Óbidos · Óbidos Lagoon · Silver Coast

Bom Sucesso

Holes18 (really 27) · par 73

DesignDonald Steel

Óbidos15 min

Lisbon1 h

Photos courtesy of Bom Sucesso, for exclusive use on this page.

Here, every 18 holes is really 27. The extra nine are booked the same day on the course itself, at no cost, so a normal round turns into a long day whenever your legs ask for it. We haven't found this anywhere else in the catalogue. Donald Steel designed it — the British architect who restored half a dozen Open courses — and it's a par 73 of 5,774 metres built into a hillside running down to the Óbidos Lagoon, with the holes tracing a spiral that ends back at the clubhouse. It isn't the hardest of the area's four courses, and that's exactly what's asked of it: it's the home course, the one you play on the first day and the last, the one that's forgiving to someone fresh off the plane. The resort is built as an eco-development, with contemporary architecture spread across the hillside, and the accommodation is three-bedroom villas, not hotel rooms. Walled Óbidos is fifteen minutes away; Lisbon, an hour.