“This was my 13th year in Sand Valley and this year will be the one I will always remember. It has been a year where often our world has shrunken inside the walls of our own homes, a year where everyone is feeling the need to breathe again, to hug again, to travel again and most importantly – to not to be afraid again.

All in all, in Sand Valley we lost half of our business due to the fact that we lost 90% of our Scandinavian visitors. 2019 Scandinavians were close to 90% of all of our business. If you live in Scandinavia, you might have heard how all the courses in your country were full and that it was the best year ever. When it comes to Poland however you must remember one important thing – there are only 6000 golfers in the whole country, so there is no way to make the courses full down here. You Scandinavian guys and gals were to play 15000 rounds of golf here this year, but only 1500 of them were ever played. We truly hope to see you in 2021 – we miss our old friends!

That being said, we kept our Team together and we kept our costs sensible in order to exist when the dust settles. I figured that if I lose the Team, then there is no way back in our business.. I know I was right because all the people working in Sand Valley have shown it to me during this challenging year. Those are the people I want to thank the most!

When the summer started, something quite beautiful happened – we had a “Polish Invasion ❤” that resulted in many things. Firstly, our members kept on believing and supporting us. They also brought their friends to visit and that helped us even more. We made some serious amounts of green card courses and were part of the revolution that saw people in Poland finally start playing this game. We hosted families, events and Polish golfers who for the first time found Sand Valley and as far as we see it – are sure to come back next year! Golf really was the safe way to enjoy fresh air and exercise while Pandemia surrounded us all.

We also sold Villas and apartments. We sold a lot of them. Interestingly all of them were sold to people who took part in this “Polish Invasion ❤”. In fact, within a year we are going from 130 beds to over 200. It looks like Sand Valley is growing faster than ever. Next year will also see our Pelican apartments and Pool Club finished and there is a lot more to come.

Our Team is already preparing for the 2021 season and we are all hopeful and optimistic that 2021 will be a year when things will turn around and the world will once more be open for travel. We would also like to thank all of you fantastic people that visited us this year – it is you who have made it possible for us to keep living the dream here at Sand Valley!

Happy new year to all of you and CU at SV ❤”

Antti Pohjonen

Poland’s Best Golf Course 2020: Sand Valley Golf Resort

World Golf Awards prize as the Best Golf Course in Poland continues the well-documented history of Sand Valleys recognition as one of the TOP100 golf properties in Continental Europe. As one of the most prestigious awards in the world it also gives a clear signal that Sand Valley together with Polish golf is one of the hottest new destinations for 2021 golf holidays!

Despite the many challenges that the golf tourism and hospitality industry has faced in this most unprecedented of years, votes were cast by hundreds of thousands of golf consumers from a record 129 countries. Strong support has also come from the leading golf industry professionals and media from every single participating nation in the programme. I can happily report that the appetite for golf tourism has never been as keen, as golf fans pushed for World Golf Awards to continue, and for the leaders in our industry to be acknowledged and rewarded. This bodes well for golf tourism’s future as the global recovery begins.

With all of this taken into account, this year’s World Golf Awards winners are more deserving than ever before. Rewarding your commitment to excellence, whatever the challenges, and the determination to become the undisputed market leader.

Chris Frost
Managing Director
World Golf Awards

This has been a challenging year in our industry and winning the Best Golf Course in Poland really means a lot for our Team – after all it was voted by all of you fantastic people! We take this recognition as a motivation to keep perfecting the golf holiday experience for the years to come. For the season 2021 we wish that all of you will #visitusagain and by doing so, get to see the new Pelican apartments that are currently under construction!

Antti Pohjonen

Sand Valley’s CEO

The season starts to come to its end and we are already looking towards the next season. We are proud to announce that the construction of the Pelican Apartments has started this week! All of the units have been sold to the investors and they will be ready to rent from July 2021! Now a few words from our CEO @Antti Pohjonen on how this development came to be and why it is called the “Pelican”.

Sand Valley is full of luxurious Villas with private pools, saunas and everything that you can wish for from your holiday home. That being said, for some time it has been obvious that we were unable to cater to the needs of couples and smaller groups as our Villas were simply too big for them. Something needed to be done and I knew it had to be something that fits nicely to the existing Villas.

The real spark for this development came from my business trip in February 2019. I was lucky enough to be hosted by The Resort at Pelican Hills in Newport Beach, CA. There I finally saw something that would perfectly fit to our needs – a flexible real estate concept where you can connect 1 & 2 bedroom units and therefore rent your units out to 2, 4 or 6 people – that was exactly something that Sand Valley needed! When I came back, I started to design these units keeping in mind our clients needs and here we are. I know that together with the joint Pool & Beach Club this complex will be simply epic!”

When it comes to naming this project I simply followed my instinct. I thought it would be suitable to name these units according to the place where I had the idea, after all our Resort dog is called GIN and there’s a reason for that name too 😉

Here are a few renderings on how the new units will look like once they are finished. Let’s see all of you fantastic people next year and in the meantime – let’s stay healthy and soldier through this Covid filled winter in the comfort of our own homes!

Sand Valley TEAM
ps. Summary of this season is coming soon!