We've grouped the regional golf federations of Berlin/Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony/Thuringia to create the North East area of Germany with a total of 61 courses.

Although the North East has the fewest courses of all regions, two of their layouts are good enough to warrant a European Top 100 ranking. The Faldo course at Sporting Club Berlin has been around since 1997 and it makes the cut for the European chart, along with another new track, Winston (Links), which made a very recent appearance on the German golf scene in 2011.

As can be expected, much of the golf is played in the metropolitan area of Berlin, where Seddiner See (South) by Robert Trent Jones Jnr and historical Berlin Wannsee (Karl Hoffmann) are the picks, whereas on the Eastern front it's hard not to have fun at Dresden Elbflorenz.

However, the real story of the North East is its unique golf resorts. After the reunification of Germany a whole new country was opened up for development and while some of it crashed and burned, the golf projects came away mostly unscathed. Fleesensee is the largest operation with 72 holes, amongst them the Schloss course by Stan Eby. A-Rosa Scharmützelsee at Bad Saarow adds an Arnold Palmer track and another Stan Eby to the flagship Faldo course.

Balmer See on the island of Usedom is holiday golf at its best: 36 exciting, but not too difficult holes and a tasteful hotel concept. 20 minutes across the island another resort opened recently: Baltic Hills hopes to prove that one course is just a course, but two courses are a destination.

Not on an island, but also on the coast is wind-swept Wittenbeck by Christoph Städler, who designed another dark horse at the southern end of the region: the Goethe course near Weimar. Like the "Geheimrat" himself, the place is full of character – as is the entire region.