Ozo Golf Club

Overview: Ozo Golf Club sits beside Lake Ķīšezers in Riga and is Latvia’s first 18-hole golf course. Rob Swedberg’s parkland layout uses the lakeside setting, wooded edges and open fairway corridors as contrasting parts of the round. The official course description highlights 16 artificial ponds, more than 50 sand bunkers and a total length of about 6,400 metres, or approximately 7,000 yards. The hazards are prominent, but the course’s identity comes from how water, trees and broad grass areas are woven together around the lake.

History: Construction began in 1999 and the course opened in 2002, establishing the first full-size 18-hole facility in Latvia. Ozo’s development helped give the country a permanent base for organised golf and national-team preparation. The club’s own history records that the facility became a national sports base and training centre in 2005. A 2014 Latvian golf review also notes that the project received a 2002 award for best natural architecture, recognition of the way the course was integrated into its setting rather than treated as a purely engineered landscape.

Did You Know? The club’s name comes from owner Sandis Ozoliņš, whose long NHL career made “Ozo” a familiar nickname in Latvia. The Stanley Cup-winning ice hockey player brought that name to the golf course, creating an unusual connection between one of Latvia’s best-known winter-sport figures and the country’s first modern 18-hole golf project.