There are golf courses that give prestige to a whole country, courses that receive the unanimous praise of amateurs and professionals, courses that bring together the best opinions of the specialized media, extraordinary courses, courses, in short, like the Real Club de Golf Sotogrande.
The wise vision of businessman Joseph McMicking, founder of the Sotogrande development, was key to the success of the project. It was he who told the then famous designer Robert Trent Jones Senior to personally choose the land on which to build a large 18-hole course without any limitations. The estate, next to the sea, could not have been more suitable. In 1964 one of the most extraordinary golf courses in Spain was inaugurated: the legend of RCG Sotogrande was born.
There are many factors that have influenced over the years in forging the excellence of this course. The club’s managing director, Agustín Mazarrasa, reveals the main ones.
DESIGN
The design of the RCG Sotogrande is described by the club’s director, Agustín Mazarrasa, as “unique in Spain”, and it certainly is. Robert Trent Jones made a very revolutionary design here, as it was the first American-style course to be built in Europe. The estate where it sits is really beautiful, dominated mainly by cork oaks, which are combined to a much lesser extent with pines, palm trees and other species. Thanks to its wide fairways, it is a very generous course from the tee, a generosity that is counterbalanced by very fast and elevated greens, characteristic of Trent Jones. As the British designer raised in the United States said, the RCG Sotogrande is a course where it is quite easy to make bogey and where it is not easy to make par. The good thing about this layout is that it is fun for all levels of play, “from a handicap 0 to a handicap 36,” says Mazarrasa. In his book Golf’s Magnificent Challenge, Robert Trent Jones said that of the more than 400 golf courses he had designed around the world, this was one of his five favorites. It was the first course in Europe with Bermuda 419 and automated irrigation.
With the course restoration work carried out in 2015 and 2016 -necessary updating after 50 years of existence-, the Trent Jones design was provided with a modern and complete infrastructure that included for example in all the greens the sub-air system (Augusta National, home of the Masters, has it) that allows water to drain very quickly.
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MAINTENANCE
The course has always been characterized by impeccable maintenance. Back in the day, when the course was built, there was no other course in Spain with similar maintenance, says the director of RCG Sotogrande. “It was a bit of a revolution in agronomy,” Mazarrasa points out. “Right now,” he adds, “with all the changes that were made with the restoration -drains, sand, bermuda, recovery of the original design of the greens…- we can say that the course is at the level of the great American courses where the PGA Tour is played. We have a tournament level every day”. With greenkeeper Patrick Allende at the helm for a decade, RCG Sotogrande has a very professionalized maintenance staff (about thirty people), and members and visitors greatly appreciate not only the quality of the 18-hole course but all the golf facilities, from the driving range and short game practice areas, which we restored in 2018, to the short course, restored in 2017 and which has the same quality of maintenance as the long course. The course is characterized by very fast greens and tees and fairways of extraordinary quality.
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SPORTS RECORD
The RCG Sotogrande is a benchmark for the best amateur golf on the continent, and has also been the scene of top-class professional tournaments, such as the 1966 Spanish Open, won by the Argentine Roberto de Vicenzo, who the following year, at the age of 44, became the oldest player to win the British Open, after an exciting duel with Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player. In 1987, the Robert Trent Jones-designed course was the scene of Severiano Ballesteros’ victory in the Spanish Professional Championship. Between 1996 and 2001, the course hosted, together with San Roque Club, the final of the Qualifying School for the European Tour. Players such as Ian Poulter, Geoff Ogilvy, Justin Rose or Nicolas Colsaerts obtained the card at RCG Sotogrande.
In 1970 the Jerez Cup was born, the origin of the current European Nations Championship Real Club de Golf Sotogrande Cup, which receives every year the best amateurs from twenty European countries and has in its list of winners the likes of Padraig Harrington, Sergio Garcia, Rory McIlroy, Francesco Molinari, Shane Lowry or Carlota Ciganda. Jon Rahm finished second (missed the playoff) in one of the editions. “It is the most important amateur tournament in Europe, with the most stars, above the British Amateur”, remarked Mazarrasa.
In 1973, the VII European Women’s Amateur Championship was held in Sotogrande, where the English team was proclaimed winner, followed by France, Sweden and Spain.
“We have always been very focused on amateur golf; it is our hallmark,” says the director of the club, where on the other hand it is common to see practicing professionals of the European Tour both foreign and Spanish. “Many pros who played the Sotogrande Cup when they were amateurs like to come back to play here.
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FACILITIES
After the major renovation work that the long course underwent (2015-16), in 2017 the short course was refurbished and in 2018 work focused on updating the driving range and short game areas. With all of this completed, the club has unbeatable golf facilities, “comparable to the great facilities that the best golf courses in the United States have,” says Mazarrasa.
Other sports facilities at RCG Sotogrande include two plexipave tennis courts, “like those of the US Open or the Australian Open”, and two paddle tennis courts, swimming pool, croquet court and a well-equipped gymnasium.
The club’s restaurant deserves special mention among its facilities and services. “We have a chef who has been with us for twenty years, Mikel Landa from Guipuzcoa, who trained at Arzak and Echaurren, two great restaurants,” explains Mazarrasa. “We open more than a hundred nights a year for members and guests of members, and we also do private dinners for groups.” Landa’s cuisine is characterized above all by the extraordinary quality of the raw ingredients and the best seasonal products. “We do many themed dinners; tuna in the tuna season, mushrooms, hunting … We have a very good team,” r
emarca the director of the RCG Sotogrande, “and make much enjoyment to members and all who come here”.
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