Kennemer Golf and Country Club

About the club

Situated on an expanse of dunes that extends from The Hague to Amsterdam, Kennemer is near the racing center of Zandvoort and less than a mile from the shore. Here Harry S. Colt created the first eighteen in the 1920s; Frank Pennink built an additional nine some sixty years later. Colt's layout suffered greatly during World War II, having to endure the indignity of concrete gun bunkers and airstrips, and in the years afterward the growth of trees and brush has given the site less of a coastal feeling—though the wind remains a factor. Colt revivalist Frank Pont has recently overseen renovation of all twenty-seven of Kennemer's holes. The result is a links course similar to but distinct from English and Scottish links, apart from the clubhouse, which looks like it belongs at Formby or Sandwich. The fact that the Dutch Open came here not too long ago is a testament to the course's renewed vigor.