Going for Golf

Reiter’s Golf & Country Club Bad Tatzmannsdorf

Courses in the Burgenland are a short car journey away. Among the most enticing are Reiter’s Burgenland Resort Bad Tatzmannsdorf and Reiter’s Golfschaukel Stegersbach Lafnitztal, a true golfing paradise according to the man who put it all together.

A philosopher-entrepreneur, Karl Reiter is not at first an obvious golfing host. He doesn’t play the game, although much respecting it … “An excellent school of self-control, fairness…and a wonderful distraction.” Ideally he sees it as a super short break for the British … “Two days in Vienna, three or four days here. Ideal.”

Reiter was born in the small town of Achenkirch, close to the German border in the Tyrol. His family were farmers who also ran a post station for horses. After the major development of his father’s guest house, updating old spa hotel ideas including a golf course, he acquired the Bad Tatzmannsdorf complex for €100m. The investment did not stop. He twinned two large adjacent hotels by underground mall, modifying one as the five-star Supreme, with every modern water and wellness element, from Ying-Yang massage by a Chinese monk to naked bathing in a whispering room, Jacuzzis and sauna. Seven restaurants and bars; a beauty salon; five-course dining … nothing was spared.

The four-star Avance hotel was made very much for the family - a water chute of Alton Towers proportions, baby-sitting day and night; full board with regional wine (plenty of it in the Burgenland). Every detail was thought through, and outside the entertainment was non-stop, Lipizzaner stables and showground, riding, tennis, Nordic walking, plus a daily programme of ‘events’.

And of course golf. He brought in a Leadbetter Academy to serve beginners and improvers. The 18-hole par-73 Championship, off its longest 6,417 yards, falls away from the clubhouse to valley holes with ponds and rushes. Then up it goes over rolling hills before a taxing downhill finish. For the less able or experienced, the nine-hole, par 36 is 3,187 yards of gentle hilltop fairway and small, tricky greens.