Swingers' paradise - Golfing in Costa del Sol

Dave Faulkner takes up the teetime challenge at the Costa del Sol‘s San Roque golf club.

Spring is in the air and the US Masters is on TV. Which is a clarion call to thousands of the UK’s mid-handicap golfers to dust down their clubs, wallets and passports and head south to the Algarve or Spain’s neighbouring stretch which boasts more than 40 golf resorts (some with two courses). Handicap certificates will be required, which means absolute beginners will not be welcome, but accompanying non-golfers can expect these luxurious destinations to offer spas, horse-riding, pools, local beaches and shopping.

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There’s a lot of building work going on along the Costa del Sol. East of Marbella they seem to have run out of space, so the sites are spreading westwards towards Gibraltar. Though perhaps the toughest construction assignment in the area has been handed to Jose of Seve Ballesteros’ Natural School of Golf, who has volunteered to rebuild my golf swing. The school is part of The San Roque Club, which also boasts two fantastic courses (‘the Old’ and ‘the New’), two superb restaurants – one Japanese, one Spanish – and riding facilities.
‘What do you play off?’ asks Jose.
‘Sixteen,’ I reply.
‘Not with that grip, you don’t,’ he grimaces.
A sharp knee to the back of my legs, a deft open-handed blow to my side, a shove of the shoulder and he steps back to admire his work. ‘Now half-swing and use your wrists,’ Jose insists.
‘Blimey!’ I declare.
‘Muy bien, si?’ and he saunters off to the next pupil in our group.
The next morning I’m booked for the Old Course, a monster that recently decimated a competition field of young professionals working to get on the European tour. ‘I wanna play it now,’ I shout after smashing a range ball 250 yards. Straight. After fading the previous one with a five-iron. Deliberately. Tomorrow will see the dawn of a new era…
‘That’s Tony Jacklin’s garden.’
‘D’you think it went in?’
‘Oh yeah. It’s probably in his pool.’
I re-tee my first shot of the day, cursing Jose to the delight of my playing partner and, with the starter staring intently over the top of his glasses only 20 yards behind me, revert to my old style just to get one away. Success.
We meander around the course – each bad shot is attributed to Jose, each good one is down to me.
London, just a two-and-a-half-hour flight away, is apparently chilly today, but here it’s T-shirt weather. Only the light cloud shielding the sun is stopping us contemplating a post-game dip in the resort’s considerable outdoor pool. Towering cranes line the horizon of each peak that surrounds this valley, forming a huge picket-fence effect. On the slopes, multi-coloured villas, each sporting a pool built on the edge of its own precipice, ooze opulence – any one of them could have been used in ‘Sexy Beast’. We discuss.
‘I’d go for the bungalow.’ A one-storey building, the majority of which is glass, supported by white cement and surrounded by a pool.
‘You can’t call that a bungalow.’
‘Well, it hasn’t got an upstairs and it would piss off the owner.’
‘Okay. You take the bungalow, I’ll have that one.’ A huge terracotta creation with a pool filled to overflowing, and a 500-foot drop should you forget yourself and get out the wrong side.
‘Good call.’
Tomorrow it’s the New Course and then, in the evening, homeward from Gibraltar’s infamous short runway where, on landing, they did everything except throw an anchor out of the window to bring our plane to a halt. But first I need to putt this for the hole…
A three-night break at The San Roque Club (www.sanroqueclub.com) costs from £369 per person including flights and B&B accommodation.
Two rounds of golf costs from £72 per person.
For further information and reservations contact Lotus Supertravel (020 7962 9494/ www.supertravel.co.uk).

Dave Faulkner
Time Out London Issue 1807: April 6-13 2005

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