Óbidos · Right on the Beach · Portugal
It's really two courses in one. The front nine runs inland, among pines, tight and positional: classic parkland. The back nine drops to the Atlantic and turns into a genuine links, right on the beach, with the wind deciding almost every shot. That back nine is the reason to come. These are true links holes — the kind played running the ball along the ground and reading the wind — but with twenty degrees more than Scotland, in the middle of January. For a British or Scandinavian traveller, that contrast is the whole argument. Cabell Robinson designed it in 1997 and it's the longest of the area's four courses: a par 72 of 6,405 metres. It sits next to West Cliffs, with a free transfer from Bom Sucesso, and the beach is literally right alongside the course.
A January links at twenty degrees. Links golf was invented where it's cold. Here you play the same golf — running shots, wind, real bunkers — in short sleeves, in the middle of winter. It's the easiest sell in the whole catalogue.
Would rather play it from another hotel, or in another combination? Tell us and we'll put together a firm-priced proposal.