Forget Spain and Portugal – Golfalot editor Dan Box heads to Austria’s Tyrol region, discovering championship courses, alpine scenery and the Austrian Alpine Open in a golf destination the UK market has, to its detriment, largely overlooked.
Ask most golfers in the UK where they’re heading for their summer golf holiday and you’ll probably get a pretty familiar shortlist of answers: Spain, Portugal, Turkey. Austria is probably not one of the countries that you’re likely to hear, and before I went on this trip, it wouldn’t have been on my list either.
Kitzbühel wasn’t a place I’d heard of before the invitation arrived. It is best known to most people as a ski resort, playing host to the world-famous Hahnenkamm Race.
Kitzbühel is situated within the Tyrol region, and I was surprised to find out that it has more than 20 golf courses, with four championship layouts within a short drive of Kitzbühel town centre.
It’s a part of Europe that the UK golf market has largely overlooked and, after three nights there, I’m not sure why.
Getting there from the UK is pretty easy. I flew from Manchester to Munich and transferred from there. The journey takes around two hours, so if you leave first thing, you can be in Tyrol by lunchtime. Depending on where you’re flying from, you can also go to Innsbruck or Salzburg, which will shorten your transfer time and make things a bit easier too.
I was staying at the Hotel Rasmushof, a family-run four-star that sits right at the foot of the Hahnenkamm mountain, literally on the finish line of the Streif, which is the course that hosts the race. In summer it’s a peaceful and welcoming spot, with traditional Tyrolean styling, a good spa, indoor pool and a nine-hole course on the grounds.
The Reisch family have owned it since 1974 and the place feels like it, with owner Signe being something of a local celebrity! Breakfast was excellent, and if you’re staying there, I’d strongly recommend making time for it rather than rushing straight out to your activities.
I did my best to bring some typical Manchester weather with me on the first afternoon, but luckily it didn’t last long. The temperatures during my stay got up into the late 20s during the day, and still in the early teens overnight, which made it extremely comfortable.
With a couple of hours free before the welcome dinner, I had a walk around the town centre, which is compact and easy to navigate, with enough going on to explore.
There are cobbled streets, brightly painted buildings and the local Chamois mountain goat appearing on every logo and signpost you come across, which gives you a pretty good sense of how seriously the region takes its Alpine identity. Everything is clean, and you only have to glance at the kind of shops on the high street, including Louis Vuitton, Moncler and several boutiques, to see this is a very desirable destination.
Dinner that first evening was back at the hotel, out on the terrace with the rest of the press group. I had the tafelspitz – a traditional Austrian dish of slow-cooked beef in broth. It was hearty and very tasty, keep an eye out for it!
Golf Eichenheim
The second day started early, with a good breakfast before heading out to Golf Eichenheim for nine holes. Designed by American architect Kyle Phillips and opened in 2000, it’s a par-71 championship layout measuring 6,092 metres and ranked fifth in Austria by Golf Digest. With 116 metres of elevation change across the course and the Wilde Kaiser and Hohe Tauern mountain ranges as a backdrop, it really is a stunning setting to play golf.
After an extremely fiddly opener, the second and third holes give you a pretty good idea of what you can expect from Eichenheim.
The second is a downhill par three played from a raised tee, with the green sitting below you and the mountain slopes spread out behind it. It’s the kind of tee shot where the views can easily distract you!
The third is a par five where the fairway drops sharply away from the tee and snakes its way downhill, guarded by bunkers, before reaching a green with a large tier cutting through the middle. The approach shot is mostly blind from the fairway, presenting a bit of an extra challenge but also adding some excitement.
The greens throughout were fast and sloping, and more than one putt that looked straightforward from behind the ball turned out to be anything but. The course was in excellent condition, and the clubhouse itself is fantastic, complete with a huge terrace area to enjoy views out over the surrounding peaks. A regular green fee during the summer months is €135, although you can get deals on twilight tee times, and it’s one that I would love to play again.
Golfclub Kitzbühel – The Kaps
From Eichenheim we headed over to the Kaps for lunch at the Steakhouse Kaps, which sits right on the course with the terrace looking out over the closing holes.
Where Eichenheim is all mountain scenery and dramatic elevation changes, the Kaps is more of a parkland course set on the grounds of the historic Schloss Kaps. It’s one of the oldest courses in the region, opened in 1955 and redesigned to PGA standard in 2005 by Count Max Lamberg. It’s widely regarded as the best nine-hole course in Austria, and the conditions when I played were fantastic. There are tight fairways, true greens and the kind of mature tree-lined layout that reminds you that this course has been there for a while.
Whilst it doesn’t have quite the same level of dramatic elevation changes as Eichenheim, there is still a pretty steep climb from the 5th green to the 6th tee which will probably have you breathing heavily afterwards – so you might want to consider a buggy!
The course really does save the best to last though, with the 8th and 9th holes both having island greens which are overlooked by the huge hotel, modelled to look like a castle. The 8th is a dogleg par five which will leave most golfers with a nervy wedge shot over the water to the green, whilst the 9th is a par three that requires a well-struck mid iron. You can do what I did and bail out to the right, but this leaves a tricky bunker shot back onto the sloping green. I didn’t get up and down, but at least I finished the round without donating a ball to the water.
A green fee of €74 for nine holes is pretty steep (€125 for 18), but the conditioning is excellent and there’s a nice variety to the holes too, so going round twice to make it 18 holes would still be great fun.
It’s also worth knowing about the Golf Tyrol Card before you book. This is a prepaid green fee pass giving access to 19 courses across the region. You can choose between three, four or five rounds, priced at €297, €392 and €485 respectively, and any unused rounds carry over into the following season.
For anyone planning more than a couple of rounds during their stay, it’s worth looking at rather than paying individual green fees each time.
The Austrian Alpine Open
The Austrian Alpine Open is a DP World Tour event with a $2.75 million prize fund, and in 2026 it was held at the Kitzbühel-Schwarzsee-Reith venue. I spent the morning following some of the bigger groups out on the course, including Sepp Straka, Casey Jarvis, and eventual winner Kota Kaneko. Straka, a two-time Ryder Cup player who doesn’t get many opportunities to play in front of a home crowd, was clearly the name that the Austrian galleries had turned out to see, and he was right in the mix throughout the week.
Lunch was in the VIP hospitality area next to the 18th green, which is a great spot to watch the action from, and we headed back out onto the course in the afternoon before finishing the day with a skills clinic from John Catlin, a three-time DP World Tour winner.
In the evening we headed into town for Pura Vida, a free weekly event that runs every Thursday throughout July and August, organised by Kitzbühel Tourismus. It takes over the medieval town centre with street performers, live music, and the bars and restaurants all doing their best summer offerings.
We stayed for dinner in town afterwards, where I continued the theme of enjoying local delicacies by having the wiener schnitzel, served with potato salad and cranberry sauce – delicious.
Kitzbuhel is known for being an exclusive and high-end ski resort, and it’s easy to see why, because everything is just done well.
The people are extremely friendly, the town is classy and relaxed, and the views are incredible.
I also really enjoyed the golf, both playing and watching, and was impressed by the quality of the courses too.
If you’re looking for lots of lively nightlife and a trip that fits more into the ‘cheap and cheerful’ category, then Kitzbuhel might not be for you.
But if you’re looking for somewhere that’s a little different for your next golf trip, I would definitely recommend Austria. As someone who plays lots of parkland golf, as well as managing to play links courses a few times a year, it’s refreshing to try something new and Tyrol’s ‘alpine golf’ is exactly that.
If you’re interested in finding out more on Kitzbuhel or the Tyrol region as a whole, you can see more information at www.kitzbuehel.com and www.tyrol.com
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