Estonian Golf and Country Club – Review and rating

The internationally best known of Estonia’s clubs sits about 25 minutes east of Tallinn, on a slope running down toward the Gulf of Finland, almost due south of Helsinki on the far shore. The Sea Course is the one ranked among Europe’s better layouts.

It is a park and forest course, and it is hugely popular with the Finns, who arrive by the boatload, some 6,000 Finnish green-fee guests every year. It is easy to see why they make the crossing.

The front nine

The first hole is a hard place to start: a narrow par-5 falling away downhill and leaning toward the forest on the right, so that from the tee you genuinely cannot tell which line to take. It opens up as you come down toward the green, and only then do you understand where you should have aimed. Study the course guide carefully, and feel free to ask the starter for advice.

From there the second and third drop down through the trees to the shore of the Gulf of Finland, where the course throws off the forest and turns briefly seaside. The long par-4 that follows is rated the hardest hole on the card, with water in play and nothing to stop the north wind. The middle of the round, the sixth and seventh, runs back and forth through the center of the property, surrounded by forest and with broad waste areas dividing the fairways, before the eighth and ninth climb back up through the woods to the clubhouse.

The back nine

The back nine starts gently with a short par-3 and then works down through the forest to the open ground by the water again. Hole out on the fourteenth and you meet one of the course’s signatures, a long, narrow suspension bridge over the Jägala river. Relax, you do not have to cross it.

The fifteenth is the longest hole on the back and the second hardest on the course, the closest to the gulf, with water down the left and a real fight whenever the wind comes from the northwest. Sixteen, seventeen and eighteen climb back through the forest to the clubhouse. The eighteenth is a long, steeply uphill par-5, well over 500 meters from the back tee, finishing under the windows of the clubhouse. A good finishing hole.

Most of the round feels private, tucked into the forest, as if you had the course to yourself, and then the open holes by the water shake you out of it. Those are the most exposed, the most demanding, and probably the best holes on the course.

Coming next: the Annika Course

The club’s second eighteen, the Stone Course, is being completely replaced. Annika Sörenstam is building her first golf course in Europe here, on the high ground above the Sea Course, in partnership with European Golf Design, with architect Gary Johnston walking the site alongside her. The land sits on a flat shelf above a limestone escarpment that falls away to pine forest and the Sea Course, with long views over the Rebala heritage landscape. The plan is for firm turf and long native grasses, a links-like look up on the plateau, stretching to around 6,400 meters as a tournament venue but, in Annika’s own framing, a course families and ordinary golfers can still enjoy. The first nine are due to open in late summer 2027.

Read our interview with club manager Hanno Kross about the Annika Course.