The golf industry is paying a lot of attention to time-poor golfers, those who can’t regularly find the four hours or so required to play a full eighteen holes of golf. Many clubs are creating golf experiences to suit the busy modern lifestyle that multiple research studies have blamed for declining participation.

Orli Las, a new short course at the Modry Las club in northwest Poland, would initially seem to be one of those. Its nine holes, the longest of which is 100 yards, can be played in well under an hour.

Interestingly though, the club’s target market is not busy locals who might want to call in briefly between work and family commitments. Recognising that golf is not popular among the Polish, Arthur and Pamela Gromadzki, respectively the chairman and director of development at Modry Las, have the travelling golfer in mind, particularly the neighbouring Germans – quite literally arriving by the busload during my visit – and Scandinavians, who can reach the north coast of Poland by ferry.

These visitors may be more likely to take a couple of days out to stay at the club – either in the soon-to-be complete clubhouse or one of a variety of appealing lodgings on the site – and play multiple rounds on the main eighteen hole course. A Gary Player Design, coordinated by Theo Geertshuis, it is arguably one of the best to have opened in Europe in the past ten years.

So why the short course? Like Bandon Dunes in Oregon and Treetops in Michigan, both of which invested in top-quality short courses, the answer is, somewhat ironically, that most of their guests are time-rich. They are more than likely taking a break from that busy modern lifestyle, staying for a few days and looking for something to fill time between eighteen-hole rounds.

Ideally for Modry Las, another top-tier course would be developed nearby, giving travelling golfers more than one reason to visit this part of the world. Poland does have other intriguing courses – Jeremy Pern’s Toya and Hans-Georg Erhardt’s Rosa courses spring to mind (albeit the latter is private), along with Sand Valley near Gdansk in the north of the country and Krakow Valley in the south. But none of these are close enough to Modry Las to make a practical agenda for a single trip.

So without a neighbouring golf venue, and with no large town nearby to offer distractions, Orli Las does an excellent job of providing visiting golfers with a fun and challenging diversion that will add some variety to their stay.

Again the work of Geertshuis, the short course has many of the attractive features of the main course – a woodland setting, lake views and expertly contoured greens and surrounds that challenge your short game – all scaled down to a suitable proportion. Even the flagsticks are shorter, a clever touch that can play havoc with your distance perception. The club is marketing it as ‘a championship course in miniature,’ and that intention is certainly evident in the design of Orli Las.

The first hole, a 40-yard dropshot with a lake backdrop, will provide the visual of choice for photography lovers. The second, with overhanging branches forcing golfers to test out their low punch shot, is one of the highlights of a fun round. Parallel uphill holes three and six provide the sternest test. Beginner players – another possible market for short courses – expecting bunny slopes may be frustrated to find that anything other than near-perfect distance control will either see the ball rolling back towards them or getting lost in the undergrowth behind the small greens.

Good execution of part-swing shots is essential to score well, until the closing hole – the longest – finally gives players the satisfaction of a full swing. But it will again demand accuracy, with a mean pot bunker guarding the front right of a tumbling green.

Orli Las works on many levels: friends armed with two clubs and a ball, and maybe even a drink, can settle post-round bets. Golfers can put their short games to the test. If the locals do start to become intrigued with the game, they can learn to play here (but they might want to skip the third and sixth!). And for the rare few who are cramming some golf in between appointments, they can race round and get it over with in 30 minutes. That would be a shame.

This article first appeared in Golf Course Architecture – Issue 43.