FIELDREPORT Hasta La Manga
Spain’s oldest and most prestigious golf resort is looking better than ever. Paul Trow recently visited aſter an absence of several years and discovered it was still the perfect destination for a winter tune-up
rival and neighbouring consortiums jostling to take advantage of Murcia’s relatively unspoilt Costa Calida coastline, La Manga Club remains unchallenged as the province’s principal, and longest-established, golf destination. With an annual average of 320 days’ sunshine
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a year, La Manga Club is sandwiched between the low hills that separate the Mediterranean from the Mar Menor Sea. Just a 20-minute drive from Murcia-San Javier airport and an hour from Alicante, it sprawls across 1,400 acres – three times the size of Monaco, according to the marketing pitch. Its golf offering consists of three 18-hole
layouts (plans are advanced to build a fourth over the next couple of years), a par-47 pitch- and-putt maze, a David Leadbetter teaching academy, a full-sized practice area that caters for every department of the game – ideal for groups – and even ‘crazy golf’. Accommodation ranges from the five-star
Principe Felipe Hotel and four-star Las Lomas village to self-contained apartments and townhouses while non-golfing sports facilities spread over various ‘communities’ include a 28- court tennis centre and eight grass pitches that can be used for football, rugby and cricket. As well as hosting Davis and Fed Cup
matches, La Manga Club is the official overseas training resort of the Lawn Tennis Association. It
or more than four decades, the hub of the golf tourism industry in south-east Spain has been La Manga Club. Even today, with
is also regularly visited by leading club and international football teams for warm-weather training and, to a lesser extent, by rugby and cricket squads. All this is not to forget the on-site spa (featuring
13 treatment rooms, a fully-equipped fitness centre and 25-metre indoor swimming pool), an extensive range of meeting, banqueting and incentive facilities, more than 20 restaurants and bars, a delightful Mediterranean beach cove, and miles of trails for walking, riding or triathlon training. But the heartbeat of the resort, with three
markedly contrasting courses, is golf. The South, home to five Spanish Opens during the 1970s and the Ladies European Tour Qualifying School from 2009-12, and North were designed coming up to 45 years ago by Californian professional Robert Putman at the invitation of American entrepreneur and club founder Gregory Peters. Arnold Palmer returned to the scene of his
thrilling 1975 Spanish Open victory to upgrade the South in 1993 and around a decade ago it received a further faceliſt along with the North. Meanwhile, the West course opened in 1996 when the late Dave Thomas extended the former nine-hole La Princesa. All three have made it into the top-40 in the
Factfile Paul Trow flew with Monarch, which operates daily flights to Alicante from Birmingham, Leeds Bradford, London Gatwick, London Luton and Manchester with fares, including taxes, from £37 one way (£67 return). For further information, see
www.monarch.co.uk. Both easyJet and Ryanair fly to Murcia-San Javier from various UK airports and, from March 27, Aer Lingus will operate four flights a week from Dublin to Murcia-San Javier.
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Top 100 Golf Courses website’s latest rankings, and director of golf Eduardo Ruiz said: “Spain has a great number of fantastic golf courses so for all three to be ranked so highly is wonderful news for the resort. This is further reward for the major investment that La Manga Club has made in its golf product.” The South, a relatively flat layout
yet blessed with teasingly undulating greens, appears
spacious from most tees despite the palm trees that frame nearly every hole. But this is an optical illusion and the recent restoration work has brought both the bunkering and water hazards more surreptitiously, and dangerously, into play. Treacherous ‘barrancas’ (rocky storm gullies
as wide as rivers) meander through all of La Manga’s courses, though less so on the North. A good deal shorter and easier than the South, and hillier, the North is still a significant test, especially if the breeze gets up. Palm trees line most fairways and the back nine is dotted with half a dozen, potentially card-wrecking ponds. The younger West, distinct in character and
appearance from the South and North (the trees are mainly conifers), is set apart from its stable- mates half a mile away in the wooded hills overlooking the resort. Accuracy is paramount on this testing, and oſten infuriating layout, with frequent changes of elevation, blind shots, sharp doglegs and narrow fairways to contend with. From bitter experience, I can attest that a useful tip when tackling the West is to put nothing longer than a rescue club in the bag – ever! But at least the West has its own clubhouse and bar, so sorrows can be drowned instantaneously. As a result of continued investment,
innovation and commitment to excellence by the resort’s various owners since Peters relinquished the reins in the mid-1980s, La Manga Club is rightly recognised as one of Spain’s flagship resorts: Mediterranean golf at its most desirable. * The La Manga Club International Pro-Am on
the PGAs of Europe’s tournament schedule takes place next month, from February 15-17.
www.lamangaclub.com
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