Rota · Cádiz
Costa Ballena
Photo courtesy of Barceló Costa Ballena, for exclusive use on this page.
The long round finishes at midday, you have lunch, and in the afternoon you go back out without paying another green fee. A fourth piece almost no course has makes that possible: a nine-hole PAR 3 that serves as a second round on playing days. It completely changes what a week of golf can give you. The headline act is José María Olazábal's twenty-seven holes, opened in 1997 and split into three nine-hole loops that combine with each other: today's round doesn't have to be tomorrow's. There are lakes all across the layout and several holes running straight to the coast. It's a forgiving Olazábal — demanding on approach, forgiving off the tee — that works just as well for high handicaps as for a team in training camp. It sits between Rota and Chipiona, eight hundred metres from the beach — a ten-minute walk. Sanlúcar and its manzanilla are a quarter-hour away, El Puerto de Santa María twenty minutes, Cádiz forty.
Europe's best practice ground. The Swedish PGA says so, and national teams use it as a winter training base. It's not a brochure line: it's why groups travelling with a professional do so well here.
Where it's played
Would rather play it from another hotel, or in another combination? Tell us and we'll put together a firm-priced proposal.