Sherry Golf Jerez

It's a long course — 6,572 metres, one of the longest in the province — and yet it frightens no one. The fairways are wide and the greens large: the difficulty isn't in tightness, it's in where the hazards have been placed. That's the formula that defines it, and it isn't an easy one to pull off: accessible to the amateur, demanding for the professional. It opened in 2004, designed by the British studio Stirling & Martin, and in just two years earned what takes other courses decades: since 2006 it has hosted the second stage of qualifying for the PGA European Tour, the school where players who want the circuit's card come through. The Copa del Rey, the Copa de la Reina and the Volvo Masters Amateur have also passed through here. It also has a nine-hole pitch and putt, par 27, where the afternoon ends when there's no time for another long round — and where the day is often really decided. And it sits inside Jerez itself: the wineries, the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art and the race circuit, a step away.