During our short vacation on the Baltic Sea we played the Golfresort Wittenbeck situated between Bad Kühlungsborn and Heiligendamm. Currently, the resort features a 9 hole course, but in the near future an 18 hole course will be added.

The course is only a couple kilometers away from the sea and a strong breeze is always present. The landscape is pretty hilly and every hole goes either uphill or downhill or has a sideways slope. The course is in a very good shape and has an interesting layout. On thing that struck me though we’re the microscopic greens. Especially on the third and eight hole they weren’t bigger than 5 x 7 meters.

Altogether it is a cosy small golf course and feels very familiar. And if you are staying at one of the partner hotels, you get reductions on the already cheap greenfee (9 holes are between € 20,00 and €25,00, 18 holes between €35,00 and €40,00).

Golfresort Wittenbeck
Strasse zur Kühlung 4c
18209 Wittenbeck
Telefon: 038293 – 7575
Fax: 038293 – 7545
E-Mail: golfplatz@golf-resort-wittenbeck.de

That’s what we thought when we teed off at the GC Pankow this morning.
The dew was still on the meadows and we were the first ones on the course. I was joined by fellow golf blogger Lutz from Hubert-Cup – quasi a golf blind date as we had never met before in person.

We played the 18 holes for the first time, and in this condition the course was a ball eater. Except for the greens, the grass was still very high, what you would consider semi-rough on a normal course was the fairway on this one. We started playing with coloured balls but eventually would lose them as well – on the fairway!!!

Funny sidenote: the golden ball played by Sepp Maier on the opening day still hasn’t been found, as General Manager Gabriele Wagmüller told us – the greenkeepers are still looking for it. Sepp pulled his drive a little to the left and landed in the rough.

My ball balance was on the positive side: I lost four but found six others. Apart from that my round wasn’t too good. Still the old problem off the tee and I made some poor fairway shots. My putting was good though, I noted my putts separately on my scorecard and I only three-putted once but single-putted four times, the rest being two-putts. And I won the ladies competition 3:1!

On nasty detail about the course were the water hazards behind the elevated greens. You weren’t able to see them, your ball went over the green and there you found yourself in the pool.

Anyway, it was good fun and I got myself an invitation to play in the next Hubert-Cup. So Lutz, let’s bring it on!

Another tournament played yesterday, this was my first visit to the Berliner Golf & Country Club Motzener See e.V.. Located south of Berlin, the GC Motzen was hosting the Linde German Masters from 1994 to 1997. It features a 18 hole championship course, a short course was recently added.

Most of the time you will be playing up and downhill, only holes 12, 17 and 18 are flat out, but then these three are guarded by water. The par-3 12th hole is an island green, so a good ball placement is recommended (and yes, I lost two in the lake). On the long par-4 18th I also couldn’t resist hitting my third shot over the water. Well, the 7 iron made it over the water, unfortunately I tried the 8 iron first. I also liked the downhill 9th, a short par 4 with a creek running through it.

Unfortunately, the holes 5 through 8 are pretty close to the adjacent autobahn, so you feel like playing on a motorway station when the wind carries the noise towards the golf course. Prenden’s 18 hole course has the same problem, but the traffic isn’t as heavy there, so it doesn’t disturb as much.

At the end of the day I was able to shoot 35 stableford points despite my errant driving that almost drove me crazy yesterday. But then, suddenly and out of nowhere, I hammered a 200m 5 iron off the tee at the 15th hole. That was the higlight of the day, unfortunately the only one. But hey, that’s the game!

Berliner Golf- und Country Club Motzener See e.V.
Am Golfplatz 5
15749 Mittenwalde, Ortsteil Motzen

Tel.: 033769 / 50130
Fax: 033769 / 50134
info@golfclubmotzen.de

A friend of mine just started to play golf. He bought his first clubs a couple of weeks ago, took some lessons and is a frequently seen guest on the driving range. But grey is all theory, so we took him out to his first round on the golf course. Off we drove to Fleesensee to play the Coca-Cola Course, a short course that you can play without a players permit.

This was the course we always practised on three years ago, when we stayed in Fleesensee to make our “Platzreife”. Back then all the holes seemed so long, we couldn’t even think of how a par five would feel like. Now, I stood there and was thinking about a) driving the greens of the par fours and b) buying a lob wedge. Funny, how dimensions and distances shrink.
And it felt good to play almost all holes in par .

Yesterday I played at the Golfclub Stolper Heide for the second time. Last year I played the West Course, designed by Bernhard Langer, which is the older one of the two 18-hole courses. And yesterday it was time for the East Course, designed by Kurt Roßknecht.

The course has a very pleasant layout and in combination with the perfect weather we enjoyed some entertaining nine holes of After Work Golf. Being the younger ones of the courses, the East Course doesn’t offer the high tree population of the West Course, but the nicely placed water hazards and bunkers make it interesting to play (more pictures can be found here).

My game recovered pretty good from the mediocre play of last weekend, the woods had their comeback and I was able to shoot three pars and three bogeys. Not bad for a tuesday night .

As I was cleaning up on the weekend, I found the scorecard of the first round my wife and I played after we got our Players Permit. This was almost exactly three years ago, on July 27th 2003 when we played on the Golfanlage Wulfsmühle near Hamburg.

Fun to see the scores from back then! Not that I would miss them

Yesterday we played a round of After Work Golf, this time at the Golf & Country Club Seddiner See.

Fortunately the weather stayed dry and the thunderstorm warning was false. We played the North Course designed by Rainer Preißmann.

I was pleasantly surprised by the condition of the practice areas and the course itself. The North Course is the easier one of the two but still had its challenges and interesting layouts. We only played the front nine, but I am already looking forward to playing the whole course on the next occasion.

The clubhouse in my opinion had a little too much new-rich luxurious style, but the staff at the club office and restaurant were very friendly and helpful. Although it takes me a one hour journey to get there (the course is located in the south of Berlin next to the exit Beelitz/Michendorf of the A10), I’ll play there again.

Golf- und Country Club Seddiner See AG
Zum Weiher 44
14552 Michendorf

Tel: 033205 732-0
Fax: 033205 732-29
E-Mail: info@gccseddinersee.de

I was about to post this some days ago, but my digital camera was lost with all the pictures I took at the Märkische Golfclub Potsdam. But now the camera is back and everything is ok. Before this year I only played the 9-hole course of the MGC, but now I had the occasion to play the 18-hole course on a very early sunday morning (one of my flight partners was a family father, so he had to be back early to spend some time with the kids).

The course has an interesting layout and a nice ‘dramaturgy’. The course is very cultivated and what pleased me most is the color contrast achieved by planting yellow-blooming bushes, giving you a very welcomed contrast to the ever-present green on all golf courses.

The people sitting on the clubhouse terrace that sunday morning may have been a little disturbed by my second shot on the 18th hole, as it landed just a couple of feet in front of the terrace. But nobody was hurt during the performance of this stunt .

Greenfee ist 65,00 EUR on weekdays, 75,00 EUR on weekends for the 18-hole course, 45,00 EUR / 55,00 EUR respectively for the 9-hole course.

Märkischer Golfclub Potsdam e.V.
Kemnitzer Schmiedeweg 1
14542 Werder / OT Kemnitz

E-Mail: info@mgc-potsdam.de
Tel.: 0 33 27 / 66 37-0
Fax: 0 33 27 / 66 37-37

Yesterday I played at Golfanlagen Gross Kienitz for the first time this year together with Mario, an old friend from my hometown near Stuttgart.

Mario plays an impressive 8.6 handicap. Playing with single handicappers is always very fascinating to me as you can pick up very much from them and their approach to the game. Mario showed his class already at the first hole, shooting a birdie at the par 4 with a sandwedge from the fairway at 20m from the pole.

Gross Kienitz offers the 18-hole Robert Baker Course, the public 9-hole Sunset Vodafone Course and a 3-hole practice course for beginners. So far I only played the Vodafone Course, in my opinion a pretty interesting course: the first 4 holes are a good warmup, the most interesting holes are the par 4 fifth, the par 4 seventh and above all the par 5 eight. Water hazards are there when you don’t need them, the fairway gets narrow in places where you’ll land your tee shot. Quite a challenge for the beginner and also a good excercise for the advanced player.

The course was in a very good condition, the semirough was extremely thick, giving me some trouble where I didn’t make the fairway. It is better to play the course this time of year, as they don’t cut the rough too often. In the fall, the rough sometimes stands more than 50cm tall, so a ball in the rough usually is a ball lost.

Greenfee is reasonable, we payed 15,00 € 22,00 € on a thursday. During other weekdays, you pay 20,00 € 24,00 €, on weekend the fee is 24,00 € 30,00 €.

Golfanlagen Gross Kienitz
An der Straße nach Dahlewitz
15831 Groß Kienitz
Tel.: 033708 / 537- 0
Fax: 033708 / 537-20
E-Mail: info@grosskienitz.de
http://www.golfanlagen-grosskienitz.de/

Located in Cartaya near Huelva on the spanish Costa de la Luz, the AC Nuevo Portil Golf is a 69 room hotel with adjacent 18 hole golf course. The hotel was built in 2002 and is surrounded by a newly built residential area. When we stayed there in February 2003, construction still was going on, resulting in construction noise disturbing the peace from time to time.

Playing the 18 hole course was somehow strange, as it is situated within the residential area. You play narrow fairways guarded by high fences protecting the neighbours from your slices and hooks. Also, you have to leave the golf course three or four times to pass the roads through the residential area to proceed to the next tee. Despite that, the course offers an interesting layout. Beware of the geese on the lake on the 14th, they might steal your ball.

The hotel itself offers a nice colonial architecture and comfy rooms. What it lacks is nice personnel and acceptable prices for the food. Room service is not recommendable. For my next vacation I’d rather choose the nearby Algarve (see Castro Marim and Parque da Floresta below).