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Sweden, Idre - Golf in bear country
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IDRE FACTS
Population: 1,100 inhabitants
Where: In north-western Dalarna
Distance: 150 km from Mora, 460 km from Stockholm, 500 km from Norrköping, 580 km from Gothenburg, 870 km from Malmö.
Most residents: Idre Mountain, 6,000 beds in chalets and hotels, nine kilometres from the village of Idre.
Book the entire Idre area by phone: 0253-477 2000
Fax: 0253-401 58
www.idre.com, www.idreturism.se
E-mail: bokning@idre.com
Summer Activities: Golf, fishing, hiking, boat, canoe and more.
Liquor / Pharmacy: Konsum, packages arrive the next day after ordering.
Good buy: mosquito repellent.
Means of transportation: car, train / bus. Train to Mora
IDREFJÄLLENS GOLF CLUB
Playable: 1992
Where: 2 km from the village of Idre, towards Foskros
Length from the yellow tees: 5,615 metres
From red: 4,810
Green fee: EUR 40. Juniors EUR 17. Week EUR 159/64.
Rating: One of the most beautiful courses. Challenging, excellent quality. A must!
Telephone: 0253-202 75
E-mail: kansli@ifgk.net
Homepage: www.idregolf.se
In north-western Dalarna you can find a real golf gem, Idrefjällen's golf club. A golf course in superb condition, pleasant atmosphere and with that extra thrill - bears roaming in the area.
We’re talking about hole number fourteen and, I promise, it was a perfect shot. Just a little too far to the right...and a little short. That’s why the ball is in the bunker. Frederick Litzén, golf pro golf at Idrefjällen’s golf club, looks compassionately and says something about the bunker. You laugh and say "it sounded as if you said a bear has been in the bunker."
“Yes, exactly," says Litzen.
“A bear?”
“Yep." Between two 4-balls. In the middle of the day.
That's when you swallow.
The background to Idre as a tourist destination is a closed down mine. When it closed thirty-four years ago, the villagers realized that something else needed to be done if they were not to become yet another dying country village.
Ski slopes were built, trails were planned and today it is one of the leading places for mountain tourism around the hub Idre Fjäll, one of the largest facilities in the winter and the biggest in the summer. It’s here that many golf travellers end up.
Even if the golf course is located three hundred metres closer to sea level, at an altitude of 450 metres, the thin air affects your hit. Litzen, the golf pro, explains that one should count on hitting further with a club.
Idrefjällen’s golf course is not like other courses. Not only because there is char and trout in the water barriers, and not just because there are sand-martins breeding at the fourth hole and a capercaillie lives somewhere near the sixth green.
The club celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2002. The course was built as the need for summer activities grew. Eighteen holes directly. At the opening ceremony Mattias Grönberg, professional on the European Tour, made his first hole-in-one on the first shot of his life on the course.
The quality of the fairways and greens are now amazingly good considering that, to quote the pro Litzén, "we belong to climate zone seven, just a bit over the Antarctic and Greenland." This applies especially to the late summer and autumn.
The fourteenth hole, where the bear was once in the bunker, has also twice been included in the dream course that the magazine Swedish Golf's readers vote for each year.
On the third you hit over a little bog where cloudberries usually shine so that everyone who tees off too short and drills down in the wet can comfort eat while - probably in vain - looking for their ball.
Although a bog is not to be trifled with. Just ask the owner of a pair of Adidas golf shoes, size 43, that are there in the wet somewhere. He went out and found the ball after a duffed tee shot and was sucked down as well. He managed to the joy of his co-players get his feet up- no shoes - and returned in socks back to the shop ...
As I said, one of the advantages of the Idrefjällen golf course is that you bring many good stories with you.
Text: Ola Liljedahl.
Photo: Ulf Berglund.
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