Special Places - Valderrama

With a three week break from the US PGA Tour, before the final event of the Fall Series which will decide the top 125 to retain playing privileges for next season, focus shifts to the European Tour where the third straight event is being played on the Iberian Peninsula. The Andalucia Valderrama Masters is being hosted at the Club de Golf Valderrama, at Sotogrande resort on southern Spain’s Costa de la Luz, just a short drive from Gibraltar.

Players jockeying for position in the rankings, as the Race to Dubai heats up, can measure themselves against this course, the first on Continental Europe to host the Ryder Cup in 1997. The layout was designed by famed American architect Robert Trent Jones, and like Augusta National it has an 18 hole championship course and a 9 hole par 3 course. Originally known as Sotogrande New and then Las Aves, Valderrama Golf Club has been the number one rated course in mainland Europe. Earlier this year the club was acquired by a consortium headed by golfing great Greg Norman. In addition to the Ryder Cup, Valderrama has hosted WGC Championships in 1999 and 2000, and is the current home of the Volvo Masters.

The course’s signature hole is the 520m par 5 fourth – la Cascada - which Trent Jones considered as probably his best par 5 and one of the finest in the world. The two-tier green is well protected by sand and water, and is reachable in two for the bravest long hitters, especially if the Levante wind is blowing in from the Mediterranean. This hole combines great scenic beauty with excellent shot values. The tenth – el Lago – is a 356m par 4 dogleg right skirting a lake. The short approach shot is played to an elevated green surrounded by artistically shaped bunkers and framed by mature cork trees. The great 420m par 4 dogleg left finishing hole provides two difficult options. The brave one is to cut off the angle and fly the ball over the trees to be left with a short iron to the green. The other choice is to find the safe landing area about 240m from the tee. This will leave a demanding long iron from the tree-lined fairway into a well-bunkered and slightly domed green.

At 6350m and playing to a par of 71 there may be longer, more difficult and more scenic courses in continental Europe, but Valderrama remains the benchmark against which all others are measured.