GOLF
ALONG THE DANUBE
Golf professional Pat McGowan is conducting a clinic on a Sunday afternoon on the deck of a 360-foot river cruiser gliding gently upstream on the River Danube. The boat passes by Hungarian villages, replete with handmade folk art and kitchens turning out paprika-laced goulash.
As McGowan reels off the tenets of a good stance — chin up, rear end out, arms hanging straight down — with nearly 100 Americans following him in lockstep, a German barge passes headed downstream. The crew on the quarterdeck of the vessel carrying fuel or wood or some other payload looks quizzically at the Americans.
“Wonder what they think of this?” muses one golfer.
“Probably think we’re some revival or religious sect,” someone else responds.
Chuckles are had by all — the Holy Trinity of the Driver, Wedge, and Putter is in session. The Faith Church of Par Worshippers is saying grace. This band of golfing deacons has come more than 4,500 miles from America to explore the ancient game in Eastern Europe. Anything for a fix. Some have played golf all over the world and just thought it would be fun to come to Europe and see “what’s what.”
Forty-three couples, one teen-ager, two widows, and one woman traveling with a friend because of an ill husband board a 3-year-old German luxury cruiser named River Cloud on a summer Saturday afternoon for an eight-day journey up the Danube, through Hungary, Austria, and Germany. The eclectic group proves that golf is a universal common denominator.
Many golfers might not think of Eastern Europe as a golf destination, but in fact the offerings can be quite good. Add the beauty of the Danube, the fairways kissing Hansel-and-Gretel cottages, and the variety of non-golf side trips, and the result is a golf voyage of a different hue and texture.
BEYOND THE FAIRWAYS
Golf isn’t the only reason to book this cruise. “Who needs golf?” asks my
wife, Catherine, a golf widow of 14 years who’s a scratch player amid the
boutiques of the world.
The River Cloud is the ultimate in luxury cruising. The ship houses 47 cabins (six of them junior suites on the promenade deck) and has a crew of 30. Everything major you can think of, from comfortable sleeping quarters to a dining room serving gourmet meals, is part of the amenity package.
But it’s the little things that make the difference, from late-night snacks to 24-hour availability of coffee and tea, and from original paintings of European aquatic scenes in every room to a boutique open daily for hairstyling. There’s a fitness room, an oversize chess set on the sundeck, a library with newspapers, novels, and hardback travel guides, and a shiny black grand piano in the lounge, played exquisitely each cocktail hour by a man named Jeno.
On this particular cruise, each guest is greeted by a bottle of chilled champagne bedside upon embarking in Budapest, and on one occasion when the summer temperatures reach record proportions in Germany, the crew meets the golfers upon their late-afternoon return with washcloths soaked in refreshing ice water.
Our host is Kalos Tours (kalos, a Greek word meaning “beautiful and enriching”). The Chapel Hill, North Carolina-based company is owned by Jim Lamont, whose attention to detail in running the touring enterprise is thorough. He has rented 40 golf carts from a distributor in Belgium (few European courses have carts) and has had them trucked along the cruise route. Individual lunches are prepared for golfers and left in a personalized cooler bag for us to pick up each morning upon boarding the bus to the golf course. Tour guides accompany non-golfers on their daily sightseeing and luncheon excursions.
Following a day of activity, a special performance of the music of Mozart, Beethoven, and Johann Strauss is arranged for the group on Sunday night in an ancient Viennese music hall. If it’s true what New York Times columnist and native Austrian Hans Fantel once said, “The waltz is perhaps the closest description of happiness ever attained in any art,” then the Americans learned a new realm of bliss after 90 minutes of numbers the ilk of “The Blue Danube Waltz” and “Tales from the Vienna Woods.”
ON COURSE
This trip includes seven rounds of golf, beginning on Friday after our Thursday
arrival on a new course just outside of Budapest. After boarding River
Cloud on Saturday, the golf itinerary picks up Monday and will continue
through the following Saturday. Some of the golfers return home on Sunday. Some
take side trips to Innsbruck and Salzburg, and others to Margarethenhof
Golf & Country Club, a ClubCorp affiliate club south of Munich (see
related article on page 50).
The golf product in Germany is much more American-like than the links-style of the United Kingdom, right down to the abundance of green grass. Since the courses generally aren’t seaside, wind isn’t a dominating factor. Individual holes are pictured in intricate detail with yardages from varying points, and at different angles, on diagrams on almost every tee. That’s far more information than is offered on many American courses. All the courses on the trip provide practice ranges, though the quality of balls and hitting turf isn’t as consistently good as American golf resorts. But the Americans each say they are pleasantly surprised by the well-maintained condition of nearly every course played.
Walking or riding are options at most of the European courses. The majority of the clientele prefer to ride (ergo Lamont’s logistical challenge of finding and delivering the carts), but pull-trolleys are available at each course. We also have the option of tossing our bags on our shoulders and carrying them for 18 holes. Certainly no American golf vacation allows walkers such generous latitude.
THE SCORECARD
The golf rota for this particular trip starts with Pannonia Golf & Country
Club 30 miles outside of Budapest. This 3-year-old course has something of a
links feel in its infancy, but that will surely change with the planting of more
than a thousand trees in the coming years.
Pannonia was the site of the 1998 Hungarian Open and is located on land that in 1818 became the country estate of Hungarian ruler Joseph Palatin. There’s an island-green par-3 in the best American tradition of heroic architecture, and the ninth and 18th holes are fraught with water.
Colony Club Gutenhof features 36 holes near the enchanted Vienna Woods, where you almost expect to see Peter and the Wolf dancing through the centuries-old forests. The championship West course, which was the site of the 1993 Austrian Open, winds its way through thick vegetation and over an array of creeks and small ponds.
One of the highlights of the nine-day itinerary is the round of golf we play at Schönborn Golf Club, located on the grounds of a 300-year-old castle between Vienna and Dürnstein. The third hole is a par-3 that plays directly toward the castle-cum-clubhouse. Ancient ruins are scattered throughout the woods, and on some holes a drive that’s hit even slightly off-line will find a resting spot deep in the dark reaches of leaves, oak trees, and black soil.
Many on the tour opt out of golf on Wednesday, choosing instead to visit Melk, the home of a magnificent abbey that originally dates to 1089, with its reconstruction (following a series of fires) dating to 1736. But the small band of hard-core golfers assure us the two-hour ride to the northern reaches of Austria to play Waldviertal Golf Club is well worth it. Waldviertal, consistently recognized as one of Austria’s best, is next door to the Czech Republic border, and an errant shot on the 16th hole can cross into the next country.
By Thursday our group has moved into Germany, and our first stop is Brunnwies Golf Club in the town of Bad Griesbach. It features a course co-designed by Germany’s favorite golfing son, Bernhard Langer. This is perhaps the most difficult course on the trip because it is routed over former farmland that is marked with significant changes in elevation (it’s the one course on the trip that walkers are encouraged to ride). Sinzing Am Minoritenhof Golf Club, a half hour from Regensburg, has two contrasting nines — a front side that’s short, tight, and hilly, and a back that’s flat, long, and more difficult (and more picturesque — five of its holes run alongside the Danube).
The bus rides from River Cloud’s docking points to the German courses are treats in and of themselves. We travel through small villages speckled with red-roofed houses decorated with window boxes sprouting geraniums. I half expect to see a native in shorts and suspenders yodeling a greeting our way as he wields an oversize beer mug.
“I think these towns probably looked the same a hundred years ago. The only difference was there was no golf course,” says McGowan, a former PGA Tour pro who now teaches golf at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in Southern Pines, North Carolina. He and his wife, Bonnie, who’s also a golf instructor, are “hosts” on the cruise and are distributors of valuable swing tips throughout the week.
The group’s final round of golf is a Saturday outing at Nord-Eichenried Golf Club, a private club outside of Munich. Nord-Eichenried has been the site of the BMW International on the European PGA Tour. Our group is feted with sausages, meatballs, and music from an oompah band as we warm up on the range and set off on a shotgun start. Unfortunately, a hard rain sets in and washes out our day of golf.
The format of the golf tour is loose and allows players to drop in and out on a day-to-day basis if they wish. Each day a non-golf trip is planned for the dozen or so non-golf-playing spouses and the golfers who need a break from topped-drives and shanked 7-irons.
The non-golfers have been treated to a horse show in Budapest, a tour of the Habsburg dynasty in Vienna, a sampling of fine wines at a private vineyard along the Danube, a visit to the castle in Dürnstein where Richard the Lion-Hearted was imprisoned in 1193, and a variety of ancient churches, replete with jolly cherubs painted on the ceilings and the Baroque architecture so popular along the Danube.
My only burden from the week has been packing the early Christmas presents my wife has collected from the trip, much on an end-of-the-week spree through the cobblestone streets of Regensburg. We have collected nutcrackers and dolls from Germany, cups and saucers from a street fair in Budapest, and chocolates and glassware from Vienna.
It has been quite a mix — the concert in Vienna; the pastries and baked Alaska and Cornish hens on the River Cloud; the gypsy music in Budapest; golf on acreage that only half a century ago was bombarded by World War II; the ancient castles and cathedrals of Austria.
Perhaps the most sublime postcard from the trip comes when one of the travelers serenades the group with a heartfelt tune from The Sound of Music during cocktail hour on the sundeck early one evening. The River Cloud drifts into another shadow created by an Austrian mountain through the Wachau Valley. The sky turns a blaze of orange and yellow in the west. Glasses tink. Hearts flutter. Goose bumps spread like wildfire as the soloist comes to the denouement:
“Edelweiss, Edelweiss, bless my homeland forever.”
I look around for the family Von Trapp, but all I see are 100 Americans, halfway around the world, bound by their love of golf and exploring life beyond their own backyard. Indeed, it is a religious experience. ©©
Lee Pace, a golf writer in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was so thrilled by his international golf experience that, within a month of his return, he made arrangements for another trip — to St. Andrews and the Highlands of Scotland.
TEE OFF AT MARGARETHENHOF
It’s a land of fairy-tale castles and
centuries-old cathedrals. It’s the home of tree-lined lakeshores that provide
shade in the summer and turn tangerine and gold in autumn, offering a vivid
contrast to the snow-capped peaks of the majestic Alps. It’s a haven for hang
gliders, cyclists, skiers, skaters, and rowers.
There’s also a pretty nice little golf course tucked into the Bavarian Alps in the Tegernsee Lake area, just 30 miles south of Munich. Margarethenhof Golf & Country Club is a comfortable resort that’s been in business since the early 1980s. It features a golf course by English designer Frank Pennink, a lodge offering 29 rooms and 76 beds, meeting space suitable for small groups, and a restaurant. As a ClubCorp affiliate club, Margarethenhof offers Associate members several benefits. For specifics, call The ClubLine.
“People enjoy the
solitude, the scenery, the food, and the golf,” explains club manager Gunter
Esterer. “There’s nothing else quite like this in this part of Germany.”
Perhaps most remarkable is the scenery.
Exiting the autobahn from Munich, you traverse fertile green farmland and skirt tiny villages; houses with red-shingled roofs and brightly frescoed facades dot the landscape. Entering the Margarethenhof property, your taxi driver (most likely wielding a clean, powerful BMW) heads up a narrow road through dense trees, then arrives at an opening and — poof! — there’s an inn, pro shop, restaurant, administration building, and golf course. In the distance toward the Austrian border, you can see up to seven peaks of the Alps.
The golf course is tight and hilly and has small greens and fairways that cant this way and that. It gives you a break one minute with a tee shot that falls downhill but takes it back with the next one that climbs toward the deep blue sky.
The club has only a few golf carts, and most members consider walking part and parcel of the sport. It’s great exercise on this course. There’s not much walking involved from one hole to the next, but the uphill grades will tax your legs by the 12th hole, a par-3 at the highest elevation of the course of about 3,000 feet above sea level.
Happily, there’s plenty of fortification in the restaurant and outdoor terrace, located just a chip shot from the 18th green. A breakfast buffet is laid out daily and followed with menu service for lunch and dinner; occasionally, weekend terrace buffets are offered to members as well as resort guests. Food in Bavaria traditionally is hearty and filling, but you work off plenty of calories skiing, hiking, and tromping through the snow in winter, and walking around the golf course in summer. A culinary favorite at Margarethenhof is “Tafelspitz,” a braised veal and vegetable concoction. Bavarian duck, Wiener schnitzel, fresh fish from Lake Tegernsee, and steaks off the grill are popular as well.
Bavarians take their beer seriously, of course, with Munich calling itself “The City of Beer” and Germany brewing more than 5,000 varieties within about 1,300 breweries. Margarethenhof has a good supply as well (not to mention a wide array of wine and spirits). One of its specialties is Tegernsee Bier, a local product known for its smooth taste.
Margarethenhof is a perfect site for doing business (small meetings, seminars, and workshops of 10 to 60 people can be easily accommodated, and banquet space for up to 180 is available), or just for pleasure. Though you may want to isolate yourself to the solitude of the resort, there’s also a wealth of exploration at Tegernsee Lake, a 10-minute car ride away.
Tegernsee boasts some of the most opulent residences in all of Germany as many from the upper crust of Munich make it a summer hideaway. Perfect means for exploring the area are by bike (rentals available with good roads and trails around the 11-mile edge of the lake) or from above (a cable car makes an ascent to 5,700-foot Walberg Mountain). And there’s always touring on foot and popping your head into shops and taverns, where lederhosen-clad locals might ask you to stop awhile for a tall, conical glass of ale.
Four villages are situated around the banks of the quarter-moon-shaped lake, beginning with the namesake burg of Tegernsee on the eastern shore. To the north is Gmund, on the west is Bad Wiessee, and to the south is Rottach-Egern, the toniest of the Tegernsee burgs — a miniature Palm Beach of the Bavarian Alps, if you will.
You might want to cap off your visit with a side trip about 45 miles west to see Neuschwanstein, King Ludwig II’s fantasy castle of the 19th century. The building towers from its mountainside perch like a stage creation — in fact, the castle was used as a model for the linchpin structure at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. Ludwig commissioned the enormous structure in 1869 and it still wasn’t quite finished by the time of his death 17 years later. Like Margarethenhof and Tegernsee Lake, it’s something Americans must see to appreciate. — Lee Pace ©©