The best of Alpine Golf
As the snow begins to recede from the pistes that carpet Europe’s mountain playground, it’s time to pack away your skis, dust off your golf clubs and head back to the Alps for a summer adventure across 18 holes. We take a look at some of the top golf courses in the region.
Crans-sur-Sierre Golf Club
In a place more famous for its winter delights and the distant chiming of cowbells, great golf is on offer on dozens of courses throughout the eight countries through which the Alps mountain range stretches - from the oldest, France’s Evian Resort Golf Club, that dates back to 1904, to arguably the best, Switzerland’s Crans-sur-Sierre Golf Club. Whatever course you’re on, the experience is invariably breath-taking, teeing up in the shadow of towering snow-capped massifs and playing along verdant fairways flanked by glacier-fed streams, fir trees and fresh alpine flora. With the added boost of the mountain air helping your ball to fly further, alpine golf has to be on every golfer’s bucket list.
Evian Resort Golf Club
France
If you’re looking for a course with a view, tee it high and let it fly at France’s Golf du Lac de Tignes, Europe’s highest 18-hole golf course at an altitude of 2,100 metres.
Below the white of the Grand Motte glacier, a stunning panorama of the deep blue Lac des Tignes contrasts the fertile green fairways of this alpine course, close to Val d’Isere. Its altitude means the snow lasts longer, resulting in a short season from late June to the beginning of September, but it’s well worth the trip when the snow has cleared, if only to see the beloved alpine marmots that roam this course.
Evian Resort Golf Club has a history dating back 120 years and its two courses are perched at the foot of the Alps on the shores of Lake Geneva, giving unrivalled views of the infamous Alpine summits. Its Champions Course hosts the Amundi Evian Championship each September, one of the five major tournaments in women's world golf.
Chamonix Golf Course was created by celebrated golf architect Robert Trent Jones Senior in 1934 in a glacial valley at the foot of iconic peaks, including the Mont Blanc massif, Aiguilles Rouges and the Drus. This is a technical track, with numerous bunkers and water hazards guarding the greens, but principally it’s a feast for the eyes.
Bad Kleinkirchheim Golf Club
Austria
Golf Eichenheim, by renowned designer Kyle Phillips, is nestled in dramatic scenery below Kitzbuhel’s jagged mountains. It’s these peaks that are the home of the Hahnenkamm, one of the world’s most prestigious downhill ski races, and you can even play golf down the race course in an event called ‘Golf the Streif’ during the week-long Kitzbuhel Golf Festival each June. Teeing off from the starting hut, you play 12 holes down the 800 metre steep slope to end on the nine-hole Rasmushof Golf Course, where the ski racers cross the finish line when it is covered with snow.
Quality and beauty combine spectacularly at Adamstal Golf Club, in lower Austria’s alpine foothills. The undulating fairways of its championship 18-hole course, host to the Challenge Tour on several occasions, scythe through thick forest with glorious mountain backdrops.
Adamstal Golf Club
Zell am See-Kaprun Golf Club, in Saalbach, also serves up picture-perfect golf on its two 18-hole courses. The 10th hole of the Kitzsteinhorn course plays to a peninsula green set in a lake in which the namesake Kitzsteinhorn Glacier high atop the mountains is perfectly mirrored.
Nearby Urslautal Golf Club, close to ski resort Saalfelden, is located on a high plateau surrounded by mountains which locals climb on midsummer’s day, lighting torches above the tree line at night to create a dazzling ring of fire above the course.
Another magnificent alpine course not to miss is Bad Kleinkirchheim Golf Club, Carinthia's highest and the home golf club of Austrian skiing legend Franz Klammer. From the 5th hole you can see the FIS K70 ski slope on which he won his first downhill world cup race in 1971, which was subsequently renamed as the Carinthia – Franz Klammer piste in his honour.
Biella Golf Club Le Betulle
Italy
Italy’s alpine golf courses include Sestriere Golf Club, among Europe’s highest at a shade over 2,000 metres and a former Italian Open host. Sestriere was one of the main venues for the 2006 Winter Olympics.
Biella Golf Club Le Betulle, northeast of Turin, is only just lower at 1,936 metres high, yet is open for play from the beginning of April to the end of November. Renowned as one of Italy’s top courses, its hilly fairways are laid out through mature trees.
Garmisch-Partenkirchen Golf Club
Germany
Garmisch-Partenkirchen Golf Club’s fairways, in the heart of the Bavarian Alps, offer panoramic vistas to the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest peak. The club is one of Germany’s oldest, opening in 1928 before moving to its present location in the 1970s and expanding to 18 holes in 1990.
Achental Golf Resort, located outside the market town of Grassau south of Lake Chiemsee, is a Thomas Himmel design that opened in 2013 below forested slopes. It bares its teeth with huge sand traps throughout and water hazards on six holes.
Royal Bled
Slovenia
Slovenia’s oldest golf facility, Royal Bled, is an impressive 27-hole facility next to Lake Bled, set below the Julian Alps. Its beautifully manicured King’s Course is ranked the country’s best, particularly after it underwent a major revamp in 2017, eighty years after the club was founded.
Andermatt Golf Course
Switzerland
For alpine golf par excellence, Switzerland is hard to top. Andermatt Golf Course opened in 2016 and was designed to be environmentally friendly. Certified by the GEO Foundation for Sustainable Golf, the course is home to rare flora, including the endangered heath rush and nine other Red List species. Wildlife, such as long-eared bats and alpine groundhog, are found here too - of the 149 bird species found in the Urseren Valley, 118 have been spotted on the golf course.
Golfers might even come across a herd of goats. They spend a month roving the fairways and rough eating invasive alders, ensuring continued biodiversity.
Nature is also the byword at Interlaken-Unterseen Golf Club, located on the edge of a nature reserve between Thun and Brienz lakes in the Bernese Oberland. A strict conservation policy is observed to maintain the abundant and varied flora and fauna. The course opened in 1966 and underwent a complete revamp in 2005.
Crans-sur-Sierre Golf Club
But for golf of the highest order, Crans-sur-Sierre Golf Club is the zenith, situated on a 1,500-metre-high plateau in one of the most dramatic settings imaginable with views to the roof of the Alps, the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc.
Open from May to October, the Crans-Montana club’s history dates back to 1905, although its championship course was created by legendary golfer Severiano Ballesteros in the late 1990s and renamed to honour him. The course has hosted the Omega European Masters and its predecessor, the Swiss Open, for more than 70 years, with past winners including Seve himself, as well as José Maria Olazabal, Sergio Garcia, Colin Montgomerie, Ernie Els and Lee Westwood. Augmenting the championship course is the nine-hole Jack Nicklaus Course, designed by the golfing great.
For the very best of the Swiss Alps and the golf on offer, Golf Traveller can elevate your experience by throwing your dream car in the mix as you tackle the winding roads and hairpin bends at the wheel of a Lamborghini, Ferrari, McLaren or maybe a Bentley.