Brian Shaw, Head Professional, interviews Dr Martin Hawtree, renowned golf course architect with responsibility for the redesign of Trump International Golf Links Doonbeg.
Brian
What is your earliest memory of golf course design?
Dr Hawtree
My earliest memories relate to my father: a simple drawing board laid out in the back of the pro shop at Addington Court Golf Club (which my family had run as a public golf course since the 1930s) on a Sunday morning when my father was on duty looking after the shop alternately taking green fees and then disappearing behind the counter with his pens and Indian ink to continue with the plan for Saint Nom la Breteche outside Paris in the late 1950s. It was a family business – my aunt had run the club pretty much single handed during the war – and only in the 1960s when a boom in golf development arrived did he disappear upstairs to a more private office with full-time secretary and much more drafting assistance.
Brian
When did you decide to make Golf course architecture a career?
Dr Hawtree
I think it was more a question of never really deciding to do anything else. After an Arts degree I went to Liverpool University to study Urban Design and went on to do a doctorate in the history of the early years of the town planning profession. This was perhaps more in the spirit of a back-up if the golf architectural business should ever falter. The grant ran out; holiday job; with Hawtree & Son of course; completed PhD; carried on with H & S; never looked back! Or perhaps never had to look back.
Brian
Where is your first ever design work? Have you changed anything there over the years?
Dr Hawtree
My first design was for the 9-hole course at Royal Waterloo in Belgium. I was 11 years old at the time and for some reason my father did not entirely respect the integrity of my design. Anyway nearly 50 years later I was able to change the design but I too had some misgivings about what I had drawn all those years ago; so did the committee, and we simply renovated my father’s layout. My first real design on my own was for the Cobtree Manor public course in Maidstone in Kent. Still I think there much as I left it. But yes as one grows older one always feels a better job could have been done if it had come later in career. But objectively that may not always be the case. As with musical composers there may be a freshness, a liveliness, about the juvernilia.
Brian
Was it your Grandfather or Father that influence you the most? Did they differ in their philosophies?
Dr Hawtree
Intellectually I think my father. My grandfather died when I was 8, so I never really knew him that well. But there were many older Greenkeepers – my grandfather had founded the Greenkeepers Association in 1912 – who I would meet later on who said I was very like my grandfather. He was a self-made man, much like his future business partner JH Taylor, who very early on came to understand the need for the education neither of them had received. Both men sent their sons to Oxford! I took it to excess spending 7 years at various universities. But my style of architecture is probably more like my grandfather’s. It was a more evident style because Hawtree and Taylor built the courses they designed. My father’s style you had to look for spare, more cerebral.
Brian
Do you approach a links project differently than you would a parkland project?
Dr Hawtree
To some extend yes, Wind is such a factor in links golf and it is difficult or doesn’t fee; right to start introducing the more precise strategic design one might contemplate on an inland course. For me there much always be relaxation, refreshment of the body and mind, almost a holiday feel about links golf, all of the values that spearheaded the original development and expansion of the game in the late 19th century, But of course I have had to turn on the pressure somewhat when dealing with the big championship courses and keeping them fit for purpose with all of the developments in the game.
Brian
The majority of your design projects appears to be “improvements works”. Do you try to maintain the integrity of the previous design or do you start with a blank canvas?
Dr Hawtree
Not really, Between 1985 – 1998 we must have built 60 or more new courses in UK, France, Belgium, Portugal, Turkey, or Scandinavia. In the last 29 years or so, yes, mainly alternations, renovations, extensions. I enjoy this kind of work, getting under the two skins of the site and the original architect. Not always easy work: difficult to please everyone.
Brian
What was your most challenging project?
Dr Hawtree
The most difficult have certainly been the hilly sites, trying to get the best out of the site without massive earth movement or tiring out the player. When a difficult site moves on to become a challenging site and a very challenging one, enter stage Mr Trump and a request at Aberdeen for simply the best!
Brian
What part do great construction companies play? Is your relationship with the
‘shapers’ critical?
Dr Hawtree
Construction companies play a huge role. When Colt was building new courses in
UK and Ireland he had the good services of Suttons and Carters, both experienced
Contractors and seed companies. When Colt returned to see the finished results of his plan for the Toronto Golf Club I believe he could see the problem of working away from home and for the first time realised he was going to have to do more than a layout plan with a few directions if he was going to get what he wanted when working abroad. On the other hand I have found it quite stimulating working with unknown contractors who don’t think they know what you want. Shapers are key but again I shall never forget the challenge and final pleasure of working with an unknown shaper – the bizarre picture of a one-armed Poclain driver who had lost his arm in the war – in Mazamet east of Toulouse, who somehow nudged his way round a green with some beautiful results.
Brian
What is your philosophy?
Is it something that is constantly evolving?
Dr Hawtree
Very simple and never really changing: get the very best out of a piece of ground and work and rework the layout until you do. And of course it takes years of experience to know when you have got the best out of piece of ground. Sheer hard work in that direction was what I learnt most from my father; pencil draft after pencil draft appearing amidst a coating of erasings and cigarette ash – it was the 1960s. The goal of all of this is to create interest for the golfer. Yes, enjoyment, pleasure, challenge, beauty, of course that’s all part of it. But interest is the value I prize most.
Brian
Are there other great designers that you admire?
Dr Hawtree
Yes. My hero has for long been Harry Colt. I cannot think of another architect who has brought such day-in-day-out, golfing enjoyment to so many golfers in the UK and Ireland. He forged a new profession. I have had the privilege of working on over 20 Colt courses and they are all just so solid from the earliest essays in Rye and Ganton to the heights of Muirfield, the Eden, and Sunningdale New.
Brian
The St. Andrews project… apart from being the ultimate honour, was it a nervous experience handling the most famous of them all?
Dr Hawtree
I suppose there was always a tension lurking in the background and it was initiated in the first phase of the works by a barrage of hate mail. But Peter Dawson gave me a great deal of support and guidance, Gordon Moir and his ground staff were a huge asset and in the end you just have to get on with the job respecting the spirit of the place and all you have learnt in the past. The first time after the changes the chairman of greens at Sunningdale played the 2nd hole he took 10 shots so I was not sure whether I would continue at either course! But at the Open last year I am not sure how many of the players were conscious of much
change. The changes at the Eden green were certainly challenging in many senses but we were simply looking for pin positions which had been lost for many years as a result of mowing heights and green speeds becoming more and more aggressive. Many of the changes we made were quite small and subtle and we abandoned machinery for the shovel and rake.
Brian
The Aberdeen experience…What was your first impression of the site?..In my opinion it may be the best I’ve played…is it your ‘piece de resistance’?
Dr Hawtree
Aberdeen and working with Mr Trump was a wonderful experience. The site was magnificent and my main objective was to leave the site to do as much of the work as possible. The human hand seemed just too feeble in this place. I felt and still feel a huge responsibility for fulfilling Mr Trump’s dream. I developed a strong relationship with him and by and large with probably weekly or twice weekly telephone calls he trusted me to get on with the job and produce something very special. I had great support from my own practice, the contractors, the Trump staff in Aberdeen and many consultants. But the final results would be my responsibility.
I love the course because I love the site. And I hope I have done the site justice. A great joy for me were two players who I met out on the course, one saying it was the best day’s golf he had ever had, and the other hinting at a spiritual dimension to the experience, winding his way through the high dunes.
Brian
You received huge acclaim for your redesign of Lahinch GC…how pleased were you with the finished product?
Dr Hawtree
Lahinch was a cardinal point in my career. Much tension and soul-searching lay behind those four years but there was a huge amount of pleasure, again with a great team. As really the first time a well-known and much loved links had undergone a huge redevelopment and with the positive response from members and visitors to the transformation it really launched me into the world of links golf as well as championship golf. When I walk round the course now 12 or more years later there may be things I would have done a little differently but in the main there’s the feeling “did I really do that?” And there is more than one way you can interpret that.
Brian
The Doonbeg experience….I have too many specific questions for one interview…what do you feel was achieved over the last two years?…
Dr Hawtree
I have loved working at Doonbeg. Again the team have been outstanding. It must be the 12th links I have worked on with these contractors and the shapers, knowing my mind almost better than myself, have made it in some way a more relaxed project than many which has perhaps been reflected in the finished product: yes a challenge if you want it, but simply a great seaside, enjoying mind-refreshing experience within a most dramatic piece of land and seascape.
To experience the Dr Martin Hawtree redesign of Trump International Golf Links Doonbeg
email info@jdgolf.ie or call +353 61 364000