Hugh Alison did a lot of the travelling for Colt & Co, dealing with most of the business in the US and Japan. Being far away from his two partners also allowed his style to develop slightly differently from what we have come to expect from Colt in Europe.

Alison’s style was a lot wilder, provided more drama and was tougher on the player than most of Colt’s designs, maybe even in certain situations quite penal/heroic. Courses such as Timber Point and Royal Hague clearly gave players much more opportunity to lose a lot of balls than say Swinley Forest or De Pan. It is also striking that Alison's hazards were built on a much larger scale, something I think he scaled back once back in Europe during the mid 1930's. Finally there is the fact that he used a lot more crowned greens, making it easy for a shot not perfectly hit to run off the green.

Hugh Alison deserves to be better known as a gifted architect in his own right, rather than as just one of the partners in Colt & Co. At IVGD we look forward to restoring more of his courses in the future.