Officially opened in 1964, Real Club de Golf Sotogrande was the first course Robert Trent Jones designed in Europe and is blessed with his design philosophy, which consists of building courses perfectly integrated with the natural surroundings. It offers long tees, wide fairways and elevated greens delicately molded and very fast, which embody the biggest difficulty of the course. Of the 100 or so bunkers on the course, 69 are placed around the greens, which warn the player to have great accuracy when attacking the pins. The variety of holes is another characteristic of this course; variety not only in shape and distances, but in its vegetation: the mixture of cork oaks, pine trees, palm trees and an abundance of other species provides the course with a wonderful personality and beauty.
A round of golf on Real Club de Golf Sotogrande is very well balanced. On the front 9 holes 4 and 7 will highlight good examples of the risk factor which Trent Jones rewards by asking the players to choose whether a hole should be a difficult par or an easy bogey. These can also be said of holes 13 and 15 on the back 9.
This is a fascinating course for players, as it retains all the natural beauty of the land on which it was built, less than 500 feet from the Mediterranean. See for yourself why Robert Trent Jones chose this course as one of his five favorites from more than 500 courses he designed worldwide.
