What makes golf a truly special activity are the remarkable landscapes across which the game is played. Some of these environments are more spectacular and unique than others, but we reckon that Andermatt Golf Course in Switzerland could be the most distinctive one that you’ll have seen this year.
Opened in 2016, German architect Kurt Rossknecht designed a layout that is extraordinary for several different reasons. Located within the Swiss Alps, the course at Andermatt offers tee times between May and October, costing 100 Swiss Francs (around £92), and it’s an opportunity to experience a stunningly natural setting.
The course is positioned within a valley that is surrounded by visually striking mountains and peaks, but despite its Alpine location, the design itself is mostly flat, with a lack of trees giving it a links-like feel.
The views are breathtaking, the challenge invigorating, and the holes memorable, ensuring that a round at Andermatt is one that you won’t forget in a hurry.
However, there is more to this place than just that basic description, which itself would be enough to entice many a golf enthusiast to make the journey here.
Spanning 130 hectares, around 1,400m above sea level, the course has been uniquely separated into thirds, with one third being the golf course, one third being farmland, and the other third an ecological conservation area. More accurately, only 26% of the 1.3 million square metres of land is used for the golf course.
Effectively, this approach, pioneering in its target towards sustainability, has ensured that the course and its immediate surroundings have become an unlikely haven for wildlife.
Biodiversity surveys conducted at Andermatt have revealed several notable findings, including:
118 bird species spotted on site, including 36 breeding species. 56 species of butterflies, more than a quarter of Switzerland’s total, ten of them endangered. 12 species of dragonflies, including the endangered black darter. Resident Alpine salamanders, long-eared bats, viviparous lizards, slow worms, and groundhogs.
This has been made possible as the deadwood piles, dry-stone walls, alpine meadows, and carefully managed wetlands found across this expansive landscape have created habitats that have allowed a diverse range of species to flourish at this altitude. You will even see that goats are used to graze dry grasslands to keep ecosystems in balance.
Unsurprisingly, Andermatt meets or exceeds all criteria of the World Golf Environment Organization (GEO) in the areas of nature conservation, resources management and social integration.
Playing at Andermatt is more than just a round of golf, it’s the opportunity to consume a unique story, as golfers tee off against backdrops bustling with butterflies, while you are likely to spot a bat colony roosting in rustic alpine huts, lizards sunning themselves by a bunker wall, and perhaps even marmots peeking out from the rough.
This is a course that has become a bucket-list destination for golfers who want to sample something different, rewarding, and visually intoxicating.
For more, please visit https://andermatt-golf.ch/en or see https://www.andermatt-swissalps.ch/en for wider information.
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