It was 1975 when the fourth golf course of what would eventually become the municipality with the most golf facilities in Spain (now 15) was inaugurated in Marbella.
In a location privileged by nature -in the Golf Valley, five minutes from Puerto Banús- and the microclimate provided by the Sierra de la Concha mountain range with its protection from the north winds, the most prestigious Spanish golf course designer of all times, Javier Arana, created one of his great masterpieces: Aloha Golf.
The seal of the exceptional Basque designer was not only reflected in the splendid golf course, but also in the choice of the type of trees and plants that would populate the course, with the idea of being able to enjoy flowering specimens at any time of the year.
Aloha, certainly, is a course to delight not only with the great challenge of golf, but also with the vision and fragrance of the lush nature that frames the entire layout.
This course has hosted three times the Open de Andalucía, a tournament of the European Tour, and once the Open de España Femenino, belonging to the Ladies European Tour. The first Open de Andalucía, held in 2007, was won by Englishman Lee Westwood with a total of 268 strokes, 20 under par. The British player set the course record at 64, and that victory ended his win drought, establishing a turning point in his career, which culminated in his elevation to world number 1, dethroning Tiger Woods himself a couple of years after his victory at Aloha.
In 2008, the victory at the Marbella club went to the Frenchman Thomas Levet, with 272 strokes, after a playoff against Oliver Fisher. The third event of that tournament in Aloha took place in 2012 and ended with another French victory, that of Julien Quesne, with an overall score of 271 strokes.
The Women’s Spanish Open, held here last year, was won for the first time by a Spaniard, and also by a player from Malaga, Azahara Muñoz. The great golfer from Marbella won, with 278 strokes, 10 under par, to the American Beth Allen by one stroke difference.
Major improvements
Aloha, in its aim to present a course in perfect condition at all times, has been making the necessary investments for years to achieve this goal. It has now reopened the course after having been closed for three months for a major renovation.
The director of the Marbella club, Juan Álvarez, explains what it consisted of: “Basically the main work has been the improvement of the irrigation system to achieve a perfect irrigation coverage through a perfect triangulation of the new sprinklers and an individual control of each one of them, which from the point of view of agronomic management of the field will give us a very, very good tool for it to present fantastic conditions”.
“Thanks to this new irrigation system,” continues Álvarez, “it will improve the maintenance of the course, the playability and aesthetics and will save water and energy, all of this so that the members will have the course in very good condition all year round, which is the objective”.
Undoubtedly, the important work of all those involved in the maintenance of the golf course -with Angel Chacón at the head- and the programs implemented by Troon, together with the improvements made, will mean a qualitative leap of the highest level for Aloha. Rod Spinks, the club’s course captain, deserves a special mention for his enormous dedication and support to the entire team.
More performances
In addition to the improvement of the irrigation system described above, other actions have been carried out in this historic Costa del Sol course during the three months it has been closed. “We have renewed all the platforms of the tees, we have carried out quite intensive work on the pinch, the elimination of organic matter on the greens, we have fixed certain areas of the paths, we have carried out work that has improved both the aesthetics and the playability of the course”, says the director of the club, a great connoisseur of the subject thanks to his training as an agronomist engineer.
“Also,” he adds, “we have done a very important work of bermuda recovery in the roughs, and then we have carried out very intensive maintenance work in the rest of the field, in the fairways, antegreens, bunkers…, and we have also renewed the machinery park.”
Thanks to all these actions, “we have a solid base so that we can now offer our members a course in excellent maintenance conditions, because with respect to the design, being an Arana course, everything has been said”.
Aloha Golf is one of the courses on the coast with the greatest profusion, variety and beauty of trees, a real orchard to enjoy visually while advancing on the course, which also has splendid views of the sea. And in order to catalog the club’s arboreal wealth, an inventory of all the specimens is being made. “It was something necessary because here we have a great variety of species: pines, carob trees, olive trees, palm trees, araucarias, wild olive trees… The flora of Aloha is undoubtedly very rich and varied,” says Álvarez.
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Easy bogey, difficult torque
Regarding the course itself, the director of Aloha Golf sums up the definition of the course in a very illustrative way: “easy bogey, difficult par, which means that players with average handicaps enjoy it”.
“It’s not a course that involves losing balls,” he continues, “and the design helps the average player a lot, but in the end Arana made it difficult for the good player to get a good result. In other words, the course is very well designed, and it is also a lot of fun to play; it is said to be the classic course that you can play every day and it is not monotonous at all: it always shows something new”.
When it comes to highlighting some of the holes of this parkland course, of 6,293 meters and par 72, Álvarez mentions all the par 3s, “very good and demanding”, although if he had to highlight just one hole at Aloha Golf it would be the 18th (par 4 of 410 meters from white and 380 from yellow). “As a final hole, and even if it wasn’t, it’s a hole that has something special: it’s not difficult and it’s not easy, you don’t make birdies easily and it can end in drama if you fall in the water on the left… In fact, in the Spanish Open Women’s Championship between Azahara Muñoz and Beth Allen, the American threw her into the water on the 18th.
Lively social life
Aloha Golf, a club presided over by lawyer Rafael Fontán, has 1,200 members, with a predominance of British, Scandinavian and Spanish nationalities, although there are citizens from a wide variety of countries, and is characterized by its lively and intense social life.
“There’s always a great atmosphere, we’ve been closed for three months for renovations and obviously it’s been a little bit noticeable, but the practice area and par 3’s have been kept open, so members have kept coming back.” Álvarez points out that one of the many incentives that help the club’s active social life is the high quality of the restaurant, managed by Fermín Muñoz.
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