Kennemer Golf & Country Club

Kennemer is where Dutch championship golf grew up. The club was founded in December 1910 at a hotel in Bloemendaal and first played on nine holes in Santpoort, before it moved into the dunes behind Zandvoort. Harry Colt laid out the new course, his first in the Netherlands, and it opened in the spring of 1928.

Colt in the dunes

The course is open and exposed, so the wind decides a lot. The club itself points to the heavy rough and the prevailing south-westerly as the real defences. Fairways run between the sandhills, framed by pines, gorse and marram grass, and on a breezy day club selection becomes guesswork.

The Second World War nearly ended the story. In 1942 the German army seized the grounds and built 121 bunkers on them, the concrete kind. The course only reopened in 1948, restored as closely as possible to Colt's plan. A third nine, the A loop named after Dutch golf figure Steven van Hengel, was added by Frank Pennink and finished in 1985, which makes Kennemer the oldest 27-hole course in the country by the club's count.

Since 2024 the club has been removing trees and gorse and opening up sand, pulling the course back towards the wilder dune landscape Colt worked with. It is maintained without pesticides.

The Dutch Open course

Few European venues have a record like this one. The Dutch Open has been played on this course 22 times, from 1931 to 2015. Seve Ballesteros won here in 1976 for his first European Tour title, and later winners include José María Olazábal, Darren Clarke, Joost Luiten, Paul Casey and Thomas Pieters. The KLM Open returns from 10 to 13 June 2027, its first visit since 2015.

Before you go

Kennemer takes visitors, but on its own terms: a handicap of 24 or lower, membership of a recognised club, and a call or email to the caddiemaster first. The thatched clubhouse from 1928 is, according to the club, the oldest surviving golf clubhouse in the Netherlands, and it is worth arriving early for.