Golfclub St. Leon-Rot

Surely the highlight of my vacation trip last week was playing at Golfclub St. Leon-Rot, one of the finest golf courses Germany has to offer. St. Leon-Rot is in situated in between Mannheim and Karlsruhe, to get to the Golf Club you have to drive through the industral park of St. Leon-Rot, at the very end of the street you enter another world. St. Leon-Rot offers two 18 hole courses – St. Leon and Rot, a 9 hole short course and a “bambini course. I had a tee time for Rot, the course that was voted Germanys finest golf course from 2001 – 2005 and I was about to discover what this meant.

A wide array of buildings – caddy hall, pro shop and club house separate the member parking from the guest parking lot (yes, keep it all separate). A very friendly and helpful staff introduced me to everything and I was lucky enough to play for free as my home club Gut Kaden has a greenfee agreement with St. Leon-Rot. Otherwise, the weekly greenfee would have been EUR 80,00 and EUR 95,00 on weekends.

Everything is a little bigger at this club, a huge driving range offers loads of covered and open bays and a separate building for video coachings. There is a separate halfway house between both courses and about 5 putting and chipping greens, everything in immaculate condition.

I started alone between a threesome and a foursome and landed a solid four iron in the middle of the first fairway, a 471m par 5. Greenkeeper were all over the place, mowing the greens, but politely stopped and shut their engines down as soon as a player was in sight. A shaky double-bogey started my round, but already on the the second I started opening up, absorbing the beautiful parkland course around me and trying to match the beauty of the course with my best game.

I was on the third fairway as a marshal drove by and approached me: “The boss (SAP-founder Dietmar Hopp) is teeing of at the first right now, if he is coming into sight, could you please let him play through?”. Hey, I was on vacation and had plenty of time, so I had no stress with that, but how cool is that? You have your own course and when you start playing, just send out some marshals to clear the course for you. Dietmar and his gangsome (six players) came into sight when I was on the 7th green and they teed off at the sixth. They didn’t catch up until the 17th.

You really should have your best game in the bag if you want to perform on this course, a 136 slope from white, well used natural biotopes and water hazards make almost every hole a unique experience (check out the course gallery and you see what I mean). The only hole that I was able to relax and just play along was the par5 11th. All other holes demanded more than usual.

A very funny thing happened on the back nine. Five par4′s, two par5′s and two par 3′s and I played a six on every single hole, I wasn’t particularly happy about the fact (added up to only 15 stableford points on the back nine), but it was sure something to remember.

Should you have the chance to play there, absolutely do it. The course is definitely worth the money and you’ll remember the experience. I sure will.

Golf Club St. Leon-Rot Betriebsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG
Opelstraße 30
68789 St. Leon-Rot
Tel. 0 62 27 / 86 08 – 0
Fax 0 62 27 / 86 08 – 88
info@gc-slr.de

More pictures over at my flickr! photoset.

Edit: Please also read Eugen Pletschs report on the St. Leon-course, entertaining as always.