Renovation green surrounds Golf & Land Club Cologne Refrath hole 1

Although we finished our bunker renovation project at Refrath two years ago, the need arose to do additional work at the green of the first hole because a number of large spruce trees situated around the green had died due to a beetle infestation.

Because of the extra room around the green that was the result of the dying trees the feeling was that the green needed more defence and that the landforms around the green also could use more finesse. We were asked to make some proposals for the club to remedy this situation.

After carefully examining the various options, our advice to the club was to enlarge the bunker guarding the left side of the green, pulling it fore in front of the green, thereby defending the green surface more for shots from the left side of the fairway. At the same time we proposed given the extra room that we now had due to the trees that were gone, to reshape the complete green surrounds, creating subtle grassy run off areas more in line with some of the other green complexes on the course.

After the club approved our proposal, we did the construction work in January 2020 with shaper Lowie Bussemaker and the greenkeeping team of Refrath under the lead of head greenkeeper Dirk Thelen.

“Even though the work was driven by an emergency of dying trees, we are very happy with the outcome of our renovation works at Refrath hole 1. By expanding the existing bunker more in front of the green, we have been able to make the green defence more asymmetric and interesting, and by reshaping the green surrounds the whole green complex is more in line with the other classic von Limburger greens on the course.”