Golfing where the Czechs aren t just on the trousers! |
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Golfing where the Czechs aren t just on the trousers! |
2006-06-23 09:08:11 |
| autor: Tony Gearing |
WHEN Joseph, our driver, turned into the Golf Club Podebrady just outside Prague,I spotted one of the oddest looking clubhouses I have ever seen.
I have visited a wide variety of '19th holes', from mansions to sheds,but never a former spying station.
Built in the 1930s as a radio station, Podebrady was used by the Communists to eavesdrop on the West. Of the two giant aerials either side of this former Czech 'GCHQ', one had become a 100m tall marker post for golfers aiming at the 18th green.
To add to the Cold War atmosphere,young men in camouflage fatigues swaggered about the course with rifles and I could hear gunfire coming from the middle of the course.Shooting
is a popular sport with Czechs and this rifle range had been there longer than the golf course.
At a length of 6,086m, Podebrady is easily up to championship standard - 11 of its 18 holes are 'dog legs' that turn sharply through trees or over streams or ponds.The particularly difficult par-five 12th hole managed an S-bend through a forest of trees nearly as tall as the aerials.
In fact, there were more than enough hazards to get the vast majority of golfers into plenty of trouble several times during a challenging round.
Podebrady is part of a largely unknown golf boom in the Czech Republic,where a privileged few have played the game for a little over a century.King Edward VII is said to have suggested the Czechs take up golf in the early 1900s and this bourgeois sport even managed to survive communism at its peak.
Now a newly privileged few want as many foreign visitors to enjoy golf in the Czech Republic as possible - which might explain why golfing here is so cheap compared to practically anywhere else in the world.
As a rough guide,a day's golf in Czech Republic,plus overnight accommodation and all the food and drink you can handle,will cost under £100.
And the plusses for golfing fans don't stop there.While there are barely 60 golf courses in the whole country - compared to more than 2,600 in Britain - there are fewer than 20,000 Czech golfers.
That leaves lots of free tee times for foreigners - so you seldom have to queue,and a handful more courses are being added every year. Many are on a par with those in traditional golf holiday destinations in western Europe and north America.
Some,like Podebrady,take advantage of derelict sites from the Communist era. Others are built amid beautiful countryside, in lush valleys,on gentle hills and even up mountainsides.
I played golf on eight courses in three distinct parts of the country - around the capital, Prague,near luxury spa resorts in the west, and in the poorer east.
Only once was I held up by other golfers.You probably have to be a golfer to really appreciate this,but in holiday terms,think of it as getting to the sun loungers first on every day of your holiday bar one.
By contrast, almost every golfer who has played Spain will remember sitting and sweating in queues of buggies during rounds that can take all day. Even playing leisurely,a round in the Czech Republic takes a respectable four to five hours.
Then there is the beer. With prices as low as 50p for half a litre of excellent Pilsen, one drink can soon become two or perhaps even three. Perhaps that's why most Czech golf holidays come with a driver and minibus included in the price.
Having a driver is an advantage not just because it means everyone in your party can celebrate at the 19th. Many Czech courses are well off the main roads and finding them can require the navigational expertise of Marco Polo,the charm of Michael Palin and the local knowledge of a Czech postman.
During the Soviet crushing of the Prague Spring in 1968, Russian troops set up machine gun nests in the bunkers of the Royal Golf Club Marianske Lazne. But Czech golfers,as single-minded as their British counterparts in their determination to improve their chipping and putting,gamely 'played through' this temporary upset.
The nearby Karlovy Vary course winds its way through a forest on a mountainside.Now and again a marmot (the European equivalent of a groundhog) put its head up as if to say, 'Call that a stroke? Pah'.
In Moravia, I played the rich Prosper Golf Club.Many of the new courses have been built by Czech equivalents of 'Chelski' owner Roman Abramovich.
Prosper is owned by the 'Coal King' - a businessman who acquired most of the country's coal industry after the fall of communism. He has since sold the coal industry and is spending much of the proceeds on an amazing golf-cum-horse-riding resort.
"My wife likes horses.I like golf," he told me.No kidding. The whole complex reminded me of South Fork, the ranch in Dallas - only bigger! It has three 18-hole courses and the biggest riding school I've seen.
To some Czechs golf is an elite sport. But to others it is a good living.
Under communism, our driver Joseph was a long-suffering electrician on the Prague Metro. Under capitalism, he has bought his minibus and works for holiday companies. He hasn't taken up golf yet - but it can't be long before he does.
Then he will have his own personal triumphs and tragedies on the greens to ponder - instead of waiting in the car park for golfers discussing 'if only' holes in former spy stations which once kept an eye on the West.
Travel FACTS
* Tony Gearing travelled to the Czech Republic as a guest of two specialist golfing operators, Abante Golf and Czech Golf Holidays.
* Abante Golf (0870 766 3213/www.abante-golf.co.uk) offers golf packages from £199, including two nights' B&B, two or three rounds and all transfers.
* Czech Golf Holidays (0115 878 1783/www.czechgolfholidays.com) offers three nights' B&B packages from £275, including four rounds of golf and all transfers.
* In both cases, packages are built around various flights from the UK. CSA Czech Airlines (0870 4443 747/www.czechairlines.co.uk) flies from six UK airports - Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Manchester, Edinburgh and Birmingham - to Prague from £77 return, including taxes. Stansted to Ostrava, in Moravia, via Prague starts at £128 return, including taxes.
* Ryanair's direct service ex-Stansted to Brno, in Moravia, starts at 2p return plus £26.90 taxes. BA and other budget airlines also fly to Prague. Visit www.ryanair.com for more information. |
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