The Bay Course, Costa Navarino

The verdict

The Bay is the most playable and most photogenic of Costa Navarino's four courses, and for most visitors it is the round they remember. It is short on the card, but the card lies: a slope of 141 from the back tees, constant elevation change and the wind funneling off the Bay of Navarino ask for shotmaking the yardage never hints at. The two holes that run directly along the water, with Pylos shining across the bay, are the postcard, and four greens sit framed against the sea.

Jones routed the course in three distinct acts: seaside holes at the bottom of the property, canyon holes played from elevated tees across box canyons, and grove holes that thread more than a thousand mature olive trees, some over five centuries old, that were moved and replanted when the resort was built. Since the rerouting that came with the new Bay Clubhouse, the round begins and ends at the door. It is resort golf of genuine quality in a setting no other course in Greece can match, and the sensible companion round to the longer Dunes Course up the road.

The holes worth the trip

The second is the early jewel, a par 3 hard against the bay with Pylos across the water from the tee; anything long is gone, so miss short if you miss at all. The seventh, a par 5 the resort itself calls the toughest hole on the course, bends past trouble on both sides to a wildly undulating green with deep bunkers guarding the right, and the percentage approach comes in from the left.

The eighth is the shortest hole on the entire resort, barely a hundred meters from the back tees, but it sits at the highest, most exposed point of the property and plays anything from wedge to mid iron as the wind decides. The tenth is the view the course is sold on, a par 3 from a tee high over the Bay of Navarino to a small, fiercely defended green where one or two extra clubs are standard advice.

The seventeenth is the closer that matters, a par 4 running straight down the bay with water the whole way up the right and a putting surface partly hidden from the tee. Hold your line up the left, take the par and walk to the eighteenth grateful. It is one of the best closing stretches in Mediterranean resort golf.

Where to stay, and the other courses

Costa Navarino runs four hotels, all open in 2026: The Romanos, a Luxury Collection resort, and The Westin Resort Costa Navarino share the Navarino Dunes site, the adults oriented W Costa Navarino sits on the waterfront about six hundred meters from the Bay Course, and the Mandarin Oriental Costa Navarino overlooks Navarino Bay half a kilometer away. The Mandarin and the W are the natural bases for golfers prioritizing the Bay Course; the Dunes hotels suit families and put you beside the resort's original course. Browse rates here: [HOTEL_AFFILIATE_LINK].

The golf now runs four courses deep. Bernhard Langer's Dunes Course, the 2010 original, is the championship test by the sea at Navarino Dunes. Up at Navarino Hills, Jose Maria Olazabal delivered two par 72s in 2022, the International Olympic Academy Golf Course, at 6,366 meters the longest on the resort with views over the bay, and the more rural Hills Course alongside. Green fees are the same across all four, which makes a five round week an easy itinerary: Bay twice, Dunes twice, and a day on the Hills.