Adamstal
Adamstal accesible via a winding road to Ramsau and, after that, amid remote, forest-clad mountains of mysterious, almost mythical quality, comes a golf stadium. You can hardly call it less, a prime par-70 course of 6,473 yards, another of nine holes, a teaching academy and driving-range of outstanding quality, a clubhouse built into a 100-year-old hotel, and friendly faces to answer every need.
From inception in 1994, it is all there due to the vision of a world rally champion, Franz Wittmann, a golf nut and much a hands-on director helped by his family.
“Some courses are in valleys,” he says. “Some are just stuck on to mountainsides. This we designed with the mountain at its heart.”
As guests of consulting service Golf in Austria, we were favoured with tour pro Markus Brier’s presence, and he put his finger on its quality.
He said: “Adamstal is mountain golf at its finest, which means shape and accuracy to a very fine degree. At the same time, very fair. You can see all its challenges.”
Quite so. Avenues of stately tree and rock guide you up and down, and shapely bunkers and contoured greens provide visually appealing man-made punctuation. On high tee or green there is epic scale to the natural drama of mountain flanks and peaks, some ringed with misty cloud. A buggy is more or less compulsory, but, my companions and I agreed, we have never enjoyed a mountain course more.
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