SOHG Board Secretary Rick Adams takes his first swing in the Snow Cup golf tournament in St. Moritz, Switzerland. (Photo by Ueli Lamm)
By Rick Adams
Picture this idyllic scene: the snow-draped Alps, a vivid blue sky, cross-country skiers tracking past, dogs frolicking, parents tugging children on sleds, a line of horse-drawn sleighs, the occasional helicopter flying overhead, a neo-romantic stone castle guarding the territory … and golfers trying to balance on slippery packed snow while steering orange golf balls toward distant flags.
I waited more than 50 years to play in an event such as this – the Snow Cup Golf tournament in St. Moritz, Switzerland. And it turned out to be one of the most fun days I’ve ever had on a golf course.
When I was a teenager, I read about a golf tournament in February on the frozen surface of Lake George, New York, a couple of hours from where I grew up in the Binghamton, N.Y. area. It sounded crazy, which of course made me want to try it. But for whatever reasons, I never got to that event.
Roll forward five decades, I’m living in Geneva, and I register for the 2021 Snow Cup at the “Top of the World,” as they market St. Moritz, only to have Covid wipe it out.
This year, finally. And a perfect day for a memorable experience.
St. Moritz has been hosting Snow Golf for 43 years, starting in 1979 when they laid out a course on the frozen lake. This year, the main lake had been appropriated for Snow Polo matches, so the golf shifted to the Silvaplana area, where a 9-hole course was laid out using ski trail grooming equipment. The holes ranged from 95 to 225 yards, 7 par-3s and 2 par-4s for a total par of 29.
The best score from among the more than 200 rounds across two days was a very respectable 30 (Matteo Piccaluga). And there was a hole in one!
The ace was helped by the oversize cups, a concession to the slickness of the icy packed-snow “whites” (aka greens). Wouldn’t mind the larger size hole on a regular golf course – it would certainly speed up play.
The putting surfaces, all at fairway level, were marked by red-dye perimeters. Fast? If Augusta greens are ‘Stimped’ at 14 for the Masters, Silvaplana’s probably measured about 25! You did not want to be putting from above the cup.
The “fairways” were reasonably wide, but miss left or right and your ball would disappear in ankle-deep snow, which was treated similar to a parallel water hazard. If you found your ball, you were welcome to take a whack where it lay, which I did on the first hole, twice. Or you could take a penalty and move it over to the fairway.
Local rules allowed you to tee up the ball in the fairway.
The initial three holes were set on a hillside suitable for tobogganing, and the rest were fairly level. The 5th hole crossed the (mostly) frozen Lake Silvaplana, which we walked across after teeing off. No golf spikes allowed.
On the 6th hole, after a soup-and-beverage warm-up break, I waited as a couple of skiers poled past. Didn’t want to hit them if I pulled my tee shot left (which I did). Then another pair of skiers appeared on their trail … and one of them picked up my ball! Once he saw us waving, he tossed it to me, and I put it back in the general area where it had landed. Managed to save bogey.
Hitting off snow is a lot like playing a sand shot; catch the ball first, with a shallow arc, if you want any distance. Chipping could be a challenge, as the ball might catch in one of the grooves left by the grooming machine. Slow-rolling putts risked picking up a ring of snow, affecting both speed and direction.
A few of us played hickory clubs, and Ueli Lamm used “home course advantage” to post a 36 on day one, including birdies on two of the final three holes. Swiss Hickory Golf board member Jürgen Müller had 39 on the second day when the wind was up and the putting surfaces were even more icy.
I was prepared for the worst with about four layers of clothing, including thermals, sweater, and wool plus-fours and belted jacket which I had bought especially for last year’s cancelled tournament. Glad I didn’t need all that just to avoid freezing, but it made it impossible to make a full turn so most shots were ½ or ¾ swings.
Check around and you’ll probably find a snow golf tournament near you. In addition to Lake George, now known as the Glacier Golf Tournament (February 20 this year) there have been events in Vermont and Minnesota, Quebec, Argentina, Japan, Korea, China, and several in Europe – including Swedish Lapland, Austria, a “series” in the French and Swiss Alps: Courchevel, Megeve, Val d’Isere, and Crans Montana, Switzerland (home of the European PGA Tour Omega Masters).
(Note – Bob Gettis of the Golf Heritage Society annually helps his Locust Lake Village in the Pennsylvania Poconos organize an “Ice Golf” outing on the lake. Another for the snow and ice golfers to celebrate.)
The self-proclaimed World Ice Golf Championship has been staged since 1997 on the island of Uummannag, Greenland, where the wind chill has been known to reach a balmy 58 below zero. Think I’ll pass on that one.
Reportedly, snow golf was “invented” by writer Rudyard Kipling while he was in Vermont in the mid-1890s, using red-painted balls, tin-can cups and a birch-tree branch as a club. The Dutch might dispute that claim, based on 17th-century paintings by Aert van der Neer and Hendrick Avercamp which depict golfers knocking a ball around the ice (in the midst of skaters, merchants, and dogs).
Swiss Hickory golfer Ueli Lamm tees off on the 2nd hole of the Snow Cup in St. Moritz. (Rick Adams video.)