ODG Shorts - A.B. Babington Part 3 - Harry Shapland Colt at Royal Portrush
·32 min
1. The Firm & Fast Golf Podcast episode centers on A.B. Babington’s account of Harry Shapland Colt’s work at Royal Portrush and the club’s reconstruction plans.
2. A.B. Babington speaks as the club figure who handled leases, negotiations, and course construction, while Harry Colt appears as the architect whose plans shaped the Dunluce course.
3. The episode asks how Royal Portrush secured land, money, and design control to rebuild both the course and the club’s facilities.
4. In September 1922, the council asked Harry Colt to survey the ground, and his first report led to a proposal for two courses costing £7,000 or, ideally, £10,000.
5. Babington says the club could not meet that figure, so Colt suggested settling the layout and shaping greens and fairways for £3,000, which led to a contract with Mrs. Franks Harris of Guildford.
6. A 1922 plan covered land out to the White Rocks, but the club then discovered it could not secure a long lease of lands occupied by Mr. Knox and Mr. McVicar without the landlord’s consent.
7. Babington describes a later legal dispute in which the landlord tried to exclude those lands from the site, the county court judge accepted that argument, and the high court later reversed the decision on appeal.
8. The club then pursued a 99-year lease from 1930, and Babington recounts negotiations that began in September 1923 with the Railway Company and Lord Antrim.
9. At the first Railway Company meeting, Mr. Frank Tatlow and the company officials treated Babington and the captain “like two small boys,” while the club’s own tenure records and minute books were missing.
10. Babington says he eventually established that the outside land leases were in the club trustees’ names and that the club also had about £1,000 in cash and investments, which strengthened his negotiating position.
11. He then told Mr. Tatlow the club could refuse the £300 annual contribution to Lord Antrim and could even close the club and keep paying the outside-land rent for at least 20 years.
12. Babington presents Lord Antrim as a different kind of negotiator, describing him as “pleasant,” “business-like,” and willing to drive a hard bargain without being unreasonable.
13. The new tenure required a 99-year lease under the Settled Estates Act 1877, because Lord Antrim was only tenant for life and could not grant the lease directly under the Settled Land Act.
14. Both the golf lease and the clubhouse site lease were finally executed in 1928, and the club later secured further 99-year leases of the outlying lands in 1930.
15. Babington says the immediate result was that the ladies’ clubhouse was built on the perpetuity site and new stables replaced the old accommodation opposite Rodney Street in 1929.
16. Colt returned in 1932 to settle the final plan of the course, and the club authorized the work at a cost not to exceed £3,200.
17. Franks Harris and Company carried out the construction, Jack Setterfield was sent as foreman, and the course was already playable at Easter 1933 before formal opening in July 1933 by Sir Percy Greenaway.
18. Babington highlights the physical work: huge levelling, soil dug from light deposits, fairways re-surfaced from rough, pipes laid through burns, and one-tee policy adopted to avoid front and back tees.
19. He also says sandblow from trippers had submerged greens by 1932, so Major Mayors helped build access, bring in clay and sods, and stabilise the dunes, while the Portrush UDC later supported a promenade that improved the club’s wind defence.
20. The tone is practical and procedural, with Babington speaking in a detailed reminiscence that mixes land law, engineering, and club finance, so the episode suits listeners interested in golf architecture, Irish club history, and long-form planning.
21. People who want a short, light golf chat or no interest in lease disputes may skip it.
