Villa Padierna Flamingos

The verdict

The stretch of coast west of Marbella is crowded with golf, but the Los Flamingos estate stands apart for atmosphere. Antonio Garcia Garrido, one of Spain's most accomplished course architects and shapers, was given rolling foothill land between the mountains and the sea and dressed it like a Tuscan landscape: cypress avenues, olive groves, umbrella pines and a Roman styled palace hotel crowning the ridge. The golf earned its credentials quickly, hosting the European Senior Tour from 2002 to 2004 and the Ladies European Tour in 2010.

At 5,714 metres, par 71, Flamingos is not a long course, and that is the point. It is a second shot course, where elevation changes scramble your yardages, the undulating greens demand a precise miss as much as a good hit, and the views, down across the lakes to the Mediterranean and Gibraltar on a clear day, keep interrupting your pre shot routine. On a Costa del Sol week it is the elegant counterweight to the championship grind of Finca Cortesin and the Sotogrande heavyweights.

The golf worth the trip

Flamingos plays as a tour of its own estate. The front nine works through the lower ground, where lakes gather the eye and the water birds that named the course patrol the banks, before the routing begins to climb. The mid round holes are the postcard: fairways benched into the hillside, the white silhouette of the palace hotel above, and approach shots where picking the right club matters twice, once for the yardage and once for the slope.

Garcia Garrido's greens are the course's teeth. They are large, quick and full of subtle movement, and from above the hole the Costa del Sol's glassy resort surfaces become genuinely fast. The smart round here is conservative off the tee, aggressive into the flags only from below them. Mid handicappers can score well by accepting the course's invitations to lay back; long hitters who force the driver find the olive trees and the drop offs do the punishing.

The estate's other two courses complete the argument for a full day or a multi round pass: Alferini, the bigger, wilder championship test up the valley, and Tramores, the short course that settles the evening's debts. Between Marbella's classic mile, Los Naranjos and Las Brisas, twenty minutes east, and La Quinta in the hills behind, Flamingos anchors the most concentrated stretch of quality golf in southern Spain.

Where to stay nearby

The obvious answer crowns the course: the Anantara Villa Padierna Palace, the Roman styled estate hotel above the fairways, with golf privileges, a celebrated spa and the three courses out the front door. For groups who want nightlife with their golf, Marbella and Puerto Banus are 15 to 20 minutes east, with everything from beach clubs to apartment rentals that suit a buddies trip budget.

Estepona, ten minutes west, has grown into the connoisseur's base on this coast, an old town that still feels Andalusian, with kinder hotel rates. From any of the three, the day trips write themselves: Finca Cortesin and Sotogrande to the west, the Marbella classics to the east, and the white village of Benahavis, Spain's gastronomic mountain town, in the hills for dinner.

Looking for a base? See our recommended hotels and resorts around Marbella and Estepona.