Golf Club Föhr (Rot & Gelb)

Overview: Golf Club Föhr's Rot & Gelb combination occupies a sandy, coastal corner of the North Sea island, where dunes, gorse, heath, beach grass, woodland and water give the routing a distinctly northern character. It is part of the club's 27-hole facility, but the Rot and Gelb loops form a substantial 18-hole round with the variety to keep the landscape changing from one stretch to the next. The club describes the newer holes as links-style, while the older ground adds trees and a more enclosed rhythm. The interest comes from the contrast: open sandy spaces invite a running approach, while vegetation, ponds and the natural contours ask for more precise positioning. Christian Althaus's later work gives the combination a more coherent relationship with the island landscape, without turning it into a featureless imitation of a seaside links.

History: Golf Club Föhr emerged in 1966 from the earlier GC Südstrand-Föhr, founded in 1925. The decision to expand to 18 holes was taken in 1989, and Donald Harradine was commissioned for the project. The full 18-hole routing opened in September 1990. A further development toward 27 holes began in 2008 and was established from 2009, with Christian Althaus leading the project for Städler Golf Courses. The Gelb course was comprehensively rebuilt from January 2014, and the renewed 27-hole facility returned to service at Pentecost 2015. Althaus Golfdesign then reshaped the final six holes, including ten new greens, in work inaugurated on 10 June 2023.

Did You Know? The final stage of the Föhr project did more than refresh a few playing surfaces. The club says that the work also renewed the entrance around the clubhouse, walking routes and practice area, then used existing specimen trees and sight lines to connect the separate parts of the facility. That is a useful clue to the course's design philosophy: the landscape is treated as a continuous setting, not as a sequence of isolated holes.