Kvinesdal

Located between Kristiansand and Stavanger in the southwest part of Norway, the town of Kvinesdal sits close to the Fedafjord. It’s completely surrounded by mountains, with the Kvina river as a popular place for salmon fishing. Just a short 5-minute drive away lies the Utsiken Golfpark, where a golf course has operated since the mid-1990s.

Kvinesdal & Omegn Golf Club was established in 1992, with a 6-hole course opening two years later. Architect Graeme Webster then got involved and a deal was struck with Tinfos Jernverk, a local company involved in steel production, to supply slag that could be used in the shaping and drainage of additional holes. A 9-hole layout opened in 2000 which was doubled in size by 2004.

Today, the course extends to just over 5,300 metres from the back markers, playing to a par of 70 (34 out then 36 in), with holes arranged as two returning nines. The shorter front nine starts and ends with a par three and there are only two par fives on the scorecard, at the tough 486-metre 8th (rated stroke index 1) and the right doglegging 455-metre 17th which plays to a plateau green.

Architect Graeme Webster kindly supplied us with the following information about the expansion of the layout:

“I designed and built a new 9-hole extension at Kvinesdal and re-modelled much of the original nine holes back at the start of the new millennium. Tinfoss is the local Iron ore smelting works in the local village, at the end of a small Fjord.

There’s a deep berth harbour at the factory where ships delivered rock from Africa. The rock was put through the furnaces to release molten metal from inside the rock and once the molten metal was released from the rock to produce silicomanganese for steel production, the rock was left.

The course at Kvinesdal was set on very peaty, wet ground so we dug out and removed the peat to a depth of two metres and backfilled with the slag supplied free (including transport on the 1-hour round trip).from Tinfoss.

Kvinesdal Golf Club at the time had a real “Mr.Fixit” called Olav Magne Trydal who organised the deal with Tinfoss and numerous other sponsors. He really put the club on the map and elevated it to a much respected position within the Scandinavian golf market.

When the UK government brought in the Aggregate Levy on UK Quarries in 2002, Tinfoss could have crushed the rock and sold it into the UK market and at this point we had the last 2 or 3 holes still to build. Tinfoss delayed the opportunity to make money until it had completed the supply of slag to build the Kvinesdal course.

It would never have been built if it were not for the very generous from Tinfos in a deal that was very much the brainchild of Olav Magne Trydal. The club is now called Utsikten GolfKlubb.”