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

A course doesn’t need to be old to be great: Jack Nicklaus’ Gut Lärchenhof Golf Club

Posted on by Alexander Rose

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Second day of the NRW Tour 2016, second stellar course we played. Carsten and I went for Gut Lärchenhof, one of the poshest clubs in the region. It’s a Nicklaus Design and features a fantastic US-design golf course which really lacks nothing. Some will argue there’s very little atmosphere, but truth be told this club is the ultimate package: from the Titleist golf pyramids on the range to the tranquility on the course and the quality of all facilities – Lärchenhof is a modern classic and belongs to one of the top 50 courses in Europe.

Once you get passed the huge gates which secure the property in front of the beautiful club house, you enter a golf-dedicated society. Everything on the property smells quality, everything is very much cared for, everything tries to be perfect.

The only thing which wasn’t perfect was the weather – to be precise, it was the opposite of perfect. We arrived in the morning in drizzle and the forecast was horrendous. We paid the not-so-small green fee knowing there wouldn’t be any refund if we’d need to abort. We were lucky on the front nine, although the rain seemed to intensify. There was no other person on the course playing in these conditions! During the back nine the rain became torrential and we had to take shelter for at least 30 minutes. This was when we met the other two crazy people on the course that day – two pensioneers fighting out a matchplay event. We were impressed… and let them play through.

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So in short, we were extremely unlucky with the weather. It’s a fantastic venue and I love to come back in beautiful sunshine to really enjoy the course to the fullest some day. Because it deserves it! It’s a Jack Nicklaus design, features rolling fairways and an interesting architecture without being overly tricky, narrow or hilly. Lärchenhof hosted several German Masters, several Mercedes-Benz Championships and still is the alternating venue for the BMW International Open on the European Tour. If you ask me, that speaks for itself.

The quality of the course is without a doubt one of the best I’ve seen – and this must have been overly complicated given the fact that rain was omnipresent for the last months. I visited the club once before to attend the BMW International Open as a spectator and I would be surprised if the quality of the greens, fairways and tees had been much different back then. It’s just that we used other tee boxes…

From what we heard, to become a member of the club you have to pay an incredible amount of money but those who can afford, find themselves in golfer’s heaven: on a beautiful and quiet course, with incredible practice facilities, a spacious and luxurious club house and so many little things that make your day on the course as pleasant as possible. Oh, and they have a Porsche Panamera as airport shuttle, just in case you fancy to hop over for a quick round.

It doesn’t do justice to the holes to pick some which really stand out, because they are all stunning, but without a doubt the home stretch 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th is one of the best you can find. Just see for yourself!

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I think this video gives you a very good impression of what to expect for your money. Definitely worth it!

Golficiency Rating: 8/10

Photo credits: golf.de, gutlaerchenhof.de

A majestic and delightful parkland spot: Golf- und Land-Club Köln

Posted on by Alexander Rose

It’s actually been a while now that I played the NRW Tour 2016 with Carsten, with whom I originally wanted to play in St Andrews. And although the trip to Cologne and Düsseldorf was absolutely worth it, the weather had been utterly horrible. But it seems 2016 is the year of rain here in Europe, so I guess it’s fair to say we played in “fairly normal” conditions.

St Andrews has been on our list for longer and was anchored in our calendars. When we finally got the information that we cannot get a tee time during that week, we were pretty smashed – quite obvious for serious golf fans I reckon. But instead of getting depressed we found ourselves a very good alternative. We thought we have some very good courses here on our own. Maybe not as nice and historical as the home of golf, but still more than decent clubs to visit.

A word and a blow, we penciled out an itinerary that included four of the very best courses Germany has to offer. And we couldn’t wait to start the week.

First on the list was Golf- und Land-Club Köln, or translated, Golf & Country Club Cologne. This venue is beautifully placed in the neighbourhood of Refrath outside of Cologne. It’s a classic parkland course, designed by Berhand von Limburger. “Refrath”, as many call the club, is one of the oldest in the whole of Germany.

At 8am I entered the property through the huge automatic gates with the embedded club logo. I’ve seen these kind of entrances in English clubs, but that was the first time I saw that on the continent. So the welcoming couldn’t be better for that day. I was the first guest and waited for my three playing partners Carsten (my golf buddy for the week), Zoltan (a member of the club) and Moritz (playing tour pro) to arrive.

Refrath is a classic members club. It’s impossible to get a tee time on the weekend if you’re a guest and on the course there are no signs where to go to the next hole or how to play from the tee. It’s just assumed that you are either a member who know the course inside out or you are accompanied by a member who could help out here and there.

The course itself is beautiful. The weather was cold and windy on the first 9 and on the second we also had rain showers, so obviously the overall atmosphere could have been better, but generally the club is an absolute stunner. The condition was impeccable, even after long periods of rain, the layout is classic Limburger-style and extremely eye-pleasing. We really enjoyed playing. For the most part the routing meanders through a forest, only on very few holes you had the tee box or the fairway in proximity to a public road.

The course has been venue to the German Open quite a number of times. Local hero Bernhard Langer won here, Severiano Ballesteros held the course record and the European Seniors Tour comes by from time to time as well. So you see, it’s one of the nicer venues you can think of.

The club house sits right by a small lake, offering nice views for those golfers who want to have a rest on the terrace after a round. We were soaked and chilled, so we went inside and enjoyed the atmosphere in the “Berenberg Lounge”. All in all a very nice start to a full golfing week.

Golficiency Rating: 7/10

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.