Real Golf de Pedrena

The verdict

Real Golf de Pedrena is one of the spiritual homes of Spanish golf. The English architect Harry Colt routed the original eighteen in 1929 across a hilly, pine and eucalyptus covered headland on the south shore of Santander Bay, in the green, soft, often misty corner of the country known as Green Spain. It is a parkland in the British tradition rather than a sun baked resort course, and it feels closer to Surrey or Berkshire than to the Costas.

What gives Pedrena its place in golf history is the boy who grew up alongside it. Severiano Ballesteros was born in the village in 1957, the son of a farming family, and learned the game caddying at the club and hitting balls on the beach below with a single rusty three iron. The improvised genius of his short game, the imagination that won five major championships, was forged here. Walking Pedrena is walking the ground where the most charismatic player Europe has produced taught himself to play, and the club wears that history quietly and well.

The holes worth the trip

Colt used the natural fall of the headland to give Pedrena its rhythm. The fairways climb and tumble between mature stands of pine and eucalyptus, the greens are perched on plateaus and shelves, and the views open out repeatedly over the blue of Santander Bay and the Cubas estuary. It is a course of position rather than power, where the line off the tee dictates the angle into greens that reject the careless approach. The slopes mean a flat lie is a luxury, and reading the run of the land is half the test.

The sea air keeps the turf soft and the conditions changeable, and a still day can give way to a damp Atlantic breeze within an hour, which is part of the character. There is nothing tricked up about the design; this is classic Colt strategy, asking you to think your way around rather than overpower it. The shorter holes are particularly good, framed by trees and falling to greens where the recovery game, the very art Seve perfected here, is regularly called upon.

For the travelling golfer, Pedrena is a pilgrimage as much as a round. Pair it with the wider golf of Cantabria and the Basque coast, and you have a trip through the cool, green, underrated north of Spain that most visitors never see, anchored by a course that means more to the game than its modest yardage suggests.

Where to stay nearby

The elegant seaside city of Santander, with its grand belle epoque hotels around the Sardinero beach and the Magdalena peninsula, is the obvious base, a short ferry or drive from the course.

For a wider tour of Green Spain many visitors continue west into Asturias or east to the Basque coast and San Sebastian, combining the golf with some of the best food in Europe, all within comfortable reach of Pedrena.

Looking for a base? See our recommended hotels and resorts near Santander.