History of The World Ice Golf Championship
Ice golf is centuries old
Ice golf was known right back in the 17th century. A painting by the Dutch painter Aert van der Neer (1603-1677) shows players with a club in their hands attempting to get a ball into a hole in the ice covering a frozen canal in Holland. At that time the game was called “kolven”.
A brief retrospect
The World Ice Golf Championship was the brainchild of Mr. Arne Niemann, a local resident and hotel proprietor on a small island called Uummannaq, off Greenland’s North West coast. In 1997 Mr. Niemann challenged architect Rolf-Henning Jensen to design the world’s first ice golf course created by the ocean and huge icebergs. With support of the local community, Uummannaq Municipality and Greenland Tourism the World Ice Golf Committee was set-up to establish the ice golf championship. From the very beginning the committee signed a sponsorship with Drambuie. The Scottish Liqueur Company has been crucially involved in the development of the event and was title and main sponsor for four years.



