Brautarholt

After a morning round at the excellent Keilir, we headed about 45 minutes north to the other side of Reykjavik to Brautarholt, a 12 hole course that’s gotten some attention for what in pictures look to be some pretty wild cliffside holes. I had seen a few more pictures of this course than of Keilir, so I had a bit more of expectations coming in. And they were high ones.

And they were largely met. This is a truly spectacular course. I wouldn’t describe it as a 12 hole course, though; I’d describe it as a nine hole course with three extra holes. Holes 1-9 are the spectacular ones, heading straight out along the cliffs and staying there most of the way. Holes 10-12 are on flatter inland and while they’re solid, they have none of the drama of the other nine and don’t really feel like part of the same course. It was just as well that as we headed out, a four ball was just in front of us and I asked if we could start with 10-12 and then loop around to play 1-9 to avoid running into them. This is the superior way to play all 12 holes here because then the course starts modestly and the drama builds. Playing it in order would result in a big letdown for the last three holes.


The one possible drawback to starting on 10 is that then the course starts with a par 3. This doesn’t bother me so much as probably 1/3 of my favorite courses in England started on a par 3. And this is an appropriately modest one, with little trouble in front of the green.

Ten may be a simple par 3, but it's quite the background!

We were also greeted on the tenth tee by this curious robot. I wasn’t sure what it was at first until I started to see more of them. Then I realized…these robots are roomba lawnmowers and are the course’s primary grounds crew, mowing all of its fairways! They’re very cute and easy to turn off if they get in your way. Just don’t forget to turn them back on. And maybe give them a helping hand if the GPS has malfunctioned and they end up in a ditch, like one or two that we saw did.

One of several dozen roomba lawnmowers.

The eleventh is a short par 4 with two of the course’s volcanic-ash-sand bunkers about 210 out in the middle of the fairway. It’s worth going for the green if you can carry these but into a wind with rental clubs, I wasn’t trying that. 

Long hitters could go for the green to the right but it's best to stay short of the bunkers in the middle for most of us.

The approach to an interesting sort-of horseshoe-shaped green with a ridge running from front to back in the middle that divides the green into sections.

It’s about 240 to the bunker on the left on the ~350 yard twelfth. That’s the line you want to take…if you go too far to the right, one of the roombas might have to rescue you.

Keep your drive up the left side on twelve.

The approach is over a small, natural-looking pond to this steep green.

Crossing over the hill to the other side of the clubhouse, it becomes pretty clear that we’re in for something different for the next nine holes when we get to the ~480 yard par 5 first tee. This is just a spectacular-looking hole although a bit of a puzzle from the tee. With the ever-present wind, it looks to get quite tight between a pond on the left at about 240, junk on the right, and bunkers in the middle at about 260. I really don’t understand the point of the bunkers in the fairway here; it’d be a very tough drive without them.

You get a sense of the spectacle of the main nine holes at Brautarholt from the first tee.

The second shot is just spectacular…definitely one-ups anything we saw at Keilir in the morning (except maybe the drive over the bay and the fishing houses, but this is prettier). There doesn’t look to be and isn’t a lot of room in the lay up area, although there’s fairway over the first set of mounds on the left.

The approach on one looks and is tight, but there's short grass over the mound that pinches the fairway on the left.

The green is just awesome; right on the cliff’s edge, large, and with outstanding contours. It’s a great hole anyway but lose all of the bunkers and it’s probably one of the world’s best. To use Tom Doak’s chess notation, it’d go from being a !? to a !!.

The green on one is large and has outstanding contour.

A look down from the ninth tee.

Other than the over-bunkering on the first hole, my only real issue with these nine holes was the long walk to the second. It’s probably about 350 yards up and around the cliffs. I suspect that they could have fit a rugged little par 3 somewhere in here.

The second hole is a short par 3 (~140) and reminded me how difficult a short par 3 is when the wind is blowing. There’s a small pond at the front-right of the green. Probably in any conditions, you just want to aim for the middle of the green, which is built-up in the back and receptive.

It's spectacular but the shortest holes are the toughest when the wind gets up and its cold/rainy.

We only have about a 10 yard walk to the tee on three, a par 4 of about 320 yards. This is another spectacular hole but also a very interesting one. The angle of the green and visuals are much more open from the right side of the fairway but to get there, you have to challenge the cliff and the strip of rough/rocks that cuts into the fairway. It’s about 225 to the start of this and I’d suggest laying up short.

In regular weather conditions (cold, windy, and wet), anywhere in the short grass is good. But if you can. over the dip in the fairway, near the junk on the right is best.

You can see from the fairway that the angle of approach is much better from the right side.

The walk is also very short to the fourth, another short, but very different par 4. This one appears quite wide open although it’s a bit unclear what exactly is out there. But you can swing away because the fairway gets even wider if you clear the crest at about 225.

There's plenty of room to drive on four. This tee gives the best view of Reykjavik to the south over the bay.

The approach is to an unusual green that angles from short-right to long-left and is on this angle about 70 yards long (!). But the whole thing is quite shallow and is best approached from the right side, which allows you to play into a deeper aspect of the green. There’s a fantastic back-left pin on a peninsula, with your ball disappearing into the rock if you go a bit right, long, or left.

Downhill to the very wide fourth green.

By any standard, the par 3 fifth must be one of the world’s greatest: ~240 yards over a black sand and gravel beach. Unlike some of the world’s famous long par 3s however, there’s plenty of room to bailout short and left and the smartest play (although less fun) is probably to the front left of the green. I suppose that you could describe this hole as Iceland’s friendlier response to Cypress Point’s sixteenth hole.

One of the greatest par 3s that I've seen, creating great drama for those who go for it but plenty of room to the left for those who can't.

Approaching the large green from short and left.

The last four holes here are inland but each is interesting. It’s about a 200 yard carry over a ditch on the ~365 yard sixth. After that, the approach is uphill and you can only see the top of the flagstick. But it’s best to be up the left side as the green is quite deep from this angle.

A bit more modest surroundings on six. The entire area in front of the tee is the bailout zone for the previous green, which is just to the left of the frame here.

This shot from short-right plays into the shallow aspect of the green.

This is the view down the deepest aspect of the green. Like many here and at Keilir, it has excellent contour.

Seven is a tough ~400 hole with water up the entire right side. It’s best to aim at and pick a club that will keep you short of the 150 (meters) post on the left side. The approach is uphill to a large green which you should try to hit on the fly, but where there’s also the possibility of a rebound off the rock (there’s also a possibility of going from one set of rocks to another as I learned…). In any case, don’t miss long as the green has severe back-to-front pitch.

There's more trouble than appears here in the form of a pond up the right side.

The approach into the rock-strewn hillside is a beauty.

The pitch on the green is, to put it mildly, severe. It reminds me of the third and eighteenth greens on Battle Creek CC in Michigan, which are more false front than pinnable surface.

The short par 3 eighth is only about 120 yards from the seventh green on a direct line but following the cart path doubles that. This is another case like the second where the walk to the hole is longer than the hole (~130). The primary feature here is a ridge running left-to-right across the middle of the green. Hit the back of this and your ball will go through the green.

Stunning backdrop on the short eighth and a good hole to boot.

Nine is about a 540 yard par 5 from the back tees and is probably the easiest hole so far, as long as you can avoid the small pile of rocks in the middle of the fairway about 300 from the tee (reachable because the hole faces eastward and is probably downwind most of the time). The layup is to a wide fairway but the green, which angles from front-right to back-left, is best approached from the right. It has excellent interior contour.

The generous drive on nine with the less generous layup area on one below us to the left.

No trouble up the middle as long as you avoid this small pile of rocks.

The green, seen here from the front-right, is another beauty.

Looking back over a beautiful green down a beautiful hole.

Probably the best way to describe Brautarholt at the moment is as possibly the world’s most spectacular nine hole course with three bonus holes. Apparently there’s a plan to expand the course to 18 holes. Continuous expansion seems to be a common practice in Iceland as Keilir started as 9 holes, then became 18, then 27. I’m not exactly sure where the addition six holes will be, but there’s a lot of good undulating land right of the current seventh and eighth holes. It won’t be as spectacular as the current 1-5, but could be comparable (if a little less dramatic) than the lava holes at Keilir.

I suspect that this land right of the par 3 eighth will be the site of the new six holes.

More even than Keilir, this course feels like a real adventure. It’s almost completely hidden from everything around it. To reach it, you have to go off-roading through about half-a-mile of grazing land. It’d be a great place to go hiking without golf clubs. The cliffs and surrounding scenery are also much more dramatic here although like Keilir, the former are used well to create some excellent holes.

Brautarholt may not be a championship test of golf like Keilir, but it has some outstanding holes and save for a few too many bunkers on the first and an awkward walk to the second, no real weaknesses. The fifth must be on the short list of the world’s great par 3s. Like Keilir, it has an outstanding set of greens. That was one of the real surprises of these two courses—both have a set of greens that compares favorably with the best sets of greens on southern English courses. They’re suitable counterparts to the drama from tee-to-green without ever being too severe.

While I can’t say that they beat a hike up to the base of Snaefellsjökull, glacier climbing, or a day in the pools and steam rooms of the Blue Lagoon, golf should still be a required part of any golfer’s trip to Iceland. There are several other courses around Reykjavik (you’ll see them driving around its outskirts) and while they’re probably not as dramatic as Keilir or Brautarholt, a few of them are supposed to be quite good. There’s also a course in the Westman Islands about 2 1/2 hours + a short ferry ride southeast of Reykjavik that has several holes on the cliffs and also looks excellent. If I go back to Iceland, a visit to some of these courses would definitely be on my list.