Worthy end to the NRW2016 Tour: Golf Club Hubbelrath

Posted on by Alexander Rose

Another day, another round of golf. And as you do, we had a really nice course reserved for the end. On a very cold April morning Carsten and I met up with a friend of his to play the famous East Course at Golf Club Hubbelrath. For some strange reason they sometimes are also called Golf und Land Club Düsseldorf (Golf & Country Club) but nobody could give me a proper answer to why that’s the case. Nevermind.

Hubbelrath is really close to the other Düsseldorf course we played the day before and it’s famous in a way that the venue hosted the German Open multiple times, hosts the Ladies European Open, Junior Championships, is home to one of most successful golf teams in Germany (current German Champion) and in general is a really nice and challenging course.

Hubbelrath is again another Bernhard von Limburger course and features a very hilly parkland setup. The weather got worse and worse but we were in good mood, chatted along and enjoyed every minute.

The East Course starts right at the clubhouse from an elevated tee. However, there is a funny tweak to it as the first tee box for yellow is on one side of the club building, whereas the white tee box is situated behind the building with quite a different angle to get to the fairway. That was a first for me.

As mentioned, Hubbelrath is quite hilly as well. You find yourself walking up and down, and up and down. Due to all the rain of the previous days, the course presented itself quite soggy and played wet and soft – that was the case for both the fairways and the greens as well.

Walking the East course you realise this course is over 50 years old. Tree lines are big and mature, there is very little disturbance from outside the course or from the adjacent holes – it’s just a very pleasant course that you can enjoy. Maybe that’s the reason Martin Kaymer is checking in from time to time when he’s in Germany. His parents’ place is just a couple of minutes away.

I was told their par-3 hole 7 was awarded “Most Beautiful Golf Hole in Germany” once. I couldn’t find proof online but it looks fantastic indeed, at least for German standards.

All in all a very nice finish to our NRW Tour 2016 trip. It has been a pleasure to play all these great courses in West Germany. I will absolutely be back some time to play them again, and I will make sure I’ll play in beautiful sunshine then, because the weather during the four days was absolutely horrible!

I think it’s a challenge and really tricky to achieve to play in horrendous and difficult condition and still enjoy the day to the fullest. For me that’s an issue of comfort in specific temperatures, comfort of different clothing and pleasure to the eye, because while golfing I absolutely prefer lush green and clear blue skies over 50 shades of grey.

But we all know golf is a sport executed outside – with all positives and negatives to it. So I guess I have to accept that not every round can be played in stellar condition.

We had good fun anyway, enjoyed ourselves on the course and stayed in the clubhouse for a while. Interestingly the club hosted a funeral reception that day so we tried not to cheer up too much about the golf.

To get a better feeling for how the course and the amenities actually look like you should watch this video:

Out of breath at Düsseldorfer Golf Club

Posted on by Alexander Rose

After Carsten and I played Refrath and Lärchenhof (both near Cologne) we made our way more to the Düsseldorf area. Next on the list was Düsseldorfer Golf Club, another treat in Germany’s west, situated on an old knight’s estate. The weather turned out to be really OK that day, so we found ourselves peeling off one insulating layer after the other with every sun ray that we caught.

We were set to play a round with local member and internationally renowned golf course architect Christian Althaus. Unfortunately it turned out he didn’t have much time for golf that day (not surprising as it was a mid-week morning), but he was kind enough to show us around a little and gave us a peek into the life of a course architect – a pretty adorable job if you ask me. Christian is responsible for some great new courses and re-designs and is in the business for more than 20 years. So he knows his stuff, plays off a +1 handicap and loves his home course Düsseldorfer Golf Club. So if this wasn’t promising a great day, what would!

As the club decided to aerate and sand the fairways and greens we had to start on the 10th hole and made our way along the hilly course. I was really surprised how steep some parts of the course have been because I had no idea that this part of the Düsseldorf region was so close to the foothills of the so-called Bergisches Land. Apparently it is. After the first 9 holes I was pretty wrecked and seriously appreciated that we had to wait for our second nine, starting at the first hole.

But to give you some more flavour what it’s like on the course:
Hole 10, straight par 5 downhill
Hole 11, dogleg par 5 uphill
Hole 12, par 3 downhill
Hole 13, dogleg par 4, first downhill then uphill
Hole 14, straight par 4, a little uphill towards the green
Hole 15, par 3 from an extremely elevated tee, which you have to climb up to, make you shot with your heart pumping, then walk steeply down

By then I was totally out of breath, and I always considered myself as fairly fit. Apparently I was wrong. If my ball had found the water hazard in front of the 15th, I guess I would have jumped right in to refresh.

Anyway, we finished our first 9 holes eventually, had a short break and then continued onto the front-nine which are equally nice but less hilly – a little less. The sun kept shining, we were playing decent golf, the course presented itself challenging, we weren’t really bothered by those holes which have been sanded that day, so we finished our 18 holes and rewarded ourselves with a long rest on the sun terrace.

Golficiency Rating: 6/10

Ball Showcase: NRW Tour 2016

Posted on by Alexander Rose

For those who don’t know, NRW is short for North Rhine-Westphalia, a part in Western Germany and it’s the most populated one. It has however some of the finest golf courses in Germany to offer.

No question that this has been on my bucket list for quite a while and in late April 2016 it was time to tackle each of these great venues one by one, one day after the next. The weather was horrible but the week in total has been an absolute treat!

Walking in the footsteps of golf’s greats—in Germany

Posted on by Alexander Rose

Last year, in August, a fellow blogger and I tried to get a tee time at the famous Old Course in St. Andrews. We enrolled as we were told, waited – and received a negative answer. You might have read the story.

Of course we were extremely disappointed as our dream was so radically ending in smoke. Of course there are other ways to play the Old Course but none of them guaranteed a round for us two – at least not in an affordable way.

What to do now, we started thinking. Fly anyway and play the other courses? We could have done that, but honestly, when you are travelling to St. Andrews, the Home of Golf, you definitely want to play the mother of all courses. So we decided to skip completely.

But what else?

In the end we planned a golf trip in front of our doorsteps. We both live in Germany which offers quite some treasures if you just dig deep enough. A word and a blow, we decided on 4 prestigious clubs in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), all very close to each other (Cologne and Düsseldorf area) and all with their own history (one of which to be honest has a quite young history).

These are the ones that we finally went for:

  1. Golf und Land-Club Köln, Refrath
  2. Golf Club Gut Lärchenhof, Pulheim
  3. Düsseldorfer Golf Club
  4. Land und Golf Club Düsseldorf, Hubbelrath

All of these courses have a rich history and hosted uncounted professional events. Even Gut Lärchenhof with its rather short history stands out as this is the venue for the European Tour event ‘BMW International Open’, at least every second year.

I’m writing these words sitting in a hotel during the stay. Earlier today we finished round 3 and now it’s only one course still missing. Please check back with this blog to read all the course reviews.

Generally it’s an interesting experience to take some days off at work, don’t travel long but concentrate on some seriously magnificent golf courses in the middle of our home country.