Albatross - Czech Republic

Albatross is a championship standard parkland course about 40mins outside Prague and current home course to the European Tour's Czech Masters. As I was holidaying in central Prague, I actually took public transport out to the course: first a metro train and then a bus to the local town outside Prague called Vysoký Újezd. A little bit of planning required, but easy enough.

There are all the things you'd expect from a championship design; penal rough, plenty of bunkers and water hazards in play. The conditioning was excellent, but at the end of the round my feeling is that it was a good, satisfying golf course and club, but it just wasn't great. Maybe it's still too immature a course, but too many holes felt sameish and aside from the 4th and 16th-18th, the holes aren't really memorable. Not boring, just mediocre. Green fee was 1750CZK, which seemed fair for this standard of course.

One interesting thing when I played, is that the front office where I checked in and paid green fees were inflexible about whether I could tee off a little earlier and the starter pretty much wouldn't make a decision when I requested to try and tee off. I was keen, as there was a social group of about 20 milling near the first tee and I was a single scheduled to play behind them. As it was, I just asked the first group of four golfers whilst they were getting themselves sorted out, if they'd mind my hitting off before them and of course they had no issue!

Played the Albatross on the weekend and for a course thats only been open for one week it was in good shape. The greens still need some work, but the rest of the course was great and the beautiful weather was also a huge plus. The staff were fantastic from the restaurant staff, to the girl in the pro shop and the reception/reservation staff (Sona, Petra & Ponahla) were excellent.

A bit ordinary layout, with two interlocked loops, designed to host the European Tour. The course became more strategic due to recent changes, and the roughs are also not as penalizing as in the past. It is a windy location, which makes often the round here more interesting. Greens are usually fast, but the whole timing and maintenance of the course is optimized toward the Tour event, played in mid-August. On many spots walking players with trolley are forced illogically to take the long cart path (like around the 3rd tee). The toughest hole would be the slight dogleg right 8th, where you have to decide to either lay (long) just in front of the edge, to play long second downwards, often as a blind shot, or, go full speed ahead from the tee, and risk to find the narrow fairway behind the edge and downward sloping lie for the second shot. When playing into the prevailing wind, it is very long par 4. The most challenging and interesting hole is for sure the par 4 17th, classic risk and reward hole, with lot water left, right and across, just where you want to land your tee shot. A great hole!

Boring, boring and more boring. Over priced, staff are rude, very un-pleasant experience. Thought this would be a great course, complete let down!

We played here a few days after the European Tour event and I have to say have a completely different opinion to the previous review. The course was in fantastic condition - fairways like carpet and the greens running at 11.5. We had a friendly welcome before and after and the food and drink in the clubhouse was very good. At £60 for the round with a buggy we thought it was very good value. Played off the yellows and would have like to have played off the whites in hindsight as it would definitely be a real test of the back tees. This was the pick of the courses on our trip - we played Casa Serena and Ypsilon both of which were very good but this was in the best condition

Sadly played the course a few months before the European Tour, Czech Masters was held and was shocked at the standard of fairways. I had previously read that this was one of the best conditioned golf courses in the Czech Republic and mid season it was very bad to see substandard fairways.This I can live with, what made it worse was the consent pushing and badly educated course marshals, who when challenged suggested their behavior was at the request of the owner. I have played a great many golf courses around the world and have never been treated so badly. On finishing a 18holes in less than 3hrs 50mins I questioned the girls at reception and asked to speak with the manager, girls were very nice, the manager I found to be less than accommodating. Boring course, very open, 90% the hole all the same with very little in the way of views. Very easy course. last few holes are okay. NEVER AGAIN