Building The Dutch ‘DNA’

Phil Helsby, co-founder and managing director of The Dutch, recounts the story of how he and a group of five fellow PGA Professionals came to set up and manage what has quickly become one of The Netherland’s most highly rated private golf clubs, and explains how he is continuing to enhance the facilities and the experience for a new generation of members with a new generation of staff.

Build it and they will come. Although it’s a phrase borrowed from 1980’s baseball movie Field of Dreams that is often trotted out whenever a new venture tries to get off the ground, it’s a sentiment that must have surely been in the forefront of the minds of a handful of dream-filled pros when they first came up with the idea of building a high-end links-style course on what must have looked like a rather unpromising piece of land 25 miles east of Rotterdam somewhere towards the beginning of the noughties.

But build it they did, with the Made in Scotland team – the name the original founding owners David Burnside, Alan Saddington, Jonas Saxton, Mauk de Booij, Tim Giles and Phil Helsby, gave themselves when the idea was first mooted back in 2001 – opening The Dutch Golf Club in 2011 to much fanfare.

They were inspired by the experience they had enjoyed at such clubs as Loch Lomond back in the day, and wanted to recreate that experience in mainland Europe, and more specifically The Netherlands, where nothing of this nature existed.

Construction began in early 2008, dealing first with the engineering solutions required to shape flat farmland that was several metres below sea level into a championship golf course. Radical shaping was used to create a rugged golf course with undulating fairways framed by dramatic mounding. Out of necessity on land which is below sea level there are also many water features, with several lakes, streams and canals coming into play as well as serving a drainage facilities.

Scotsman Phil Helsby, the club’s energetic managing director, recalls: “The biggest challenge was the site itself. The ground was made up of peat and clay – which is essentially what you’d call a bog! We brought in over 700,000m3 of soil to the site before top dressing the site with sand. We also used foam concrete as the foundation under all green complexes. The Dutch was the first course in the world that used this technique and it has been a great success with all the greens retaining their original undulations. Had we not done this they would have settled into much flatter greens. We also installed over 110km of drainage, as well as a complete irrigation system. The Dutch is now known to be one of the driest golf courses in the country and is maintained to the highest standards throughout the year.”

Although tournament staging helps get a club on the map, as does bidding for a Ryder Cup, Helsby says the main driving force behind the club was to provide a home from home for its members, whether they be local businesspeople, or those travelling from further afield. “We started The Dutch with the dream that we wanted to create a special place where businesspeople could play golf at the highest level,” he says. “The important thing was to create the right atmosphere, with a nice clubhouse, where the members feel happy and they feel like it’s an extension of their home and their family. Where they feel welcome, and their guests feel welcome. We called it ‘The Dutch Experience’.

“For me, that experience is best exemplified when a member brings a guest and the guest is treated the same way as the member from the moment they drive through the gates, to the moment they are met at the valet parking, to the moment they go into the locker room, and when they experience all the other things at the club has to offer, like the bar or the restaurant or the whisky and cigar room. We want people to come away from here feeling that they had a great experience and that they would like to come back again. We see golf as a tool to bringing people together.”

Asked who to describe a typical member at The Dutch, Helsby says: “Our first group of members were our clients from Made in Scotland and their companies followed by their colleagues and their friends. Today we have over 700 business owners and directors. We also have a lot of corporate members, including big and small companies, who see the club as an extension of their businesses. The average age of our members is just over 50, which, although sounds old, compares to the average age of 67 at most of the big private clubs in The Netherlands, which makes our membership relatively young.”

Now well into it second decade of existence, The Dutch is currently going through something of a transition, with co-founder Helsby being the only one of the original six investors to remain actively involved in the club as the others wind down into gentle retirement. Despite the changes, Helsby is confident that the club is heading in the right direction and that they have the right people in place to take the club forward. 

“A few years ago, one of the original pros decided to go his own way and sold his shareholding to the remaining five. Last year four of those five took a step back and started working in a mentor/ambassador role, handing over the majority of their responsibilities to the younger generation of PGA Pros who were already part of the team at The Dutch. This year three of those pros took a further step back by selling their shareholdings while continuing to work for The Dutch on a part-time basis for at least the next two years. This transition appears to be working well and we are currently looking for at least two new PGA Pros to join our team.

“The foundations we have in place are very solid,” he adds. “The Dutch is healthy, the future looks very good. Together we will shape the policy and vision for the future. But first, everyone within the organisation who has been given a different or adapted position is given the time and space to settle in and get used to his or her position and their responsibilities.”

In the past few years, The Dutch has taken steps to freshen up the team, taking on the services of Robert Stevens as commercial director, who also sits on the board, while several younger PGA Professionals, including Graeme Brown, Oggy Robertson and Giesbert Gommers, along with a new F&B manager Rutger Smits, have also joined the staff, which currently numbers 125.

Says Phil: “Everyone we have hired is someone who were think has the right DNA to come on board and ensure the future success of the club. The Dutch is a kind of family business with its own identity. That should never go away. We are passionate about offering high level of hospitality and service and that very special DNA – the feeling, the passion for the work – is something everyone who works here must have. Of course, this doesn’t always make the search for new staff easy, but it certainly helps when coming to decide who to hire.”

What matters most to Helsby and his team is that the special bond with the members is maintained.

“Many members have come here in the past because of the founders, just as we can now welcome young people who are building a close relationship with one of the new pros or one of the other colleagues. We can't deny that when we started Made in Scotland we tended to be younger than our customers, now the picture is the exact opposite. Fortunately, a young group is coming in that can take over and understand how it works.
The management changes have few visible consequences for the membership. They can, as they are used to, fully enjoy their membership and the course with all its facilities, including a new Tour-standard short game practice area which has recently opened up next to the driving range and academy.

Adds Phil: "The maintenance is currently at an unprecedented level, the result of ten years of development. In this area we have been able to achieve the high goal that we had set ourselves and that we want to achieve in all areas in the future. We want to be leading in all facets.”

To achieve this, Helsby and his team are in a constant dialogue with membership about what they would like to see at the club. “We sit down with representatives of each member category group to canvas their opinions on the future direction of The Dutch,” he says. “Younger members often have a different view than founding members who have been there from the start. We are already seeing, for example, that golf alone is not enough for some of the newer members. The social aspect and networking opportunities are equally important. For others, the level and range of the catering is a high priority. To others, is there enough attention on the environment and issues surrounding sustainability?”

In the meantime, The Dutch continues to evolve, with plans to develop luxury on-site accommodation for members and their guests very much in the pipeline, while the construction of a new solar energy plant will help provide power for the clubhouse and the charging for electric cars and machinery as The Dutch makes the commitment to become The Netherlands’ first zero carbon golf club.

All in all, The Dutch is a club that will never rest on its laurels, however much they are deserved, and that, in large part, is thanks to the drive of those six bold PGA Members who had the vision and the drive to try something new and, above all, to see it through.