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Audi Course – tailored for the Ryder Cup



The renowned golf course architect Thomas Himmel has designed a Ryder Cup golf course on 140 hectares adjoining the existing Wittelsbacher golf course. The design is tailored to provide a serious challenge for the best golfers in the world and to ensure perfect conditions for the anticipated volume of spectators.

Beside the Ryder Cup Audi Course is a generously proportioned practice area with a large number of practice greens and a short 6-hole course (25 hectares). The site features woods, tree-lined avenues and large single trees. The special specifications for the event have been taken into account with particular care (matchplay format, very high concentration of spectators on a few matches and a few holes, security, infrastructure with tents, catering, VIP area, entrances, access roads):

• The current length of the golf course is approximately 7,000 metres (7,655 yards), par 72.
• High risk-reward proportion of holes for the special matchplay situation.
• The holes have also been positioned in such a way that cameras located behind the greens during a match hardly ever have to face the sun during the course of the competition.
• The culmination lies at holes 14 to 17, where experience has shown that very many Ryder Cup matches are decided. Hole 14 can be reached in two shots by big hitters provided they are prepared to risk cutting across the diagonal fairway (the hole has water down one side all the way to the green). At approximately 475 metres (519 yards), hole 15 is one of the longest par 4 holes on the course. Although the hole has no bunkers, it has a severely undulating fairway and a severely undulating green, making two very precise shots essential. Hole 16 has been planned as the signature hole for the Ryder Cup. The green of this 295-metre (322-yard) par 4 can certainly be reached from the tee by many players . The hole, defended along its entire length by a pond, will have a relatively wide green in order to tempt golfers to attack. Hole 17 is the second dramatic hole shortly before the end of the round. It is a relatively short, but very punishing par 3 with a very long and very narrow green, defended by water along its whole length on the left-hand side. As a general principle, this is intended to bring to mind the nervy challenge provided by hole 12 in Augusta and hole 17 in Sawgrass.
• If any matches are completed at the 18th hole, the longest par 4 on the course awaits the players.