Golf was born by the sea. The first golf courses, in Scotland, were created at the shore because the land there, which, of course, we know as links, was fundamentally useless for agriculture, due to its impoverished soil. And, as a result, to this day, playing golf by the sea feels right in a way that no other location does. 

To be sure, the seaside is appealing generally – that’s why so many people holiday there – but the proximity of the water, the smell of the brine and the near-constant wind make seaside golf attractive even without true linksland. 

I am not sure I have ever seen a course more closely connected to the sea than Iceland’s Brautarholt. Half an hour north of the Icelandic capital, Reykjavik, the course is set on a small peninsula, surrounded on three sides by the North Atlantic Ocean. At no point in the round is the golfer more than a few hundred metres from the ocean, and for most of it, the water is in plain view. Brautarholt’s first green, set on top of a cliff some 20 feet above the crashing waves, and protected further by a cleft in the rock that juts directly into the line of play, and at the bottom of which the sea is clearly visible, is as dramatic as any feature on any golf course. Anywhere. 

The original nine holes of Brautarholt were opened in 2012, to a routing produced by the Icelandic architect Edwin Roald. Roald is well-known for his advocacy of courses that fit their site, no matter how many holes they may contain, and as such, the fact that Brautarholt is currently a 12-hole course, might seem to be the product of its original architect’s particular vision. Roald was not, however, involved in the construction of the original nine, or the addition of another three holes to the east of the site a few years later. 

The existing course is not without issues. It is very, very rocky, and as such, the drainage is not really good enough, especially given players’ natural desire to play links-style golf so close to the water. The bunkers are plain as plain can be, and in many cases have been located not obviously to influence the play of a hole, but in natural low points to solve drainage problems. That first green is spectacularly located, but the rocky hill that sits behind it requires a fairly substantial and decidedly uphill walk to get to the second tee. There is a lack of variety in hole lengths, with no par four longer than 360 yards, even from the back tees. 

The three holes added to the east of the original ones, which serve as the closing loop of the golf course, are very plain. It is a decidedly flat ending to a round so spectacular for most of its length, and the club’s land does not include the fairly narrow strip further to the east that separates these holes from the ocean. The three best holes on the course, in my opinion, are the opener; the par-five ninth (the original closer) that plays away from the water to a side sloped fairway, culminating in the course’s best green; and, perhaps best of all, the 223-yard par-three fifth. The hole is at the far south of the site and plays around a horseshoe-shaped bay. It demands a carry straight over the ocean if the golfer wants to hit the green, but has, effectively, a Cape-shaped fairway short and to the left, allowing the cautious (or sensible) to play a safer tee shot that, if hit with a fade, might still reach the putting surface. It is a brilliant hole, offering much of the drama of the most famous water carry par three of all, the sixteenth at Cypress Point, but with a much better option for the longer handicapper than MacKenzie’s masterpiece. 

So, in short, Brautarholt has some remarkable features, but is far from the finished article. It is, in many ways, a great shame that Edwin Roald, an Icelander in Iceland, was not able to finish what he started a decade and a half ago, but that is water under the bridge. Instead, the course’s owners hired Tony Ristola, the Canadian-born but longtime European-resident architect (he was based in Germany for many years, but now calls the Czech Republic home), to add six extra holes to the north of the existing course, bringing Brautarholt to 18. 

Ristola is a singular architect. He first came to Europe as a young man to play professional golf on some of the continent’s mini tours, discovered he loved course design, trained as a shaper and an architect, and has been practising his art ever since. His best-known work is probably the completion of the (rather excellent) Sand Valley course in Poland. He also has a self-produced book titled ‘What Most Golf Architects Prefer You Did Not Know’, and his website proclaims clearly that time is the golf designer’s greatest gift to a project and that he, almost uniquely among practising architects, is on site every day of construction. He shapes his own projects – very unusual only a few years ago, a little more common now the shaper-architects that have graduated from the Coore & Crenshaw, Doak and Hanse family trees are starting to win their own projects. This level of focus obviously means his business model is not scalable, and helps to explain why, despite his undoubted ability, the world is not littered with Tony Ristola-designed golf courses. 

At Brautarholt, Ristola has been on site (not continuously obviously; golf construction in mid-winter this far north is a pipe dream) since April 2022. He has built six new holes, starting from a tee high in the rock ridge that marks the north wall of the existing course, working along the coastline for the first three, then turning back inland at the fourth. The fifth is an exciting par three from a high tee, and the new sixth works its way uphill parallel to the first. The connection to the existing holes is not, at the moment, perfect, but Ristola has a solution to that: he plans to build a long par four heading further east, with its green tucked behind a low ridge, creating something akin to Prestwick’s famous Alps, or the Sea hole at Rye. This would then enable the short, and not very interesting, par-three tenth to be removed from the routing, and the eleventh to be lengthened into a challenging par four. It is a neat fix, though it will not be an instant one. 

Ristola’s holes are built to a significantly higher standard than the existing ones. His greens are more interesting, and his bunkers, which he was just starting to edge at the time of my visit, are much more shapely than the ones in place on the original holes. He therefore expects, once the new holes are open, which will happen in summer 2025, to move onto the refurbishment of the existing course, fixing the drainage and bunkers, and perhaps moving one or two holes even closer to the water – there is certainly opportunity to extend the third fairway almost to the cliff edge. 

Brautarholt is only about an hour from Keflavik, Iceland’s international airport. Given that Icelandair flies nonstop to 18 different airports in the USA and Canada, and to most key European hubs as well, and is often the cheapest option for transatlantic itineraries, it is very easy to see Brautarholt developing a significant business among travelling golfers from around the world, and especially North America. Iceland, as is well-known, has a vast array of natural treasures to delight tourists, including several interesting golf courses. The natural comparison to Brautarholt, given its high latitude, is Norway’s Lofoten Links, which has established itself in recent years as a destination for golfers from all over the globe. Perhaps the site at Brautarholt is fractionally less spectacular than Lofoten, which, since I went there has always been set in my mind as the most beautiful golf course I have ever seen, but once Ristola’s work is finished, the course will in no sense be inferior to the Norway venue: it might well be more playable, given that a lack of width is the most often heard criticism of Lofoten. 

It is very easy to imagine, in a few years’ time, that Brautarholt will similarly be a fixture in rankings of the world’s best and most spectacular courses, and that it will be a required stop for many travelling golfers. 

This article first appeared in the January 2025 issue of Golf Course Architecture. For a printed subscription or free digital edition, please visit our subscriptions page.