Going for Golf

Austria - the hills are alive

Adamstal

For that, no question, is the status of this polyglot city of the Imperial Palace, St Stephen’s Cathedral, Opera House, Burgtheatre, Harry Lime Museum et al.

In 2005, the International Association of Golf Travel Operators christened Austria its ‘Undiscovered Golf Destination of the Year’. With upwards of 160 courses, no longer is it simply the land of ski and crampon, excellent as its services may be in that activity.

The Tyrol, Salzburgerland and higher mountain areas can hold their own in course design, but my more recent discovery has been the regions of lower Austria (Nieder Osterreich), Styria (Steiermark) and the Burgenland in the south-east of the country.

The Burgenland is a relatively narrow strip adjacent to the Hungarian border; hilly rather than mountainous, its vineyards command majestic views across the Danube plain.

To its west is lower Austria and, below it, Styria. Lower Austria stretches to the Czech Republic border and envelopes Vienna itself. To the south-west, a 1,000km2 part of it includes the Vienna Woods, or Wienerwald, where the Alps fall away in green-hilled splendour. Hills? At heights up to 3,000ft they bear many a skier in due season. For a Brit, no question, they are mountain, and no course better represents them than Adamstal.

My base for it was the spa town of Baden, 26km south of Vienna, its lime-sulphate baths discovered by the Romans; its narrow streets where Beethoven composed his glorious Ninth; its church yielding the kempt notes of a Mozart score; 120 of its surrounding vineyards serving 70 wine bars.

On to Adamstal 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.