Alvor · Portimão · Algarve
Penina
Photos courtesy of Penina, for exclusive use on this page.
This is where it all began, and it began over rice paddies. Sir Henry Cotton, three-time British Open champion, built the Championship in 1966 over a plain with no relief at all, and planted the eucalyptus trees one by one to give shape to what had none. It was the Algarve's first 18-hole course. Sixty years later it's still a par 73 of 6,273 metres with a record no other Portuguese course can match: it has hosted the Portuguese Open ten times, more than anywhere else in the country. And its main defence is still the same one from back then — water, inherited from the paddies' old irrigation channels, crossing the course again and again. Around it, Alvor is still a fishing village with a working harbour, three and a half kilometres of beach and boardwalks over the estuary. It's the most Portuguese, least expensive stretch of the Algarve, which is why it's the base for six of our programmes, from a three-night bridge to a full month of winter.
The second round of the day is free. Next to the Championship is the Resort Course: nine holes, par 35. And the second round on the same day doesn't cost anything — no other resort in the catalogue repeats that, and it's what turns a week here into far more golf than the paper says.
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.