A view of the widespread corteine Finca in Casares, Spain.
Courtesy FINCA CORTESS
Some golf courses are celebrated for their enigmatic character, about how they do not fully reveal you – at least not immediately. Those appearances, whether classic of the golden age or modern miracle, gradually illuminate players over time. They distribute their secrets slowly through numerous rounds; And only after many attempts to play and study those roads and greens for players to understand what is required to play well there.
Championship Golf Course at Corteine In Casares, Spain, is not one of those courses.
By the time you walk from the first green, you will have a general understanding of what is in the store for the rest of your round. Once you have played the first third of the submission, you will have eventually know
After my initial round, while sitting for a bite to eat at the pool restaurant at the resort, I joined José “Nacho” Ignacio Olea Zorita, Golf Director of Finca Cortessi. Almost immediately, our conversation reinforced my initial course impressions.
“How did you play today?” he asked. “And how many balls did you miss?”
In their merit, these two questions can be mutually exclusive. Most of the time in Finca Cortessi, however, they are related to the cause.
I told him I played quite well – I had posted a score of 76, four more, which by my standards is a very strong round of golf. As for his second investigation, I kept a single finger.
“Oh, you done Play well! “He stated.
In most cases, a player’s end result tells the story. Not in Finca Cortessi. It was quite clear that Olea was more impressed by my second answer than the first.
Courtesy FINCA CORTESS
It extends beyond the 7,400 yards from the tips, the Finca Cortein Championship course is a Cabell Robinson design, around 2006, which gradually shakes up and down; However, there are some cases where changes in height are more severe. It is a good mix of doglegs in both directions, also, with a small portion of blind shooting thrown for good mass.
“It is not particularly narrow,” Olea said about the course and he is right. The corridors of the game, especially the landing areas, are smooth. That is to say, as long as you play from Tees’ right group about how far you can hit it.
“For a low handicap or an amateur with a distance, if they are going to play the course more than once, I always tell them to play the first round from the yellow tees just to take a look and a feeling for it,” Olea said. “Then, in their second round, they have to go back to the whites. But if the same player, who can hit ball 260, 270 or 280 yard away, there will be only one go to it, I always tell them to play whites. The course will bite you but not a beast. Then the yellows in the par-3s. “
Playing from tee that allow you to hit the driver in those generous sized landing areas is essential, as it is what is emerging on the outskirts of the play corridors that presents a problem. In Finca, very few holes go parallel to one another. The dense vegetation also lists the edges of the playing fields, which means balls that are sprinkled to the left or right – or even shots flirting with the edge and get a bad bounce – are likely to be lost.
According to Nicolas Colsaerts, who won the last of the three Volvo World Match match championships in Finca Cortessi (in 2012), the course clearly shows the shooting Robinson intended to hit the players in different points throughout the round. This is especially true in the shots of access, given that some greens consist of clearly separated sections from the bold contours. In all those sections, the placement surfaces can only be sloping from one staircase or two, but here, less than two miles from the Alboran Sea, the syllable and attraction of the Bermuda grain was different from everything I had experienced anywhere else.
“Medium -sized greens are where it actually becomes quite spicy,” Olea said. “With the grain from the Bermuda grass, it makes some delicate slopes very interesting.”
Courtesy FINCA CORTESS
Understanding the attraction of the greens, the positioning of the most generous landing areas for each hole, and the inherent dangers that hold certain shots is not something that comes overnight, even if the course detects too much of it. Being aware of those features and adapting your game to accommodate them are two completely separate enterprises. It is for this reason that members of FINCA Cortesin enjoy a significant advantage in the field at home during local matches, cross-clubs. “Usually, members from other clubs are afraid of the left, they are scared of the right and they are scared of the grains in the greens,” Olea said. “Our members usually sail through those matches.”
Not even the team went to the victory when Finca Cortess received Solheim Cup in 2023. The Americans went to bed with a two-point lead after the first day of competition, but the result of the event was linked 8-me-8 after the second day and ended in a 14-in-14 draw, after the last matches ended.
Similarly, in 1997, when the Ryder Cup was held at the true real club Valderrama, the Europeans closely brought a one -point win. Needless to say, Spain’s Costa del Sol region prides itself on an impressive history of the elite competition of the match, but which underlines the important role that Golf plays in general in the region. With 85 seats in the area, Costa del Sol prides itself on the highest density of golf courses throughout continental Europe, which is why, in the right company, the region refers to another nickname: Costa del Golf.
Within this region, Finca Cortessi, Valderrama and Real Club de Golf Sotogrande form an unparalleled golf triumvirat. The latter, according to Olea’s estimate, is a wonderful park course that probably plays more as a resort course of all three. Valderrama, on the other hand, challenges the players in ways that Finca cannot. Its narrow, trees -bound roads are sure to ensure visual intimidation; And while you are unlikely to lose golf balls for strange shots just like you can in Finca Cortes, well -hit shots in Valderrama can sometimes present their unique challenges.
“You can hit a very good blow and find out that you are behind a tree in the center of the road,” Olea said. “Is another problem of cash.”
Courtesy FINCA CORTESS
Playing all three courses while you are in this region, about 45 miles south of the city of Malaga, is a must; However, the sequence of those rounds depends on you. As for staying, there may be no better home base than Finca Cortessi. Moded after a country’s palatal house for nobility, the 67 -room hotel is a fascinating old and new dichotomy. The general feeling you get inside the hotel, restaurants and its bathroom is one of the modernity, which is expected given that the whole structure was designed and built less than two decades ago.
However, seemingly wherever you turn, ancient decorative accents – from artwork to massive wooden doors – inject the property with a strong sense of history. Even better, the resort acts mainly as a lifestyle and a withdrawal of health that so has a world -class golf course, not the other way around.
Golf, of course, can be a main motivation for some guests visiting the region, and the three above mentioned courses work together to promote the experience that the thirsty golf can have a visit to Costa del Sol. “We consider ourselves a destination,” Olea said.
The same can be said for FINCA Cortess, itself.
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