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Ally Mcintosh

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I gave up looking at this thread after seeing the first 3 or 4 holes because I knew I wanted to go there and not spoil the surprise.

So Tuesday April 23rd it will be.

Anyone else (apart from Anders)?

Frank Pont

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Anders,

Thanks for the great photo tour, definitely a place I have to come and visit!

One thing I found striking going through the holes and looking at the historical aerials was how much the original bunkering has changed, especially the greenside bunkering. Given that it seems a famous Britisch architect was responsible for the design, and I'm sure he had specific strategies in mind in setting up the bunkering patterns, I'm not sure I'm excited about the magnitude of these changes. Do you know when most of these bunker changes were done? Does the club have any plans to restore the original bunkering back?

Anders Rytter

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Anders,

Thanks for the great photo tour, definitely a place I have to come and visit!

One thing I found striking going through the holes and looking at the historical aerials was how much the original bunkering has changed, especially the greenside bunkering. Given that it seems a famous Britisch architect was responsible for the design, and I'm sure he had specific strategies in mind in setting up the bunkering patterns, I'm not sure I'm excited about the magnitude of these changes. Do you know when most of these bunker changes were done? Does the club have any plans to restore the original bunkering back?

Frank,
Several holes were left bunkerless initially, maybe because it was required by the park authority. In 1929 a new golf pro added bunkers, C.K. Cotton visited in 1949 and in 1958-1959 a larger rebunkering was undertaken. Supposedly drafted by the green committee (frederik Dreyer was on the committee). Recently Mackenzie&Ebbert has done some work.

I haven't heard anything about them considering trying to restore the course to the original design.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2013, 04:14:48 AM by Anders Rytter »

Frank Pont

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Re: Københavns Golf Klub (Royal Copenhagen Golf Club)
« Reply #78 on: January 26, 2013, 03:06:48 PM »
In 1944 Demarks was photographed from the Air by LuftWaffe and again in 1954 by US Air force. I'ts such a small country and we pretty much got the whole thing covered both times. These photos are very useful when looking into changes on golfcourses.

Anders,

Great that you have all these historic data!

Most of the historic air picsyou show  seem to be of the 1954 USAF. That would have been after the Cotton visit. It obviously would be very interesting to compare these with the 1944 Luftwaffe pics before Cotton's chanes.

I am not surprised the course originally did not have that many bunkers, the existing landforms are great and good enough hazards in many places. It would actually be cool to go back to the original state with less bunkers, maybe the course is a bit overbunkered?


Anders Rytter

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Re: Københavns Golf Klub (Royal Copenhagen Golf Club)
« Reply #79 on: January 26, 2013, 03:33:53 PM »
In 1944 Demarks was photographed from the Air by LuftWaffe and again in 1954 by US Air force. I'ts such a small country and we pretty much got the whole thing covered both times. These photos are very useful when looking into changes on golfcourses.

Anders,

Great that you have all these historic data!

Most of the historic air picsyou show  seem to be of the 1954 USAF. That would have been after the Cotton visit. It obviously would be very interesting to compare these with the 1944 Luftwaffe pics before Cotton's chanes.

I am not surprised the course originally did not have that many bunkers, the existing landforms are great and good enough hazards in many places. It would actually be cool to go back to the original state with less bunkers, maybe the course is a bit overbunkered?



The quality of the 1944 pictures are a bit worse than the USAF and hence i used the newer pictures. I did check the whole course and it seems that very little was changed by Cotton.

Frank Pont

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Cool, so one then just has to deduce what changes the pro made in the late twenties, to get to he bunkering of the original course. Do you have any documentation on what the pro did?

Anders Rytter

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Cool, so one then just has to deduce what changes the pro made in the late twenties, to get to he bunkering of the original course. Do you have any documentation on what the pro did?

looking into it.

Cotton proposed several changes but only a greenbunker on 17th was made, then 17th possibly had no bunkers originally. Now 16th and 3rd are the only holes with no bunkers.

The pro was called James Ross, he added bunkers to what i asume is what is now the 9th and the NLE par 3 13th, i believe those bunkers could be what is now fairwaybunkers on 7th.

a mayor bunkering scheme was planned in the 1930's but only one bunker was permitted (It is now NLE)

Gary Slatter

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Anders, the 18th par three - in 1973 Danish Open it was a terrifying hole because it felt like the green was surrounded by OB (was it on the clubhouse lawn?)    I played it short front the first three rounds but on the fourth I needed 2 to tie (3,4,5 were for second place).  I hit it fat, made 4 for second.   Great fun course, fantastic memories of the week in Copenhagen
Gary Slatter
gary.slatter@raffles.com

Anders Rytter

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Anders, the 18th par three - in 1973 Danish Open it was a terrifying hole because it felt like the green was surrounded by OB (was it on the clubhouse lawn?)    I played it short front the first three rounds but on the fourth I needed 2 to tie (3,4,5 were for second place).  I hit it fat, made 4 for second.   Great fun course, fantastic memories of the week in Copenhagen

you are correct, the lawn and puttingreen on the right is OB. I Don't know about 1973, but at up until Mackenzie Ebberts recent work, there was a bunker a couple meters short left of the green in the fairway. It's not original, might have been put there in 1959 and then removed again in 2009.

If of interest to anyone, i found this yesterday on the club homepage. Its Mackenzie&Ebbert's repport they made before doing work.

http://www.masterpiece.dk/UploadetFiles/187/36/Oct2005Report.pdf

Frank Pont

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Anders,

Interesting, it sounds like not that much bunkering was changed up until the USAF pics. That means you could do a map of how the course used to be with its original bunkering.

I am surprised the M&E report does not contain any reference to the USAF pics, would they not have had access to them?

Anders Rytter

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Anders,

Interesting, it sounds like not that much bunkering was changed up until the USAF pics. That means you could do a map of how the course used to be with its original bunkering.

I am surprised the M&E report does not contain any reference to the USAF pics, would they not have had access to them?

Both the LW and USAF pictures are on the internet for all to see. I don't know whether they have used them or not, but i would be surprised if they didn't. I have a couple of pages about the course from an centenerary book from the club and changes after 1944 seems very well documented.

Ally Mcintosh

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We headed to Malmo in Sweden for the EIGCA conference a couple of weeks ago and based on this photo-thread, I decided to head a little out of my way to have a look at Kobenhavn GC which lived up to all expectations.... Really, this is what golf is all about and I'd highly recommend it to anyone with a liking for traditional golf design (everyone on this forum?).... That said, before Tom MacKenzie did an excellent renovation job a few years back, I suspect there wasn't too much "design" out there. This in itself proved immensely refreshing because the slopes, the setting and the variety did more than enough to speak for itself. The strict restrictions on what could be done with the land have added hugely to the overall aura of the course. It is a little jewel and I'm delighted I made the effort... It was also great to meet Anders who talked me round...

A few photos with mimimal commentary. Quality poor because I had them mistakenly on reduced setting so only 150kb each...

The first few holes are wonderful. The approach to the 2nd is one of the best with the new bunkering benched in to the skyline green. There are about 55 bunkers on the course, all redone and repositioned by Tom MacKenzie and all done really well. The shapes are classical-simple (more British golden age than American golden age) and the positions in general are excellent. They look good. The edges are rough / natural without being forced. The biggest problem for Martin Nilsson and crew are that the deer love to play in the sand... Luckily this means they are less interested in the greens....


Kobenhavn - Approach to 2nd hole April 2013 by Ally McIntosh, on Flickr

The other major work done during the renovation is that the once presumably grade level green complexes have had swales and run-offs built around them. If I was to have one minor criticism (on a bad day), I might comment that these have been done just a little too often in too similar a fashion. It works well here on the 2nd hole....


Kobenhavn 2nd hole from behind green - April 2013 by Ally McIntosh, on Flickr

Approach to the 3rd hole is lovely around the tree. You could run this in from right to left on a firm day but an ingenious swale front right will catch any shot that is expecting this to be a home-run. Note the public footway passing through the estate to the right...


Kobenhavn - Approach to 3rd hole - April 2013 by Ally McIntosh, on Flickr

The 4th hole is a great par-5 with the second shot either layed up to the top of a hill or the valley before the green taken on. Approach bunkers again placed in nicely and this green is one of the few with quite severe internal movement. Excellent.


Kobenhavn - Approach to 4th hole - April 2013 by Ally McIntosh, on Flickr

The 10th green sitting nicely at the side of the wooded boundary to the course. A few are placed like this and it provides nice variety to the majority of greens which are out in the open estate.


Kobenhavn - 10th Green - April 2013 by Ally McIntosh, on Flickr

The back tee on the 13th is placed perfectly on a tiny and subtle ridge. No earthworks would have been required to place this tee but the way the ground rolls to the left and then the right just in front is aesthetically spot-on. In essence, a perfect example of "finding" a good tee-site rather than creating one.


Kobenhavn - 13th Tee shot - April 2013 by Ally McIntosh, on Flickr

Approach to the 13th green shows a big right to left tilt and the ball should be run-in behind the fronting bunker. Only a few of the greens here have big internal movement but a lot have severe tilt and I imagine are very slippery in the height of summer.


Kobenhavn - Approach to 13th green - April 2013 by Ally McIntosh, on Flickr

The par-3 16th has one of the few greens that are raised. This one falls off on all sides and has the only false front on the course


Kobenhavn - 16th Tee shot 2013 by Ally McIntosh, on Flickr

The tee-shot at 17 is a great example of something I like a lot. Basically, the land falls in front of the tee before rising to a ridge in the landing zone that creates a horizon for the hole. That horizon is framed only by grasses at present and just looks beautiful. There appear to be two new sentinel trees planted which I think will take away from this shot but the golf course do not have that much of a say in the tree planting (which is done by the estate)


Kobenhavn - 17th Tee shot - April 2013 by Ally McIntosh, on Flickr

Søren Rye

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Anders,

Thank you for a wonderful photo tour of Københavns Golf Klub. As a new member here (this is my 2nd post), I had planned to contribute with a photo tour of the very same course, but I can see you beat me to it. I only live 10 min. away from the course ... not counting the long walk.

Some very interesting info provided throughout the thread on the history and development of the course. The report from Mackenzie & Ebert I had never seen before.

http://www.masterpiece.dk/UploadetFiles/187/36/Oct2005Report.pdf

I will now spend some of my time here in the off-season to plan which course in Denmark I will do a photo tour of instead. Thanks again.

Søren


Pete Blaisdell

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Anders,

  Fascinating tour!!  You obviously put a lot of passion and time into this thread. It's odd, but the photos remind me of a number of 9 holers in the Northern part of New Hampshire. Colebrook CC comes to mind.. Nothing wrong with blind tee balls, they're only blind the first time . I love threads that concern how a course evolves over the years. 800- 1000 members !!Wow. How many do they employ on the green staff?

  Well done , much appreciated.
' Golf courses are like wives and the prom queen doesn't always make for the best wife "

Anders Rytter

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Thanks. I did the tour because of how unique i think the course and vibe is.

Søren. I live 15 min up the coast. In case you want to play a round and talk gca do let me know.

Søren Rye

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Søren. I live 15 min up the coast. In case you want to play a round and talk gca do let me know.

Anders,

Sure, thanks for the offer. I will send you a PM.

Søren

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