Golfbaan de Texelse

Overview: De Texelse is a distinctive dune links course at De Cocksdorp on the northern end of Texel. The holes move through dunes and marram grass, with water features and large greens adding a different scale to the exposed coastal ground. Wind is not a background detail here: it changes the angles, the landing areas and the clubs required throughout the round. The course has the rough-edged look of a traditional seaside links while remaining closely tied to the particular landscape of the island and the Wadden Sea.

History: The project transformed a flat bulb-growing landscape into a nine-hole links course designed by Alan Rijks with landscape architects Van Empelen & Van Aalderen. The first course opened in 1997 after an unusual building process in which equipment and materials had to be brought to the island by ferry. The facility later expanded to 18 holes, with the full routing documented from 2014. The original dune concept remains visible in the present course.

Did You Know? The Texelse’s most distinctive raw materials were not waiting on the surface when the project began. The design team had to create a coastal golf landscape from a flat agricultural site, then let wind, dune planting and the island’s natural seasonal changes give the course its changing colours and texture.