Hamburger GC

[Ville Nurmi]

In a thread about 50 best courses in world Ran did mention Hamburger. Did you mean the course in Germany.
I was fortunate to play it in may and it was a very good golf course.

It is not long, but I think that it uses the land well and you can easily compare it with english inland courses.

Best,
Ville
from Finland

[Ran Morrissett]

Yes, I was referring to the one in Germany that you played. This Colt/Morrison course comes highly recommended as being the "near equal to any of the heath courses around London." Is their work relatively well preserved for the most part? What makes the course so appealing? What kind of topography is it over? Any standout holes? Is the soil/vegetation as attractive for golf as the heath courses in England?

Cheers,

[Paul Turner]

Here's link to their website.  Anyone able to translate?

http://www.hamburgergolf-club.de/Falkenstein/index.htm

I think the bunkering has been changed in places, if you compare the hole plan to The World Atlas of Golf.

Tony Ristola has played it, perhaps he'll comment.

[CHrisB]

Click on Golfplatz to see some pics and diagrams of each hole.  Is bahn 10 a redan?

[Ville Nurmi]

I would say that the land is quite hilly. Itīs more hilly than one heath course that I know namely Pulborough ie. West Sussex.

I would say that there ahs not been many changes in the course and they have been restoring the heather areas in recent years.

I played with an older gentleman who said that their committee were thinking of to build new greens with new grass a couple of years back. They had an english consultant to come over and he convinced the committee that the poa greens still were good and shouldnīt be redone. The committee believed the man and the greens are still poa.

There are a couple of new trees planted, but only a couple.

The holes are good all in all. Par 3īs are all quite demanding. 210, 160, 165 and 145 meters. The last the 15th is from a hill about 20 meters high to a tiny green.

Par4īs are also demanding. But there is also variety and a couple of short par4īs like 1 and 7th.

The 16th is a short par5. If you want to hit the green in 2 you have to hit over 20 meters of heather about 60-70 meters short of green. The green is situated in a little hollow.

The course is in my mind as attractive as itīs counterparts in England.

And it was fun to play. I played two rounds before 3 pm. And after the second round the members who I played with said that it was a bit crowdy that day. I counted about 5 groups alltogether. At my course we had 29000 rounds in 5 months last year  

I canīt comment to Paul Turner because I donīt have the World Atlas of Golf.

Best,