Tále (Gray Bear)

Gray Bear was the very first 18-hole championship golf course to open in Slovakia, nearly ten years after the Velvet Divorce with the Czech Republic in 1993. Designed by Americans Bob Walton and Skip Malek, the course is located within a ski resort in the lower Tatrus Mountains and it’s Tále Golf Club’s home course.

It was built by Southern Golf Ltd, an English company with vast experience of course construction from the likes of Kingsbarns and Bearwood Lakes in the UK to projects in Eastern Europe like this one.

Routed over 160 acres of a spruce forest in the Tále National Park – a good three and a half hours drive from Bratislava – Gray Bear is laid out in a scenic mountain valley where the terrain undulates from open meadow to dense woodland and the architects have cleverly incorporated stone walls, boulders, streams and specimen pines in many of the fairway designs.

Sandwiched between two par threes on the front nine, the 416-yard 6th hole is considered to be the signature hole on the course. The fairway is crossed by a stream just short of the landing area then the hole sweeps right downhill to a green protected on three sides by a meandering stream.

Architect Bob Walton was kind enough to provide the following exclusive quote:

The course opened in August of 2002 with none other than Tony Jacklin doing the ribbon cutting and playing the course with myself and Vlado Sotak, Chairman of Zeleziarne Podbrezova a.s., the investor. It was the first regulation 18 hole course in Slovakia.

The R&A sent Duncan Weir while we were under construction and we eventually employed Steve Isaac the head agronomist at STRI to help with seed and grow in specifications. Steve is now heading that end of the business directly for the R&A.

Shapers came from Southern Golf in the UK and the rest of the construction work came from local Slovak companies, all under my direction. The course itself won the Slovak Architectural Award for best architectural accomplishment of 2002, prior to that only buildings and monuments had received the award.

My partner and I certainly were proud and felt that many more Slovakian course designs would be in the offing, but those that followed did not appreciate the cost of professional design and sadly (excepting Penati) they exhibit a real lack of strategy.

But golf in Slovakia is going along very well and they are coming around in their understanding of how important good design is to attracting players. Personally, we are looking forward to two new projects which are in the planning stages at the moment.

By the way, the Little Bear course is a nine green short course that can be played forward and backward, making 18 different holes. Players are restricted to using only those clubs that they hit 130 yards or less, and no tees are used unless the player's driver falls within the 130-yard rule. It's a great short game training experience and only takes about 45 minutes to play nine holes.