What do Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Seve Ballesteros, Dave Thomas, Peter Alliss, José María Olazábal, Manuel Piñero or José Maria Cañizares have in common? Very easy: all these ‘enormous’ players have designed golf courses in Andalusia.
In this sunny land of southern Spain some of the greatest designers who have not been famous professional golfers have also left and continue to leave their indelible and remarkable mark. Robert Trent Jones (500 courses in 36 countries), Cabell B. Robinson, Kyle Phillips, Perry Dye, Javier Arana, Pepe Gancedo (the latter two great international champions in the amateur field) and a long etcetera sign some of the almost 120 golf courses in Andalusia.
Jack Nicklaus, probably the greatest golfer of all time, signed the design of Montecastillo. This course, inaugurated in 1992 and located next to the Circuito de Velocidad de Jerez, boasts a brilliant curriculum as a venue for major international tournaments, including five editions of the Volvo Masters.
If there is a charismatic player in the history of modern golf, someone who can be considered without discussion as the greatest, it is undoubtedly Nicklaus. The Golden Bear has had one of the most fantastic sporting careers of all time. To his credit are 18 majors and 70 victories on the PGA Tour, the North American Tour, where he maintained his undisputed reign for many years in the 60s, 70s and even 80s.
Nicklaus’ sporting career, which has been everything in the world of golf, is unparalleled. He began playing golf as a child and won his first major tournament, the Ohio Open, when he was only 16 years old. His next great triumph was the U.S. Amateur Championship in 1959. Two years later he retained this title and won the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championship.
From 1959 to 1961, the year he entered the professional circuit in his country, he won all but one of the tournaments in which he participated.
In 1962, Nicklaus won the U.S. Open after defeating his compatriot Arnold Palmer, another legend of the sport. Throughout his long and successful professional career he achieved an incredible record, which includes six editions of the Masters (1963, 1965, 1966, 1972, 1975 and 1986), five editions of the US PGA (1963, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1980), four of the US Open (1962, 1967, 1972, 1980), three of the British Open (1966, 1970, 1978) and one of the World Match Play Championship (1970). He was named best player on the PGA Tour on five occasions (1967, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1976) and was awarded the prize as the best golf player of the 20th century in 1988.
The Golden Bear, who turned 73 in January, joined the North American Senior Tour in 1990 and, in this category, won two U.S. Opens (1991 and 1993) and two PGAs (1991 and 1996).
He is also one of the world’s most prestigious golf course designers through his company Golden Bear International. He received the Golf Course Designer of the Year award in 1993. Nicklaus has designed nearly 300 golf courses in some thirty countries.
Gary Player, who at the age of 29 became the third golfer in history (after Gene Sarazen and Ben Hogan) to win all four Grand Slam tournaments, designed three courses in Andalusia. The Black Knight, as this son of a miner was known because he often wore that color in tournaments, created a work of art in the Sevillian Zaudín, also inaugurated in 1992, a course that the famous player defined at the time as one of the most beautiful he has created throughout his prolific career as a designer. His first Andalusian course was designed on the Costa del Sol, specifically in Estepona, and it was El Paraíso, which opened its holes to the public for the first time in 1974. Two years later he opened his second course in this region, Almerimar, in the municipality of Ejido. In this case, Rob Kiry and Ramón Espinosa collaborated with him in the design.
His nine victories in the majors are the third best record in the history of the Grand Slam. The Black Knight was the only player to win the British Open in three different decades during the 20th century. The collection of victories of Player, who is now 77 years old, was extraordinary, as he harvested 163 international victories, 24 of which were on the North American Tour. Player won at least one tournament per season for no less than 27 consecutive years. In his maturity, from the age of 50, he joined the U.S. Senior Tour, where he won a total of 19 tournaments.
Among the most famous phrases attributed to him, two stand out: “The more you practice, the luckier you get” and “I have studied golf for almost 50 years and I know a lot about nothing”.
Severiano Ballesteros designed four courses in Andalusia and collaborated with Perry Dye in another one. His first golfing creature in this region was the first 18-hole Novo Sancti Petri in Cadiz (today called Recorrido A), at the foot of the spectacular beach of La Barrosa, in Chiclana de la Frontera. It was opened to the public in 1990. The following year its second Andalusian course, Los Arqueros, in the municipality of Benahavís, adjacent to Marbella, opened for the first time. In 1993 its third course opened in Andalusia, Alhaurín Golf, also in the province of Malaga and, like Los Arqueros, in an estate of complicated orography, in a mountainous environment with steep slopes. It would be eight years before a new design by Seve was inaugurated. It would be the second 18-hole course at Novo Sancti Petri (now known as Course B). In 2008, the second course of The San Roque Club, the New Course, in whose design Seve would collaborate with Perry Dye, was inaugurated.
Seve marked a whole era and elevated European golf -not to mention Spanish golf- to stardom thanks to his spectacular game, which translated into incredible strokes and extraordinary results. At the age of 54 and after a tenacious fight against cancer, Seve hung up his clubs for good, but his wake, his charisma, will last for a long time in international golf. In thirty years, between 1976 and 1995, he won 87 victories in the five continents, fifty of them in the European Tour, and won five times in the Grand Slam (British Open in 1979, 1984 and 1988 and Masters in 1980 and 1983). The Cantabrian golfer was an idol all over the world thanks to the spectacular nature of his game and his great creativity to get out of difficult situations with the most imaginative shots.
Dave Thomas, co-author with Peter Alliss of the famous course of The Belfry, designed in Sotogrande Almenara (opened in 1998). He also designed the second nine holes of La Cañada (2001), whose first nine (1991) were the work of Robert Trent Jones, in the municipality where the aforementioned macro-urbanization is located (San Roque).
In the same area of the Campo de Gibraltar he designed two other courses: the first San Roque Club course, the Old Course (1991), and the second one in Alcaidesa, called Heathland (2007).
In 1999 another of his works, the Marbella Club Golf Resort (1999), located in the municipality of Benahavís and part of the business group that owns the renowned Marbella Club and Puente Romano hotels, was inaugurated.
Thomas, born in the English town of Newcastle upon Tyne 68 years ago, became one of the most famous British golfers of the 50’s and 60’s, when he won a dozen tournaments in Europe and twice finished second in the British Open (in 1958 he lost the playoff to Australian Peter Thomson and in 1966 he was overtaken on the podium by Jack Nicklaus). Thomas was part of the European Ryder Cup team in the 1959, 1963, 1965 and 1967 editions.
José María Olazábal, the great captain of the last Ryder Cup, who led his team to a memorable victory, has left his mark on the design of three golf courses. The first was the acclaimed Real Club de Golf de Sevilla, which opened in 1992. In 1997 his second Andalusian creature, Costa Ballena, opened to the public on the Atlantic coast of Cadiz, and in 2008 his third southern creation was unveiled: La Monacilla, a short distance from the capital of Huelva.
The 47-year-old player from Fuenterrabía is, after Seve, the most international of our golfers. His professional track record includes two “green jackets” for winning the Augusta Masters in the 1994 and 1999 editions, in addition to having participated seven times in the Ryder Cup, winning four of them with the European team in the 1987, 1989, 1997 and 2006 editions, forming, together with Ballesteros, the most successful Ryder pair in the history of this tournament. His last great success came last year precisely in this biennial tournament, but this time not as a player but as captain of the European team that won against the United States after a historic comeback, a victory that the golfer dedicated to Seve.
Due to the merits of his achievements and the respect he has earned among his peers, the Guipuzcoan golfer has been a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame since 2009.
Peter Alliss designed, with Clive Clark, Alcaidesa Links, the first of the two 18-hole courses that this club has, opened almost in the shadow of the Rock of Gibraltar, in 1992. The second course designed by Alliss, this time collaborating with Angel Gallardo (current vice-president of the European Tour), was Playa Serena, on the Almeria coast, which opened in 1979.
Alliss, 82, is known worldwide by the nickname ‘The Voice of Golf’ for his fame as a golf tournament commentator. Alliss, who was born in Berlin, where his English father worked as a golf club professional, was one of the great European players in the 1950s and 1960s. He won 21 tournaments and, although he failed to win a major, he finished in the top ten five times in the British Open. He played eight editions of the Ryder Cup and at the age of 38 he stopped playing full time. In 1961, on the occasion of the British Open, he appeared for the first time in front of the BBC cameras as a golf commentator. As a designer, he has stamped his signature on 75 golf courses.
Manuel Piñero, three times world champion, has been very prolific as a golf course designer in Andalusia. The first was La Quinta Golf, with Antonio García Garrido, in 1989. Also on the Costa del Sol he designed El Campanario and Monte Paraíso, both opened in 2003, while in the province of Cádiz he designed the courses of Golf El Puerto and Lomas de Sancti Petri, both inaugurated in 2006. His last Andalusian work was the Hato Verde course in Seville, which opened in 2008.
Like most of the great Spanish professional golfers who rose to fame in the 1970s, Piñero worked as a caddie as a child, an invaluable school for learning all the tricks of the game.
He turned professional in 1968 and began playing in the early 1970s on the European Tour, where he won a total of nine titles, including the British PGA. He finished five seasons in the top ten of the order of merit, his highest ranking being fourth, which he achieved in 1976 and 1977.
The player from Extremadura, who will be 61 years old in September, participated in two Ryder Cups with the European team. In 1985 he took an active part in the European victory in the Ryder Cup, 28 years after the last one, after winning four of the five points he played, including 3-1 in singles against Larry Wadkins.
Piñero represented Spain in the World Championships eight times, winning two of them: in 1976, paired with Seve, and in 1982, paired with Cañizares. In the latter edition he was also proclaimed individual world champion.
As a curious fact, in 1977 he was playing at the La Moraleja golf course with Bing Crosby when the 73-year-old singer and actor died suddenly of a heart attack.
José María Cañizares has signed three Andalusian designs: two in the eastern Costa del Sol, Añoreta, opened in 1990, and Baviera, in 2000, and another in the interior of the province, Antequera, which opened its holes to the public for the first time in 2002.
Cañi, born in Madrid 66 years ago, caddied at the Real Club Puerta de Hierro in Madrid and turned professional in 1967. His performance in the 1978 Swiss Open was memorable, where he made the first nine holes of the third day in twenty-seven, equaling the world record in force at the time. In his long professional career he has won a dozen titles, both individual and team. He won the World Cup twice, in 1982 with Manuel Piñero and in 1984 with Pepín Rivero. In the latter, he was also proclaimed individual champion. Cañizares, whose son Alejandro has followed in his footsteps on the European Tour, participated in the European teams that won the Ryder Cup in 1985 and 1989.
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