Going for Golf

It’s all downhill after Austria

Zell-am-See Kaprun

The whirlwind 1976 Winter Olympic downhill champion will these days twirl his driver and smile it off. He’s too good an ambassador for Austrian sport, golf and ski, to see it as an issue.

As Jackie Stewart said at the time: “In front of his home crowd, he dare not lose… one of the greatest sporting performances of all time.”

That kind of energy has found other homes. Klammer, handicap a good, tough-minded six, president of Golfland Carinthia, has made his Wooden Spoon at Dulwich a major event of London’s autumn golfing season.

When Austria began to take its place as a golfing destination, the combination of ski with golf was almost an embarrassment. No longer. With more than 140 courses to choose from, most boasting state-of-the-art facilities, the problem for the more adventurous golfing holidaymaker is which to choose. More especially since the advent of smaller airports and cheap flights, for example Ryanair’s daily flights to Klagenfurt in Carinthia, while Salzburg, is also served by a variety of airlines.

Carinthia (Kaernten in German) is bordered by SalzburgLand, or state, to the north, and Slovenia and Italy to the south. With a season from April to October/November, it justifiably brands itself the Austrian Riviera. Hereabouts, Austria, shaped like a fiddle on its side, is not much more than 100km from top to bottom, but this dry fact does no justice to the diversity of lake and mountain. Sound of Music? Yes, but forget the schmaltz. Hiking, climbing, biking, angling, sailing, water-skiing, dining, wining, it’s there in abundance. No surprise then that some of golf’s top architects exploit it.

Carinthia has a dozen courses within a 70km radius. Among them I can recommend Dellach, much visited by the British in the days of BAOR (British Army of the Rhine), when this was an officer rest centre; Moosberg; Perry Dye’s Klagenfurt-Seltenheim; and Klammer’s very good course at Bad Kleinkirchheim. Two clubs – Velden Köstenberg in Carinthia, and the 36-hole Zell-am-See / Kaprun – provide a contrast.

Anyone who wants an outright macho experience will find it at Zell-am-See in the southern reaches of SalzburgerLand.

Since breaking my neck (with a standing fall, if you please) I confess I had not skied for two years. But at Zell-am-See came a unique opportunity to ski and golf in a day, and I took the bait. Like my golf swing, nothing about my skiing had changed on the summer slopes of the Kitzsteinhorn glacier. As before, a preference for turns favouring the right leg.

The afternoon brought the outward nine of Zell’s par-73 Kitzsteinhorn course, designed by Donald Harradine. The neck was all right; the score-card wasn’t.

The 6,633-yard course – 340 yards shorter off the yellows – is flatness itself, perfect for the walker-golfer. But boring it isn’t, with water hazard in abundance, expert bunkering, and tree, barn and bush a guide or threat. The prerequisites are a good supply of spare balls, and a full commitment to the short iron for all those water-protected greens. Once there, putting is a joy.

The Europa Golf Region’s circus here is Austria’s largest, boasting a further fine course in the 6,890-yard, par-72 Schmittenhoe. If anything, it is the more challenging of the two, over the years drawing the admiration of Bernhard Langer, Seve Ballesteros, Greg Norman and Annika Sorenstam, who had her first European Tour win here.

For a change of scene, nearby courses have much to offer, notably Urslautal, Mittersill and Goldegg. Then there is Zell itself – medieval streets, lakeside entertainments, mountain views to Grossglockner, the country’s highest, waterfalls, caves, excursion trips. Little wonder that the five-star Hotel Salzburgerhof is so proud of itself.

It is a family-run concern that provides warm welcome to any seeking an upmarket experience in a pleasingly casual way. That, I think, serves many golfers. There is architectural warmth to timbered chalet, however large, and here it is set cosily round a set of pools and thermal facilities which are all in accord with the two-star Gault-Millau cuisine.

More to the golfing point are regular shuttles to the Europa courses, guaranteed tee times, and access to a variety of other courses from a Golf Alpin set of programmes.