Pitchmarks #96 - REISSUE "Hollinwell Halt"

You’d expect it to be dark at 4.30am in early February, and it is, but the waxing Snow Moon peers through an ethereal quiver of cloud high above, casting some pure white glow on the dashboard as I turn the key and start another golfing pilgrimage.

The wheels wind through the rolling shadows of the Chilterns, before drifting back to the M1, and in no time at all I am just north of Nottingham, indicating right to a long forest track that runs down into the valley where my destination lies. It is still dark, but my headlamps pick up the detail on a vast stone that confirms my arrival to this treasure. Beneath a sprig of heather sits the phrase “Welcome to Hollinwell” and, after a couple of unreasonably cold and wet months, it is good to be once again exploring new horizons.

I find my playing partners, and as we drain coffees and gaze through the huge windows of the comfortable bar, the fourth and eighteenth holes gradually reveal themselves as the sun creeps over the ridge beyond. Every few minutes, another set of lamps emerge from the forest; the morning roll-up populates one by one.

We change our shoes and layer up in the gloriously functional changing rooms, the ancient wooden lockers just the sort of touch I like in a club. Everything works here, but nothing is new or flash. One of my hosts observes that the pair of shoes that sit quietly under the bench on which I lace up have remained there throughout his many years of membership, and I delight in this detail; another sign that this club is all about the golf.

Dotted around the walls are snippets of the club’s history, and there is much to celebrate, but somehow it never comes across as one of those places where the focus is all on the past, and this hunch proves to be correct as I soak up more of what makes the modern day Hollinwell so special.

The time comes to play, and we weave our way gently through this masterpiece, my partners pointing out many interesting details as we go - “Robin Hood’s Seat” perched on the left of the second; a rescued station sign from “Hollinwell Halt” on the wall of the halfway hut; “Velcro Hill” on the right of the eleventh, where balls cling on to the steep slope with no apparent regard for gravity. On first impression, this canvas of heathland feels vast - the actual playing surfaces 240 acres set in more than 400 acres of the club’s estate - and each hole has some sense of its own identity, room in which to breathe, yet sweeping views across the course have been preserved.

The green sites are just incredible; large, subtly contoured carpets in the most wonderful locations. Much of the layout belongs to Willie Park Jr, whose Huntercombe and Sunningdale (Old) opened the same year, and another Open Champion, J.H. Taylor also did some re-modeling. But significant credit belongs to the club’s beloved and long-serving Professional, Tom Williamson, who found time within his 54 years of association with Hollinwell to play in 50 consecutive Open Championships himself; a record that will never be broken.

In recent years, the club has taken steps to protect and enhance the architectural pedigree of this classic example of English golf, and the styling of the renovated bunkers makes most other modern rebuilds look artificial, even sterile. The finishing of the bunker edges has been done in-house, and yet it looks as if these rustic, beautiful lines have been here throughout the waves of fashion that shape such work outside of this precious valley.

As we talk of the progress that has been made here over the years, it is suggested that while many heathland courses sit “on the heath”. Hollinwell is more “in the heath”, and in this simple turn of phrase, the whole naturalness of this place is neatly encapsulated. Notts Golf Club may have originated on the banks of the Trent in the centre of town (as Nottingham Golf Club), but from the moment it arrived here, via Bulwell Forest, it has been a perfect fit and a suitable custodian for the land it both occupies and enhances.

My sense of the course as an authentic part of this precious landscape turns out to be correct, as besides the excellent regeneration work that has helped retain such fine heather, the club are heavily invested in wider ecological programs; way ahead of the curve. Artificial inputs are kept to a bare minimum, and the thriving sward of bent and fescue provide excellent golfing turf throughout.

But alongside this are careful attempts to encourage many of the key species for whom heathland is so vital, and I am thrilled to spot a kingfisher bank in one of the natural ponds through which the River Leen meanders. Elsewhere, a sand scrape can be seen way out left, in which tubes have been created to encourage sand martins. Golf’s governing bodies are making good strides in enabling clubs to embrace a more sustainable operation; Hollinwell has been doing this for years already, and their work has been celebrated by the RSPB, the R&A, and others.

Through the back nine, the routing gets increasingly magical; greens perched in between steep banks and holes winding through the peaks and troughs of the countryside. Each hole offers its own unique challenge within this overall sense of coherence, and the constant change in direction leaves me utterly lost by the time we reach the “Holy Well” itself, where I replenish my water bottle from an insistent natural spring that bubbles up beside the 8th tee; the glistening moss walls an indicator of the air purity round here.

We survive the tough finishing hole, and shake hands, and I am asked whether this fine morning meets “the mark of a truly great course” - that it makes you want to come back again, and there is no hesitation in answering this, for it has been a wonderful three hours. In fact, I’ve nothing but driving left to do today, so after a quick lunch I head out again, keen to soak up more of this golfing wonder.

The light is against me as I whip through the routing, and my drive at the twelfth disappears into a rapidly setting sun, but I make it round, and notice certain features that escaped me first time out. And then, as I walk down towards today’s final green, dusk settling all around, something catches my attention from my peripheral vision and I am breathless as a barn owl silently glides past, powerful and confident.

The white underside of those wings is as vibrant against the coming night as the moon that will shortly rejoin me from over the horizon, and I am once again enchanted by this place. By the time I head back up the track - first in, last out today - it is as dark as it was when I arrived, and yet everything in between has been somehow drenched in a light, and a hope, that seems unfathomable for this time of year.

Hollinwell is a great golf course, no doubt, but it is so much more than that. It is a marvellous place to be, and this happy communion of golf and nature is precious. I drive past that huge stone and into the night hopeful that the rest of golf might join in with this ecological harmony, that more courses might sit as naturally in the world as this. And I am hopeful that this long, dark winter is starting to slip away, and that, one day, I might pass this way again. For it doesn’t get much better than this…