Golf and haute cuisine merge in the kitchens and renowned courses of Andalusia. Chefs passionate about golf and golfers fans of good food regularly share a game and a table in the south of Spain.
"Golf and cooking have many things in common. Small details such as a bad arm movement and two extra minutes in the oven can radically change the golf or the dish," said Chef Dani García, who recently discovered the peace that comes with playing golf "no matter how many shots".
The Malaga-born chef with restaurants all over the world has a special memory of his attendance to the 2022 Masters, the year of Spaniard Jon Rahm's victory. "What I experienced at Augusta National far exceeds anything you can imagine," said Garcia before sitting down for lunch at the Real Club de Golf de Sotogrande during the final day of the DP World Tour's Estrella Damm N.A. Masters de Andalucía.
"We are probably in the golf club where you eat best in Europe and it is not easy to find a chef as good as Mikel Landa," adds Dani García about the director of hospitality at the RCG of Sotogrande.
"In 1999, the director and the president of the club came north in search of a head chef. A year and six months of trial turned into 25 years at the club, married and with children," says the chef originally from Zumarraga, in Basque Country. He has developed most of his gastronomic career in Sotogrande after passing through France and "touching some Michelin stars".
Although he has not played much, Mikel Landa is a great fan of golf and especially of the professional golfers who have enjoyed his food, from the American Matt Kuchar to the young David Puig, whom he accompanied during the last Open Championship in Royal Troon.
"We have a very good relationship, and he made a delicious Spanish omelet every morning. It was a fantastic experience," recalled Puig, twelfth in the Estrella Damm.
Like Landa, Belgian-born Andalusian Albert Croquet, owner of Asador El Gaucho in Sotogrande, has served and fed the world's best golfers in his restaurant since 1985.
When Tiger Woods won the World Golf Championship American Express at the Real Club de Golf de Valderrama in 1999, after an epic playoff against Andalusian Miguel Angel Jimenez, he celebrated at El Gaucho.
"When I took his order, he asked for a sirloin steak as a starter and a sirloin steak as a main course," he recalls of the American star's visit. "I'm a little golfer, although I like to compete more than play with friends," Croquet said.
The junior golf competitions and the school of La Cañada Club de Golf de Sotogrande propelled Lucía Martín and Mar García, the daughters of the two partners of the El Trasmallo de Agustino Restaurant, to high-level university golf in the United States.
"We all play golf, and we love golf," said Antonio Martin of his family and the staff at Trasmallo, uniformed with golf pants and polo shirts. "We've been with the restaurant since 2006 and we always have professional players and the occasional celebrity coming to see us," he added.
Antonio Martín and his partner, Armando García, have experienced the heyday of major golf events in the area, like the 1997 Ryder Cup at the Real Club de Golf de Valderrama and the 2023 Solheim Cup at Finca Cortesín, where the young culinary promise Luis Olarra, chef of Restaurant REI, fed both Europeans and Americans.
During the 2024 Solheim Cup at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Virginia, United States, another internationally renowned Spanish chef and regular visitor to the golf courses of Andalusia, Chef José Andrés, shared the celebrations on the first tee with former President Obama and Spanish golfer Carlota Ciganda.
The Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters, an event in the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai made possible by the essential contribution of the Real Club de Golf Sotogrande, is sponsored by Estrella Damm and the Junta de Andalucía, jointly funded by the EU and was declared Event of Exceptional Public Interest by the Government of Spain.