Grad Otocec

Nestled in the hilly region of Dolenjska, close to the flowing waters of the River Krka, the golf course at Grad Otocec is the result of a collaboration between Howard Swan and local architect Peter Škofic, with fairways set out within a heavily forested 185-acre property. Otocec Castle is situated nearby, on an island within the river, and it offers visiting golfers the opportunity to “stay and play like a king”.

The fairways toss and turn across a rolling landscape and the tight playing corridors afford golfers a feeling of almost total seclusion as they work their way round the course. Highlight holes on the front nine include the 496-metre 3rd, a right doglegged par five that plays to a sunken, blind green and the 352-metre 6th, a par four which swoops down from the tee then swerves left to a sand-protected plateau green.

On the inward half, the 568-metre 12th is one of the longest holes in Slovenia, and it requires three long, straight blows to get close to the green here as a very tight, slightly kinked fairway allows little room for error. The course opens up over the last two holes, allowing a little more latitude off the tee. However, if you’ve been too wayward over the preceding holes, then you might not have enough ammunition left to finish your round!

Howard Swan kindly supplied this exclusive quote:

The site is mightily spectacular and it was challenging to work on the golf course on such particularly undulating land. It was almost entirely forested before we started and the clearance of the trees was a significantly challenging part of the project.

I tried hard to make sure that the Otocec greens complexes were relatively accommodating as I felt that, when the player eventually reached them, it would have been incorrect to test them too severely in reading putts as they may well have been pretty exhausted in getting there.

I was, however, a little disappointed in the latter stages of the project as the client’s project manager and the young student architect with whom I worked rather took over the second nine holes - I made few visits - and I felt that the shaping of the land may have been rather over-elaborated.