Baden Hills, We Salute You
Courtesy: Airliners.net
I was doing a little golf website surfing prior to writing this post and a story at TravelGolf.com caught my eye.
The writer had played a course in the Czech Republic in Plzen, home of pilsner beer. Adjacent to the course was the Pilsner Urquell brewery. Convenient, given how tough the course sounded.
It struck me that playing golf in the town of Plzen in the Czech Republic must be one of those really fascinating places to play.
Then, my thoughts swung to odd courses in odd places.
And that reminded me of a course I had played a long, long time ago in Germany.
Way back in the early days of my broadcast career, I was lucky enough to work for two years at the Canadian Forces Network radio station in Lahr, Germany, down in the Swarzwald or Black Forest.
Lahr was where Canada's ground forces were stationed. Up the Autobahn, in Baden-Soelingen, the Canadian Air Group was stationed.
The air base had been originally constructed for the French Air Force in 1951 with the aid of German contractors under the direction of French engineers. That must have been interesting.
Two years later, the Canadians took it over from the French.
In 1964, with the help of the American greens keeper from the US Army golf course at Karlsruhe, construction began on the front nine of the Baden Hills Golf Club.
The back nine came later.
One summer day in 1977, when I and a few of the other guys from the station had a day off, we drove up to Baden Soelingen to play 18 holes.
Large, billowy clouds floated overhead.
It was another hot, steamy one. The air was still and thick.
We toured the front nine, finding it challenging and nicely laid out.
It was when we stood on the 10th tee to begin the inward nine, that we quickly realized something wasn't right.
The fairway ran parallel to the runway. And the heat of the sun reflected off the tarmac like a blowtorch.
Now, back then, Canadian fighter pilots flew the F104s.
Like fighter pilots everywhere, they practiced "touch and go".
Essentially, an F104 would swoop down for a landing, touch wheels to tarmac, hit the afterburners and blast off back into the blue skies of southern Germany.
And it wasn't just one F104 – it was a string of 'em.
With each full throttle take off, the smell of spent jet fuel would fill the hot, tepid air and a black pallor would hang lazily in the atmosphere.
The almighty roar of the twin engines was so loud that shouting to your playing partner was pointless. He couldn't hear you.
The fighters would touch and go at the top of backswings or middle of putting strokes. They kept on doing it for the entire back nine.
Jet fuel was pretty cheap in 1977.
The back nine, you see, had been built by someone with a very nasty sense of humor. I think 6 of the 9 holes ran along that runway.
And that's why they proudly called their golf course, The Noisiest Golf Course in the World.
Thank God the green fees weren't expensive…