Going for Golf

Real Club de Golf Campoamor

Alicante, on the Costa Blanca, is where many Madrilenos go for a holiday – it was the first seaside town to be linked to the capital by rail – and is replete with restaurants, tapas bars and nightclubs. But Benidorm, Spain’s largest resort about an hour’s drive north-east of Alicante, is especially popular with the British. Torrevieja, by contrast, is a veritable Mecca for golfers – and is, by definition, popular not only with the British but the Germans, Scandinavians and Dutch as well.

Other 18-hole courses near to Murcia that are definitely worth sampling include La Finca, Altorreal, Mosa Trajectum and Las Ramblas, but the jewel in the crown is Real Club de Golf Campoamor.

Some 30 miles south of Alicante, Campoamor is surrounded by a pine and cypress forest, and overlooks the shore stretching from Torrevieja to La Manga del Mar Menor. Shaped by ubiquitous orange, olive and fig groves, this 6,783-yard, par-72 layout, which opened in 1989, provides a pleasant and relatively gentle golfing experience. The resplendent colours of its numerous garrigue shrubs and flowers, most notably roses and jasmines, blend idyllically with the blue of the sea and the fresh Mediterranean breezes.

The course, designed by Carmelo Garcia and Gregorio Sanz, is not especially hilly but a few of the fairways slope quite markedly. With two short par-fours and several reachable par-fives, Campoamor should appeal to long hitters, but only a few bunkers guard the greens and a good score is available to golfers of all standards.

Afterwards, there can be nothing better than dining in the popular clubhouse restaurant where the local cuisine is presented with all the style and flavours that visitors have come to expect of Alicante and the whole region. There are two hotels on site and four other good golf courses within a three-kilometre radius. As well as golf, the resort hosts many social events and features a sport zone which includes a football pitch and tennis courts.