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La Duquesa Golf Hotel.
The doors are soon to open at the totally renovated La Duquesa Golf Hotel situated between Estepona and Sotogrande. This is a great location for all types of golfers. The nearby port provides ample nightlife and it is within 15 minutes of the Sotogrande cluster of courses and has another 3 courses on its doorstep including the on-site La Duquesa course.
Club de Golf Finca Cortesín (Estepona)
This soon to open, Cabell Robinson designed ( La Reserva & Santana fame) is set to become a serious option for the discerning golfer. At nearly 7,000 meters it will be one of the longest courses in Europe. It is situated just south of Estepona before Estepona Golf Club.
Finca Cortesín will also boast a Jack Nicklaus Academy.
A welcome feature of the course will be its wide fairways and variety tee-boxes 40 meters in front of the championship tees. High Season green-fees will be €89.
Sounds good, but we will withhold judgement until we receive the invite to play it!
Calanova Golf Club
Located on the road between Cala de Mijas and La Cala this is an 18-hole, par 72, 5.866 metre long course.
The Greens have an average area above 500 sqm, which for those of you who don’t measure greens, is big!. Players will find them very exciting due to an extraordinary shaping work. This characteristic will allow a lot of pin positions, from the very simple to the most difficult ones.
There are a variety of fairway layouts . All of them are wide in the ball drop areas and clear, so that the player can see the obstacles before hitting the ball.
The Tees are spread in different platforms, providing the players the possibility of playing the course with a huge variety of distances. This number of platforms will ensure the excellent condition of tee-boxes throughout the year. From every single tee, players can visualise the shot which makes the flight of the ball spectacular.
There are extraordinary landscape views, including sea and La Cala de Mijas Mountains, in nearly every hole.
At the moment Calanova Golf Club has a 300 sqm temporary club house where you can find a pro shop, changing rooms with showers, reception and a restaurant with spectacular sea views from the terrace.
High season prices at €70 including a shared buggy are “reasonable”.
Calanova Golf Club - The First Fairway |
San Roque New comes of age
With the successful hosting of the Spanish Open earlier this year, the New course at San Roque has put all its teething problems behind it. The complete reseeding of greens and tee-boxes means that the unsightly brown greens during high season will be a thing of the past. In addition, the powers to be have seen fit to drop prices considerably making it very affordable – the high-season price is €89 down from a pre-open price of €135! Sense is beginning to prevail.
La Cala Rebranding.
Those of you who are familiar with La Cala North and South will have to learn their new names as follows:
- North becomes “America Course”
- South becomes “Asia Course”
- And the new Europe course stays unchanged!
Malaga Airport Chaos.
The chaos accompanying the rebuilding of Malaga Airport continues and will not let up until at least the autumn. Golf Experience clients can still avoid this with the excellent service (meet & greet) provided by Espacar whose depot at the entrance to the airport is a convenient drop off point when the car-park is closed, which is nearly always. | 
Sergio Gomez. 