Budersand Hotel Golf & Spa Sylt

For years the south of Sylt ended in the Pidder Lüng barracks, empty since the early 1990s and spread over 73 hectares at the edge of Hörnum. Around 2004 the owner, Claudia Ebert, stood on the Budersand dune and pictured a golf course in their place. Some 40 buildings came down, oil tanks and sewage works were cleared, and in July 2008 the links opened: a true dune course with pot bunkers, firm fairways and a wind that changes the club choice every day. The hotel followed in 2009 with 77 rooms and suites.

The Berlin practice dko architekten designed it as four white volumes of up to three storeys, clad in cedar and joined by bridges, and nearly every room has a balcony or terrace facing the sea, the harbour or the fairways. Inside, the look is spare: wooden floors, marble bathrooms, chosen artworks and a library of more than 1,400 books selected by the writer Elke Heidenreich.

Felix Gabel's cooking at KAI3 holds a Michelin star, and Strönholt, at the highest point of the course, is the easier choice after a round. Breakfast runs until noon, the minibar and the spa are included in the rate, and hotel guests pay 20 percent less for green fees. The spa, open from seven in the morning until ten at night, has a 12.5 metre pool looking onto the dunes and a relaxation room facing the North Sea.