The construction and development of a new nine hole course has been completed at Modry Las Golf Club near Choszczno, Poland.
Orli Las is a new 560m course that features a variety of tee options and ‘infinity’ greens.
The new course has been designed by South African golf course designer Theo Geertshuis, the man behind the original 18-hole course at Modry Las, a Gary Player Golf Course Design project which opened in 2009.
“It is a very scenic course set in an undulating forest on a beautiful lake edge,” Geertshuis said. “But although it is beautiful, it also presents an extremely rewarding challenge. On each hole, I tried to create intrigue to keep the golfer on his toes. I achieved this by incorporating illusions of distance so what you see isn’t always what you get. In the end, Orli Las turned out to be one of the best short courses I have seen anywhere in the world.”
Given the short nature of the course, Geerthuis adopted some novel methods in the development stages, including using flag sticks that were a third shorter than normal in order to give the impression of length when there isn’t any.
“I had never done a short-game course before, but I had visited many,” Geertshuis said. “I wanted people to play Orli Las and think that it was a fantastic little track, but not be able to put their finger on why it was so good. I put together a whole bag of design concepts which has been wrapped up in a very special package.”
The longest hole at Orli Las is only around 100 yards long, with the shortest playing just 34 yards.
“Orli Las is a diamond of a short course but it is testing,” said Pamela Gromadzki, director of development at Modry Las. “It does that rare and wonderful thing of creating options for higher handicappers while setting a stern challenge for more experienced golfers.”
“Orli Las will enrich what we offer at Modry Las,” she added. “Visitors from around Europe can already play the award-winning Gary Player designed championship course with its sweeping fairways and deep bunkers, and now they can enjoy the beauty and challenge of Orli Las. We have a golf resort with 27 championship holes with some being longer than others, but all designed with the golfer in mind.”