Ten minutes away from the famous Puerto Banús stands a 9 holes par 36 full of pleasant surprises for the player: El Higueral Golf. Located in the municipality of Benahavís, it is a quality course highly appreciated by residents and visitors to the Costa del Sol.
Since its inauguration seven years ago, in November 2007, El Higueral Golf has not only matured as a course but has also become a reference thanks to a successful combination of qualities.
Rod Bastard’s excellent design on a gently undulating terrain has created a beautiful course, very well balanced, charismatic, stylish and engaging. It surprises when you play it for the first time and you will fall in love with it the second time, in spite of having only 9 holes open until the rest of the course is built. At the moment it has two par 3’s, two par 5’s and five par 4’s. Holes 4 and 6 are really beautiful.
The course has the perfect level of difficulty to make the game fun but not difficult. Although buggies are allowed on the fairways, it is perfectly walkable and usually plays in less than two hours per round. Another quality of this course is that the distances between ladies’ and gentlemen’s tees are very well balanced, and this ensures a fairer and more competitive game for the ladies. In addition, the level of maintenance of the course is very high.
The small provisional clubhouse, the parking, the bar and the terrace are located in the same area, so that everything is very comfortable, fast and pleasant. The atmosphere at El Higueral Golf is familiar, positive and relaxed, with attentive and very efficient staff.
Pricing Policy
As for the pricing policy, it is very consistent with the quality offered and the demand it has. The green fee for 9 holes is 33 euros, and the twilight costs 25. For very keen golfers, you can play all day for only 45 euros.
In addition, for those customers who want to play El Higueral with a certain frequency, a flexible subscription system has been designed, so that the more you play, the less you pay.
The designer and director of this quality 9-hole course is a Kenyan-born professional who first came to the Costa del Sol with his parents in 1978. They stopped here on their way to London in a light aircraft owned by his father, who loved the place because it reminded him in a way of Africa. The family settled here and bought a tennis club in Benahavís, El Madroñal.
Rod started playing golf quite late. He played tennis, and his tennis teacher at the U.S. university where he was studying was a golf enthusiast and introduced him to the game. Rod was 18 years old. Already as a professional golfer, he played the Challenge Tour and tried several times to make the leap to the big brother of that tour, the European Tour, but he had to combine work and competition and therefore could not devote body and soul to try to fulfill that dream.
His work experience in the golf industry has been previously linked to Los Arqueros and Marbella Club clubs, as well as to several golf stores.
His foray into the world of design came about in a somewhat serendipitous way. Rod recounts: “The company owned the land and a designer had already done a design of the course, but more land was acquired and my boss asked if something new could be done. So I made a drawing, taking advantage of the fact that there was routing, that you could go out and come back and all that, and I gave it to him. He told me that the design was nice, he came with a group from the company, we toured the land and he said go ahead.”
For Rod, the undeniable success of this course has a simple explanation: “The key is that people have fun here, because the design idea was not for a high-competition course that was going to give everyone a headache. The goal was to make it visually appealing so that it would be interesting and easy enough for all levels. With my design I want the better you play, the more obstacles you find, and the worse you play, the more you don’t find bunkers or problems in your drop zone. The goal is always to have fun.
Special Attention
When Rod came up with the design, he paid special attention to the ladies. “The ladies’ tees,” he explains, “are usually 15 yards forward, and that seemed a little unfair to me because you don’t give them the same options as the men. What I did here is to move them further forward so that a lady hitter would have the same options to get two on par 5s as a professional and thus have the option of eagle, or on a par 4 to be able to hit a drive. It’s not only the drive, but also with the irons the men get there more, so we have to give the ladies the same opportunities”.
When asked about his favorite holes, he says that “there are some that are surprising because people have in mind the 9-hole par 3 courses, and when you get to hole 4, which is a par 5 that goes down to a lake and they don’t know it’s there, they are surprised to discover a hole in that category.”
The 6th also stands out, with the riverbed on the left and with two tees that require an enormous flight of the ball over a ravine (the one called extreme requires a flight of 190 meters over the distant riverbed to return to the playing field), or hole 3 with its green almost on an island, like the 17th at the famous Sawgrass…. “Each one has its own charm,” says Rod.
As for the expansion of the course to 18 holes, the powerful business group that owns El Higueral is determined to do so as soon as it has all the administrative permits, which ultimately depend on the Junta de Andalucía.
The magnitude of the project is demonstrated by the fact that to link the current golf course with the new holes, on the other side of the Guadalmina River, the property will build a bridge and build a large section of road to divert the current road linking the town of Benahavís with the coast.
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