Gorki

Located a 90-minute drive from St Petersburg city centre, the course at Gorki Golf & Resort is a Lassi Pekka Tilander design that’s laid out in the style of an inland links with wide, fast-running fairways and large, multiform bunkers. The spacious clubhouse is complemented by a 30-room 4-star hotel, eight cottages accommodating up to 40 people, and a spa with massage room, steam room, sauna and jacuzzi.

Extending to 6,560 metres in length and playing to a par of 72, the layout is configured as two returning nines, each of which start with a testing par five hole. Water only comes into play at a couple of holes: the first and longest of the par threes at the 211-metre 5th, where a pond lies to the front left of the green, and the uphill par four 9th, with a narrow ditch cutting diagonally across the fairway short of the green.

Other notable holes include the short par four 2nd (with a long, narrow bunker running along the right of the fairway); the right doglegging par five 7th (a centreline bunker at the drive landing area potentially hampering progress here); the long par three 15th (featuring a largely hidden punchbowl green); and the tough par four 16th (rated stroke index 2) which plays to a raised green with befuddling runoff slopes.