On 19 September, four intrepid members, consisting of Lim Chin Tong, Sun Chee Yan, Emma Abdullah, and yours truly, gathered at Kuala Lumpur International Airport to embark on our long-awaited trip to Prague to visit our reciprocal club, Royal Beroun Golf Club. Initially, Jerry Lee was part of the team but the unfortunate demise of his beloved father one day before planned departure put paid to his plans.
Perhaps to give more context for this trip, one has to go back a few years to when H E Milan Hupcej, Czech Ambassador to Malaysia, brought up the idea of the possibility of a reciprocal arrangement with a club in Prague. The club was The Royal Beroun Golf Club and after all the necessary exchanges with the then Committee, an agreement was made and in July 2023 a contingent consisting of their Club President, Vojtech Matejcek, and Committee members flew in to sign it. We hosted them privately, and then the Committee arranged an official reception at our Greens Restaurant, and the rest is history.
This brings us to now the morning of the 20th on a crisp blustery morning at the Vaclav Havel Airport in Prague, on what is to be the first leg of a European trip, as Chee Yan will follow me to London after Prague.
On the very first day of arrival, Milan arranged for us to meet at the fabulous Czernin Palace, which has served as the offices of the Czechoslovakian and later the Czech Foreign Ministry since the 1930s.
The Palace was commissioned by the diplomat Humprecht Jan Czernin, the Habsburg imperial ambassador to Venice and Rome, in the 1660s !! It is one of largest Baroque palaces in Prague. It was indeed magnificent.
A short walk away is the most talked about destination in Prague – The Prague Castle, which according to the Guinness Book of Records, is the largest ancient castle in the world, occupying an area of almost 70,000 square metres.
Built in the 9th century, the castle has long served as the seat of power for Holy Roman emperors, and it still serves as the official residence and workplace of the President of the Czech Republic. The Bohemian Crown Jewels are kept within a hidden room inside it.
Mention must be made of the awesome and infamous Tavern called U Krale Brabantskeho roughly translated as ‘The King of Brabant’- the oldest pub in the country built in the 16th century with tables stretching into the dungeons below the castle. Myths and legends abound, Kings were rumoured to have used secret passages from the Castle to reach the Tavern, Mozart composed symphonies there, and even murders were committed. A more macabre story was that bodies were buried there during the Great Plague.
Now sufficiently infused with the most potent Czech beers, we proceeded unsteadily to the famous Charles Bridge, named after King Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor. It’s a medieval stone arch bridge that crosses the Vltava River. Construction started in 1357 and finished in the early 15th century.
The next day, rested and recovered from the tribulations of the night before, we proceeded to our reciprocal club The Royal Beroun Golf Club. Many have asked about the “Royal” prefix- it seems that Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor bestowed the Royal status on the town of Beroun and all institutions within it. The club is extremely conveniently situated, 30km from the city of Prague and 20km from the airport.
Royal Beroun holds The Czech Open, an international four-day tournament held every year in cooperation with the Czech Golf Federation and the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) of the Czech Republic. In the course of it, both professional and amateur players from the Czech Republic and abroad will compete against each other.
At the club, we were met by the Club President and his committee in their lovely clubhouse. After golf, drinks flowed at their patio, which a great view of the course.
Drinks flowed continuously after the formal reception, where I presented a gift from our club.
On the next day, it was a monumental task to rouse ourselves to play at the nearby Albatross Golf Club. The championship course, designed by renowned English architect Keith Preston, opened in 2009. However, the Albatross was put to the test just two years after its opening when it hosted two Ladies European Tour events in 2011 and 2012. In 2014, they hosted a new €1m tournament, the D+D REAL Czech Masters.
The last day of golf was at the Golf Resort Karlštejn is one of the most beautiful golf courses in Europe, an 18-hole course with a unique view of the medieval Karlštejn Castle.
The wooded hilly landscape with limestone rocks, rich fauna, and flora, is an oasis of peace and quiet, yet only a 40-minute drive from the center of the Czech capital.
Every hole has a unique view, with sweeping vistas of the countryside. It’s a sensational setting for a game of golf, with views across the Berounka River to Karlstejn Castle, nestled in the densely forested hills a couple of kilometres to the northeast of the golf resort.
After 3 rounds of golf, we will now concentrate fully on the charms of the city of Prague. The National Museum, founded in 1818, is a public museum dedicated to natural scientific and historical collections of the Czech Republic, and houses nearly 14 million items from the areas of natural history, history, arts, music and librarianship, which are located in dozens of museum buildings
One day, Josef Piga, Vice President of Royal Beroun invited us for lunch with the Malaysia Ambassador of the Czech Republic at the dining room at his plush Omnipol office in the centre of Prague. Omnipol, as it turns out is the largest arms manufacturers in the country and Josef is a frequent visitor to our Lima Exhibition. The next stage of our European trip was to London to meet our Members who are already there.
The greatest challenge has been to make this writeup a golf tour or a travelogue. Probably the easiest decision was to make this article about a magical golf tour in enchanted lands, hence the title.
