Engelberg Golfpark (1923–1929)
Engelberg, a small town in Switzerland with around 4,400 inhabitants, is located 25km south of Lake Lucerne and about 35km south of the town of Lucerne in the canton of Obwalden. The center of the village lies in a flat, wide valley at an altitude of around 1,000m north of the 3,238m high mountain Titlis. Nowadays, Engelberg is the largest ski resort in Central Switzerland.
About 300m above Engelberg in the direction of Nidwalden lies the Gerschnialp. In 1913, a funicular railway had been opened from Engelberg to the alpine meadows of the Gerschnialp. Ten years later, in 1923, a 9-hole golf course was built not far from the local Café Ritz. It was in the same year, that the Engelberg Golf Club joined the Swiss Golf Association.
The British The Bystander reported on Wednesday, August 29, 1923: “An interesting item of news reaches us from Engelberg, the popular central Switzerland resort. It is, that a new golf course has just been opened which will be yet another attraction to the curling, ice-hockey, skiing, and tobogganing for which this holiday resort is justly famous.”
In 1926, the French newspaper Le Golf wrote about “a very beautiful course, but one that needs more care”.
The short-lived alpine golf course was shut down around 1929 and although there were plans to reopen the course in 1932, golfers at Engelberg had to wait until 1998 for the opening of a new golf course called Golfclub Engelberg-Titlis.
Any Questions & Answers regarding Engelberg – please contact the author via history@depeche-golf.com
Christoph Meister
October 2024