Golf course

Kronberg Golf Club has close ties with the Friedrichshof Palace, which Empress Victoria had built as her widow’s residence in Kronberg in 1889 by the court architect Ernst v. Ihne.

Empress Frederick, as the widow called herself in memory of her husband, Emperor Frederick III, who died after a short reign, had come to know and appreciate Kronberg and its famous painters’ colony during visits to the nearby imperial residence in Bad Homburg. She thus arranged for the palace grounds, which were very dear to her and today form part of Kronberg golf course, to be planted with precious shrubs and valuable exotic trees. Even today, the dendrological treasures are reminiscent of the splendour and tradition of English gardens, which may be due not least to the fact that Empress Frederick was also the daughter of the famous Queen Victoria of England.

This explains why British visitors came to Kronberg early on, often bringing their golf clubs and golf balls with them.
When the war ended in 1945, the Americans occupied the Friedrichshof Palace. On its release in 1952, Prince Wolfgang of Hesse, to whose ancestral line the castle had passed, began to convert it into a hotel. At the suggestion of hotelier Richard Pertram and based on designs by golf instructor Ernst Kothe, a 9-hole golf course was laid out in the palace grounds in 1953.
On 6 January, 1954, the founding members Wolfgang Prinz of Hesse, Moritz Freiherr von Bissing, Franz Gömöri, Hans Heinrich Hauck, Georg von Opel, Richard Pertram, Werner Reimers, Peter Skeffington, Erich Vierhub and Gerhard Alois Westrick gathered at the Hessischer Hof in Frankfurt am Main for the ceremonial founding of the Kronberg Golf and Country Club.

The course was playable from the spring of 1954. At the end of 1955, the club casino, located in the Palace, was ready to move into. After expansion in 1963, the now 18-hole course was officially opened on May 24, 1964 on the occasion of the “Kronberg Trophy” tournament.

Despite all the structural changes, however, Ernst Kothe always kept in mind the protection and preservation of the magnificent tree population and thus created one of the most beautiful golf courses in Germany.