Course Review - Crooked Stick Golf Club & Hilversumsche Golf Club

The Top 70 players in the FedEx Cup standings move west from TPC Boston to Carmel, Indiana just north of Indianapolis for the BMW Championship hosted at Pete Dye's original masterwork, Crooked Stick Golf Club.

Commissioned in 1964, the first nine holes opened for play the following year, with the balance of the holes (today's front nine) completed in 1967. Dye had been inspired by a recent trip to Scotland where he saw from close up the work of iconic architects CB Macdonald, Donald Ross and Alister Mackenzie.

Mundane corn fields were transformed into a routing that was unfamiliar to American golfers, incorporating features such as railroad ties, strip bunkers, sand and grass pot bunkers, mounds and blind spots commonly found on the great Scottish links courses. Crooked Stick is designed with wide fairways and fair landing areas, but with demanding approach shots to test and challenge the proficiency of the golfer. Over the years Dye has refined and tinkered with numerous aspects of the 6850m par 72 course, adding mounds and false fronts, redefining bunkers and generally making the layout more able to accommodate major tournaments such as the 1991 PGA Championship and the 2009 Senior Open.

The round opens with a gentle 320m par 4 birdie hole and progresses to the 570m 5th that is the toughest of the par 5's before moving to the classic risk and reward choices of the 9th. On the back nine, the picturesque par 3 13th with its wickedly sloping green is all about club selection. The 18th – one of the finest finishes in golf – with a lake down the entire left side and three pot bunkers guarding a severely-undulating green is vintage Pete Dye.

The European Tour arrives in Hilversum 30kms south-east of Amsterdam with rainy weather forecast to disrupt the centenary edition of the KLM Open. Hilversumsche Golf Club was established in 1910 and is set on gently undulating terrain in heavily wooded heathland reminiscent of the great heathland courses to the south and west of London. The original nine was designed by H Burrows and the additional holes completed in 1928 by the prolific Harry S Colt.

For this tournament there is an unusual routing with eight par 4's and a par 3 on the front, and three par 3's and two par 5's on the back nine. This 6300m par 70 layout begins with a long par 4 and ends with a short par 5, and in between there is a 110m par 3 and the tough 3-hole stretch at the turn that will give up few birdies. Past winners of this historic tournament include Sid Brews, Bobby Locke and Papwa Sewgolum.

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