The entire 107-hectare estate of Golf de Preisch is surrounded by a high stone wall stretching seven kilometres, built during the Napoleonic era over 200 years ago. You enter through ornate gates, and once inside, you’re playing golf within the private grounds of one of the most extraordinary estates in eastern France.
Preisch sits near the point where France, Luxembourg, and Germany converge, and the course leans into that geography. Its 27 holes are divided into three nine-hole loops named France, Luxembourg, and Germany. It’s the only golf course in the world where your scorecard reads like a border crossing.
The estate’s centrepiece is the Château de Preisch, whose origins trace to 1122 AD when a feudal castle was built by Albert de Pris. Four towers and moats from the medieval original remain visible. Louis XIV ordered the original fortress destroyed as part of a diplomatic settlement with the Spanish Netherlands. The current château dates to 1620 and has been home to the de Gargan family since 1850. It’s registered as a French Historic Monument, featuring a neo-baroque chapel with stained glass by Maréchal, the same master glassmaker who created the famous windows at Metz Cathedral.
The property even has a connection to sainthood. Jacques de Milleret, who owned the château in the early 1800s, created the English landscape park that now forms the course’s setting. His daughter, known in religious life as Mère Marie-Eugénie de Jésus, spent childhood holidays at Preisch. She was canonised by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007, a saint who once played where golfers now tread.
The course itself was designed by David Williams and Neil Coles, Coles being the legendary eight-time European Tour winner, then completed by American architect Bill Amick after the original developers went into liquidation. At up to 6,456 metres in the Luxembourg-France combination, it’s a substantial test. Seven hectares of ponds and lakes create genuine risk-reward dilemmas, particularly the approach to the par-5 5th on the Luxembourg loop, where you must carry water to reach the green.
Since 2013, Preisch has hosted the Citadelle Trophy International, a professional Alps Tour event. In 2017, a 19-year-old amateur named Edgar Catherine stunned the field by beating 120 European professionals by five shots, a David-and-Goliath story worthy of the estate’s medieval roots.
The Lorraine region itself is shaped by the contested Franco-German borderland, annexed by Germany from 1871 to 1918 and again from 1940 to 1944. Playing golf within these Napoleonic walls, on a course named after three countries, you’re navigating two centuries of European history with every nine holes.
Fairways & Frontlines plays Golf de Preisch as part of the eastern France itinerary, en route from the Somme battlefields to Switzerland.