The Johnnie Walker Hickory Golf Classic

Welcome to a travel in time and golf history!

While in modern, contemporary golf a garish technological battle is taking place – for crazy shot lengths, insane prize money and exaggerated athletics – more and more golfers discover their love for the historic roots of the ancient, traditional and honourable game of golf, and herewith the original »Spirit oft he Game«!

The pleasure and enjoyment with this actually so simple and unpretentious game – a small ball has to be forwarded a certain distance by means of suitable clubs and finally sunken into a small hole on the green at the end of the fairway – can be experienced best and truly by a recourse to traditional, historic equipment.
This is why golfers all around the world are enthusiastically re-enacting the game with historical clubs, whose shafts have been exclusively made from the wood of the Hickory tree until about the 1930s.

These hickory golf clubs decelerate the game of golf by their distinct charasteristics and difficulties. A very precise impact and a reasonably slow and controlled swing are necessary to execute good golf shots – but at the same time allowing the same athletic top performances like a contemporary set of clubs, made from steel, carbon or plastic.

The specific and stimilous charme of playing hickory golf emerges from the timeless elegance and basic idea of the game, the challenge, which every golf course sets for the individual abilities of the player. Every specific playing situation requires a particular solution, which has to be solved with the limited possibilities a bag of historical clubs provides.

At any rate, enjoyment is the essential motive to play hickory golf – the pleasure and indulgence with nature, movement, sportsmanship and ancient traditions, always keeping in mind the true motto of a round of hickory-golf: »Enjoy the Walk!«

On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the world famous scottish Whisky-brand »Johnnie Walker«, we have redesignated the »International Hickory Golf Champiosnhips of Southern Germany« into a great 3-day-event under the title »The Johnnie Walker Hickory Golf Classic«. With the help of this renowned sponsor, we are able to offer a truly wonderful frame programme to all participants – with many little highlights, reviving the 20s and 30s in their most beautiful and classic form: nostalgically and traditionally elegant!

Apart from accompanying elements such as a Hickory-Golf Nations compettition on the first day, an english garden picknick in the castle’s garden, a »Johnnie Walker Whisky Bar«, a cigar-lounge, historical Dixieland music from the 1930s, a parade of classic, historical automobiles, a first evening with Welcome-Drinks, a »Clubmaker’s Market« and a final Chapman Fourball on the neighbouring golf course of GC Steisslingen, in the heart of the weekend, the main event will take place as the »Championship Tournament« on Saturday, June 15th.

We will have the championship being played in two valuation classes: on the one hand with original, historical Hickory clubs (dating before 1935) and on the other hand, in a separate competition, with replica clubs, being manufactured after historical models.

A great amount of prizes and awards are awaiting Hickory Golfers in variable competition classes, amongst them a special assessment for Golf professionals who play for a serious prize money.

We invite Hickory Golf enthusiasts from all over Europe – Ladies and Gentlemen, amateurs and professionals, afficionados and absolute beginners to join us for this feast of true, oldstyle golf. And we hope to welcome an exquisite, international field of players at Schloss Langenstein. We will do our best to make you feel at home, enjoying the walk and the game!

Friday, June 14th, 2019

Until 2.00 p.m.: Welcoming and Registration in the Club House
2.00 p.m.: Pratcice-Round / Informal international fourball-betterball competion
From 6.00 p.m.: Welcome Drinks on the Club House Terrace

Saturday, June 15th, 2019

10.00 a.m.: Start of the Championships from the 1st Tee
From ca. 5.00 p.m.: English Garden-Picnic-Dinner in the Parc of Langenstein Castle
with Johnnie Walker Whiskey Bar, Cigar Lounge, Dixieland-Music. (We also appreciate historical costumes for the dinner event!)
From ca. 6.00 p.m.: Oldtimer-Parade with historical automobiles
ca. 6.00 p.m.: Prize-Giving for the Champions and Winners
Dresscode: Historical Costumes / Jacket & Tie and Dresses

Sunday, June 16th, 2019

10.00 a.m.: Informal Hickory-Golf (to be played as Chapman-Foursome or Single) among friends on the Golf Club Steißlingen (in close neighbourhood to the Golf Club Schloss Langenstein)

Embedded in the gentle volcanic hills oft he Hegau region, right beneath the shores of Lake Constance in the South-West of Germany, lies Langenstein castle, which has been testified for the first time around 1100 b.c., finally being designed and expanded by the dukes of Reichenau in the year 1570. During the 19th century, the estate was passed over to a scottish-swedish feudal dynasty, and since then serves as the ancestral home of the Douglas family.

The wide-ranging fairways of the golf course (opened 1991) revolve around the castle, stretch upon the former sheep meadows and lead through spectacular, deep ice-age-rifts.

The course architecture was designed by the Canadian Rod Whitman, who built some of the most famous US golf courses in partnership with Pete Dye and Bill Core. When building the course, he planted 600 trrees, 500 fruit trees, 4.500 wild woody plants and 15.500 hedges and blossoming plants, who are now constituing a beautiful park landscape, which does not shy away from any comparison.

Whitmans goal was to evoke the golden age of classical golf course architecture in style and identity, deliberately renouncing exaggerated interventions into nature and the existing landscape. The golf course is fitting harmonically into the Langenstein surroundings, underlining it’s natural grace – while at the same time absolutely matching international standards in competitive, professional compettition golf.

This course is always named among the most beautiful, sophisticated and demanding golf courses of southern Germany – and a great backdrop for a round of hickory golf!