Golf Club Föhr in Germany’s North Frisian Islands celebrates its centenary this year with a wholly reconstructed golf course.

The club was founded in 1925 and played over a nine-hole course designed by Bernhard von Limburger, but this was lost after the war. Anglo-Dutch architect Frank Pennink built nine holes on a new site next to the island’s airstrip in the 1960s, and the course was extended to 18 in 1990, built by the locals to a plan from Don Harradine. German architect Christian Althaus, in his first project as a lead designer, added a third nine in 2008.

Althaus returned to Föhr in 2014 and totally rerouted the Harradine nine, creating three nines that all started and finished next to the clubhouse. Twelve entirely new holes were constructed during this phase of the project, which also saw the creation of a substantial irrigation lake – the course had previously relied on boreholes for its irrigation water. The course was completed with a third phase that took place in 2022-23, when six more holes were built, some more rerouting undertaken to ensure that the three nines all flow well, and a nice short-game facility was built near to the clubhouse and car park.

Föhr is a shining example of the use of golf to restore a lost landscape. Before this land was farmed, it would have been heathland, but the heath was lost when the site was used for agriculture. Golf courses are better the more embedded they are in their landscape, so the restoration of the heath was a natural choice. Because the site is sandy, it gives the golf architect the opportunity to use their creativity to the maximum; they do not have to shape the course a certain way just to make it drain.

Althaus’s design style at Föhr has naturally evolved in the 15 years since the first work was done. Those holes were built on flat farmland, so he chose to do a dramatic reshaping of the ground to create sand dunes; they are a triumph, appearing wholly natural.

The greens sit nicely in their (created) environments, and are relatively quiet. This is not uncommon on ‘real’ links courses: given the high winds often present on the links, less radical greens can be a sensible choice to remain playable in wild weather.

The two later phases of work are in more mature golfing landscapes, with water hazards and trees, and thus required a gentler touch. The transition in and out of the different environments feels seamless: the holes at the south of the site are lower, and consequently have to deal with a higher water table, and those at the eastern end are the most heavily treed. The architect’s growing confidence can be seen from the bolder greens he built in the later phases, culminating in the quite radical, but entirely successful surfaces on holes eight and nine of the Red course. The eighth on Red, in particular, is stunning. The best green on the course, it sits completely at home on a green site that slopes from high right to low left, and the contours, including a significant internal mound at left centre, protect the different pin locations remarkably well.

As well as their excellence from a golfing point of view, the greens are also a case study in sustainability. They were all built with sand sourced on the site itself. Not having to truck in sand to build greens is a huge environmental gain, particularly in this island location. The whole course is now a sustainability success story: the landscape has been restored so golfers experience a much more natural environment and, as a part of that, the reconstruction created a wide range of habitats: dry grasslands, heath, wetlands and sandy wastes. This variety of habitats is a big boost for the flora and fauna of the island.

Across the site, the bunker work is excellent; with eroded edges in the style of architects like Tom Doak and Bill Coore, it naturalises the holes still further. Because the work was done in three phases, there are some differences of style in the bunkers. In particular, the bunkers built in the second phase, shaped by the late Mick McShane, an undeniable artist, are more ‘muscular’ and less sinuous than those done earlier or later.

The club’s greenkeeping team will need to keep on top of the vegetation that was planted, especially in the first phase. A large amount of gorse was included in the planting scheme, and it is easy to understand why – it grows quickly, helps to naturalise new shaping, and gives important vertical texture to the holes. But there is no doubt that gorse is a double-edged sword. Not only is it a savage hazard – with its spiky branches, a ball that goes into a gorse bush of any size is irretrievably lost – but gorse is an incredibly aggressive plant. Once it gets established, it grows and spreads very quickly, and what is supposed to be merely a part of the landscape ends up dominating it.

As well as gorse, a lot of heather was planted, both in the form of shredded ‘brashings’ (which contain seed), as well as 30,000 small plants. Heather is an important plant in this context, partly because it is a much better hazard than gorse – balls can usually be found in it, and generally advanced from it, though not always that far – but also because part of the planning application for the new ground included changing its landscape designation from parkland to heather grassland. Dune heath is a rare and precious ecosystem, and this is central to the Föhr project’s importance.

The project has also included the installation of Rain Bird’s IC System to improve irrigation across the 27 holes. “The system was a clear choice for the club,” says Althaus. “The head greenkeeper has control over every single rotor while information from the field ensures that only the required amount of water is applied with impressive accuracy and uniformity.”

All across the property, but most obviously in the dune holes, there are tiny saplings springing up in their hundreds. Heath is not a wholly natural landscape, but was formed thousands of years ago by early farmers clearing (generally poor quality, because of the sandy soil) woodlands to provide pasture for their flocks. In place of the trees, fine grasses and heather grew, and were kept in check by the grazing animals, who also ate all the sapling trees that emerged. But once the land ceases to be grazed, there are only greenkeepers to stop the trees coming back.

Sand dunes and forest are not compatible. Also, Föhr is a very compact course, quite remarkably so for 27 holes, and though it does not feel crushed into the site, there is, in places, not a lot of room between holes. Tree growth has the potential to make the course undesirably narrow. On the beautiful par-three Blue sixth, the last of the dune holes on that nine, an elegant bunker created by the architect has already been wholly obscured by tree growth.

Mention of the size of the property brings us to one of Althaus’s greatest achievements at Föhr. It is simply remarkable to get 27 holes of this quality onto a property of 80 hectares (198 acres) and for the holes not to feel squeezed together at any point. Althaus has made some very clever design decisions. A small lake built to the left of the par-three second on the Blue nine achieves separation very well. In 2014, Althaus entirely rerouted the Yellow nine, the Harradine holes, which occupy the lowest lying property on the site – from mostly running north-south to mostly east-west. Two holes on the Yellow nine – the first and seventh, occupy a large and wild double green.

Some more rerouting took place in the most recent phase of work, in the rather tight north-east corner of the site. The results are extremely good: the walk is seamless, and the holes fit in to their environment as if they had always been there.

Since first coming to the attention of golf design aficionados after the initial phase of work at Föhr 15 years ago, Christian Althaus has done quite a bit of quality work in Germany. His Hofgut Georgenthal course near Frankfurt is fun, and his nine holes at Herzogswalde near Dresden (also built with Mick McShane) are outstanding on some rather poor soil, including a unique and brilliant par three. But it is at Föhr that Althaus’s evolution as a designer is most obvious. He has been travelling to the island for many years; it is not mere poetic licence to suggest that he has invested a part of his heart into the golf course. For an architect to get three bites at a cherry, and consequently to reshape a course so entirely, is very unusual, and for this Althaus owes the Föhr club a debt of gratitude. But what the club owes to the architect is not insignificant either. Adjacent to Föhr is the island of Sylt, another popular German holiday destination, where some years ago, architect Rolf-Stefan Hansen built the Budersand course, a remarkable achievement involving the recreation of a dunescape on what had previously been a military airbase. If it were easier to travel the few miles between it and Föhr, the two would make for a really fabulous golfing weekend away. But I am not the only judge who has seen both courses and thinks that Föhr is better. From what was formerly a rather insignificant little holiday course on a small, out of the way island off the coast of northern Germany, Christian Althaus has fashioned something really special. Harry Colt and John Morrison’s Falkenstein club in Hamburg is, by everyone that counts, reckoned to be Germany’s best course, but the battle for second place is fought between a number of different venues. Föhr might well win it.

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.