Kerigolf

Kerigolf was the third Finnish golf project that Ron Fream’s Golfplan design company undertook in the late 1980s, following their involvement in an 18-hole course at Paltamo and the Nordcenter golf complex at Aminnefors.

The course here is situated in the centre of Finland's most popular lake district, five miles west of Kerimäki, where the town’s great claim to fame is that it’s the location of the world's largest wooden church, completed in 1847.

The Kerigolf course is laid out in a beautiful forest setting with pleasant changes in elevation throughout. The main design feature to note is the number of doglegged holes (nine of which favour golfers who can draw the ball) and, of the fourteen non-par three holes on the card, only one (the par four 5th) does not have a substantial kink in the fairway.

Ron Fream - course architect writes: Kerigolf is not far from the historic island fortress at Savonlinna. Summer concert and opera programs within the stone fort are world renown. Kerigolf has been a hidden gem in the northeast of Finland where the forests of fir trees are dense and the terrain is marked wildly by glacier actions and melting glacier ice.

Many holes were laid out to fit what was there. We did not manufacture this course with pre-conceived ideas or standard stereotype solutions. Mother Nature and her byproducts of stone supported and influenced the layout.

Tranquil, scenic in the extreme, each hole is almost alone and singular. Playing here is an invigorating experience and the cabins, steam sauna, lake swimming and cuisine all help make Kerigolf a grand golfing venue from mid April or early May to October.