Steinhuder Meer (Mardorfer) - North West Germany - Germany

Situated within the Hanoverian Moor Geest, a region formed during the last ice age, the Mardorfer golf course lies less than a mile to the north of Steinhuder Meer, the biggest lake in Lower Saxony.

Ronald Orme designed the layout in 1997 and the golf club is run as a family business where the architect’s son David oversees maintenance out on the course and another son, Stuart, takes care of administration in the clubhouse.

Holes – most of them doglegged – are laid out on a gently rolling landscape and the many thousands of trees, shrubs and bushes that were planted during construction are now maturing to add greater definition to the fairways.

The signature hole on the card comes early in the round at the par five 3rd, where the hole skirts around woods on the right, double doglegging to the green. An enormous waste area encroaches at the first bend in the fairway and this long sandy stretch catches stray shots all the way to the green.