Real Club de Golf Sotogrande: the first Trent Jones course in Europe

A club at the centre of an estate

The Real Club de Golf Sotogrande begins with an estate rather than a fairway. The McMickings, an industrialist couple from the Philippines, saw this coast in 1962 and acquired five neighbouring farms, with the idea of building something like Palm Springs in southern Europe.

In the early 1960s they set out to create the best residential area of its time, and the golf club was meant to be the core and backbone of the whole project. The club was founded in 1964, and the course was inaugurated the same year.

It lies in Sotogrande, in the municipality of San Roque in the province of Cádiz, about 25 kilometres north-east of Gibraltar and just 150 metres from the Mediterranean. Sotogrande is a private community of about 25 square kilometres, running from the sea back into the foothills of the Sierra Almenara, and today it counts five golf courses.

Sotogrande is described as the largest privately owned residential development in Andalusia, with views of sea, hills, cork forests and green fairways, including the Rock of Gibraltar and Morocco. The marina, the port, was established in 1988.

Robert Trent Jones in Europe

Sotogrande was the first course Robert Trent Jones built in Europe. The American architect designed more than 500 courses around the world, and in his 1988 book “Golf Magnificent Challenge” he named this one among his five favourites.

The philosophy is easy to read on the ground. Courses, in Jones’s view, should sit naturally in their surroundings, set a real test for the best players, and still be enjoyable for everyone. Here that means long tees, wide fairways, and greens that are elevated, subtly shaped and fast, which is where much of the difficulty lies.

Of the hundred or so bunkers, 69 sit around the greens, so accuracy with the approach matters more than distance off the tee. The par-72 course measures 6,492 metres, and its character comes from the mix of cork oaks, pines and palm trees that line the holes.

The estate’s quality shows in the roll of winners: the club notes that the course has been won over the years by some of the best-known names in the European game.

A building of cultural interest

The clubhouse is part of the story as well. In 2008 the local government declared three buildings in Sotogrande to be of cultural interest, protecting them from reform or demolition, and one of them was the Real Club de Golf, by the architect Luis Gutiérrez Soto.

Another Jones course lies in the same municipality: Valderrama, in San Roque, was also designed by Jones and was created in its modern form by Jaime Ortiz-Patiño.

The roll of winners and the royal title

In 1994 King Juan Carlos I granted Sotogrande the title of Royal. The club points to the champions the course has produced over the years, among them Severiano Ballesteros, José María Olazábal, Roberto de Vicenzo, Sergio García, Padraig Harrington and Rory McIlroy.

Since its foundation the club has had seven presidents, from Alfredo Melián, who served from 1964 to 1979, through Emma Villacieros de García-Ogara, Walter Rodríguez Figueroa, José Antonio Polanco, Antonio Martín Urquijo and Felipe Oriol Díaz de Bustamante, to the present president, Jaime Salaverri Aguilar.

Our advice: arrange your visit directly with the club, and if you are in the area for a few days, play it alongside Valderrama, which lies in the same municipality; early starts keep the Andalusian heat at bay.