St. Vigil Golf Club gallery

St. Vigil Golf Club in the Italian Dolomites is one of the most spectacular golf course settings in Europe

St. Vigil Golf Club in the Italian Dolomites is one of the most spectacular golf course settings in Europe, and golf course photographer Charles Briscoe-Knight recently paid a visit....

By Charles Briscoe-Knight:

If there’s a more spectacular setting for us to play our favourite game, we’ve yet to see it. It can be all the more special, if, as we did, you arrive by 'chopper'.

To inspect the Italian Dolomites up close and personal, yet also spy your destination’s fairways from 3,000 feet, is spellbinding.

Laid out on a UNESCO World heritage site, the St. Vigil undulates through idyllic Italian countryside at an altitude of 2,800 feet.

The unheralded course architects Bernd Hofmann & Wolfgang Jersombeck have sculpted a truly spectacular layout here.

The beautiful closing hole at St. Vigil with the Sciliar mountain range in the background. [Picture: Charles Briscoe-Knight]

The 207-yard par-3 15th hole has Europe's biggest drop. [Picture: Charles Briscoe-Knight]

To make par with this scenery is tricky. One’s mind tends to wander as the eye takes in the wonderful panoramas. [Picture: Charles Briscoe-Knight]

The par-3 4th is only 136 yards from the tips but will test your nerve. The tee shot has to carry a ravine containing the tumultuous waters of a creek gushing from the mountains, then land softly. [Picture: Charles Briscoe-Knight]

Leaving via helicoper to get to the golf course.... [Picture: Charles Briscoe-Knight]

..... and arriving safely at St. Vigil. [Picture: Charles Briscoe-Knight]

This piece of Italian heaven is a must play for the serious golfing vacationer. [Picture: Charles Briscoe-Knight]

Not a bad setting for a golf course! [Picture: Charles Briscoe-Knight]