Berkhamsted Golf Club in Hertfordshire has appointed leading design firm Clayton, DeVries and Pont as consulting architects to author a long-term course plan.
Berkhamsted Golf Club was founded in 1890 on Berkhamsted Common, when former Open Champion Willie Park Jnr laid out a nine-hole course. By 1909 celebrated course designer Harry Colt was helping the club expand to 18 holes, and in 1926 five-time Open Champion James Braid was commissioned to make course alterations which, apart from lengthening work, largely form the golf course the members and visitors play today, which is rated among England’s Top 100 golf courses.
CDP will assist in the review and restoration of Berkhamsted’s historic heathland layout in the context of the modern game. The course is famous for having no bunkers, with greenside mounding instead creating one of English golf’s stiffest short game tests.
With a densely-wooded course laid out in a vast estate of natural heathland, one of CDP’s tasks will be to work with the club’s greenkeeping team, headed by Scott Gardner, to regenerate areas of heather which have been reduced over the years since the Second World War, where Berkhamsted was used extensively for military training.
Dan Blesovsky, Berkhamsted’s general manager, said: “CDP is world-renowned for its work at some of golf’s most venerated old masters, and we are thrilled that we will now be able to draw upon their experience as we make our plans to safeguard this much-loved golf course for the decades ahead, with our stewardship of the beautiful ecology up here on Berkhamsted Common uppermost in our minds.
“In 2026 we will celebrate 100 years since our golf course was last altered significantly, and over the decades club officials have striven both to maintain the authenticity of the natural aspects of the challenge which our golf course presents, and also to respect the fine designs which our great Triumvirate of golf course architects – Park Jr, Colt and Braid – all implemented here at various points in Berkhamsted’s lifetime.
“We are particularly excited at the prospect of working with CDP on restoring Harry Colt’s original vision for the golf course” added Blesovsky. “The changes at Berkhamsted have been driven by nature over the years, particularly as regards our famous mounds, rather than by man’s hand, and of course each year the UK’s top amateur golfers, mostly nowadays in their late teens or early 20s, test our golf course in the Berkhamsted Trophy, which is their traditional season-opening 72-hole event. This is a vital – and extremely enjoyable – annual benchmark for everybody at the golf club.”
He ended: “Working with CDP we feel that a well-managed Berkhamsted Golf Club will be able to maintain the highest level of competitive challenge for the decades ahead of us through a programme of restorative change, rather than merely resorting to lengthening the golf course significantly, which we don’t feel will be needed.”
Frank Pont, who will be the CDP partner overseeing the Berkhamsted Golf Club project, commented:“My colleagues and I are delighted to be advising Berkhamsted Golf Club. We will start by authoring a course plan which will investigate the course’s key facets as well as its heritage. It will lay the foundation for future renovations.
“Having first been designed by Willie Park Jnr, and then amended by Harry Colt followed by James Braid, the quality of Berkhamsted’s architecture is something to savour as is its setting on beautiful heathland. We will draw upon our proven experience of improving classic heathland courses in the UK and Continental Europe with the intention of delivering the best, most natural version of Berkhamsted’s course possible.”
Berkhamsted Golf Club is laid out on common land in a expanse of natural gorse and heather, rich in biodiversity, with over five miles of bridleways and pathways running throughout the course and its 520-acre estate.