill, which was formally opened in 1913. Colt’s creation in the Home of Golf, St Andrews, would also be revealed in 1914, with the opening of The Eden Course.
Back across the pond, Colt would be asked to cast his eye over George Crump’s designs for Pine Valley in 1914, although the course would not be opened until a few years later and he would also be retained by the Hamilton Golf & Country Club in Ontario to design the course at their newly acquired home, officially revealed in 1916.
Involvement in designs inevitably slowed during the First World War, but picked back up following its conclusion.
In the mid 1920s, Colt would design both the East and the West Course at Wentworth, evolve the course at Royal County Down in Northern Ireland and design the course at Royal Belfast, his creation there opening in 1926.
By this stage, Alister MacKenzie had branched out on his own, separating from the partnership with Colt and Alison in 1923. In the years that followed, Colt and Alison would gain input and support from John Stanton Fleming Morrison, who would be made an official partner in 1928, forming Colt, Alison & Morrison.
Later in this decade, Colt would redesign the links of Country Sligo, the course today known as the ‘Colt Championship Links’ in honour of its creator.
Harry Colt: ‘Thoughtful and considered’ from Muirfield to Portrush
Much of Colt’s work is evident on historic Open Championships venues – he modified eleven of the holes at Muirfield in Scotland’s East Lothian, as well as undertaking renovations at Royal Lytham & St Annes, Royal Liverpool and Royal St. George’s.
The 153rd Open in 2025 will be staged at Royal Portrush, founded in 1888. Back in 1929, the club enlisted Colt’s services which would result in the official opening of the Dunluce Links, in 1933, the track over which The Open is played and one which has also hosted six Senior British Opens. Colt would also shape Royal Portrush’s second course, the Valley Links.
Colt’s design style was thoughtful and considered, with great attention to detail. He believed that ‘the designer of a course should start off on his work in a sympathetic frame of mind for the weak, and at the same time be as severe as he likes with the first-class player.’
Generally, he favoured easing you into the round with the opening holes, lighter bunkering and few forced carries. He pushed for variety on a course, not wanting any two holes to be similar in shape or style.
He would write that ‘immediately when we attempt to standardize sizes, shapes, and distances we lose more than half the pleasure of the game.’
He was careful to produce different ways for all levels of golfers to approach a hole, but always aiming for holes to fit into the landscape on which they were built as if they had always been destined to be there: ‘I firmly believe that the only means whereby an attractive piece of ground can be turned into a satisfying golf course is to work to the natural features of the site in question’.
With regards to greens, he understood that ‘the majority of players desire to hole out in two putts on each green if they are putting well. They desire to experience some little difficulty in doing so, because otherwise they would derive no pleasure from success. Therefore a perfectly flat green would not satisfy them. On the other hand, when they have avoided the bunkers of the fairway… and have played their ball on to the putting green, they do not like to find it is lying in a severe form of hazard’.
Colt stopped designing in 1939 and died in 1951 aged 82 in Berkshire in England. He is credited with turning golf architecture into a profession, as well as inspiring and influencing other great designers that were up and coming during his prime, including Donald Ross and AW Tillinghast.
During his extraordinary architectural career, Colt and his partners designed or remodelled more than 300 golf courses across the globe.
He is admired for so many of his courses, adding to aforementioned ones, the likes of Northamptonshire County, Tandridge in Oxted, Brokenhurst Manor, Camberley Heath in Surrey and Edgbaston.
Despite the prolific and much admired nature of his work, he remained intensely modest, famously describing the revered Swinley Forest as his ‘least bad’ course.
Colt has left an indelible mark on so many of today’s globally renowned and admired courses, both in his homeland and throughout the world.
Golfland Ireland and Goflland Scotland
Michael Atkinson is the co-author of Golfland Ireland and Golfland Scotland, which are available to buy now at golfland.shop.
These stylish guides to all the courses of Scotland and Ireland feature photography by David Cannon.
