For the fifth consecutive year, the Costa del Sol will become the center of attention of women’s professional golf thanks to the celebration of the Andalucía Costa del Sol Open de España, a tournament that will be held from November 26 to 29 at the Real Club de Golf Guadalmina in Marbella and that will close the season with a flourish.
The only Ladies European Tour event to be played this year in Spain will serve as the culmination of the Race to Costa del Sol, the circuit’s order of merit sponsored by Turismo y Planificación Costa del Sol and a magnificent promotional vehicle for this region.
The South Course of the RCG Guadalmina designed by Javier Arana takes over from other renowned Malaga courses that have hosted the competition in previous editions (such as Aloha Golf or La Quinta Golf & Country Club) and will act as a spectacular ambassador of the more than 70 courses that populate the well-deservedly called Costa del Golf, a strip that runs from Nerja to Sotogrande and includes the coast of Malaga and the Mediterranean area of the coast of Cadiz.
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The best professionals of the Ladies European Tour will join the hundreds of thousands of visitors who come every year to the best golf destination in continental Europe to enjoy its mild climate and a wide range of leisure, cultural and gastronomic offer spread along the more than 160 kilometers of coastline. All of them will try to follow in the footsteps of the Dutch Anne van Dam, winner of the last two editions, or the local Azahara Muñoz, also double champion and winner in the 2017 edition played at the Real Club de Golf Guadalmina, and will fight for the honor of being proclaimed winners of the first Race to Costa del Sol in history, the Ladies European Tour ranking currently led by the Danish Emily Kristine Pedersen.
On the Costa del Sol, golf goes far beyond being a leisure complement and becomes the main reason that drives the visit of golf tourists, a loyal visitor who extends their stays and is faithful to a destination that offers security, diversity, exquisite treatment and first class services. To convey this reality to potential national and foreign travelers, the Andalucía Costa del Sol Open de España has a great tool, television coverage that reaches 148 countries and 500 million homes.
The RCG Guadalmina, which has recently celebrated its 60th anniversary, will offer the beauty and demand of its southern layout, a sample of the quality offered by the courses of Andalusia and the Costa del Sol, which have allowed them to host top level professional championships such as the Ryder Cup, the Volvo Masters, the World Cup, the Open de España or the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters.
The Open de España Femenino has the main sponsorship of the Consejería de Turismo de la Junta de Andalucía, Turismo y Planificación Costa del Sol and Acosol – Mancomunidad de Municipios de la Costa del Sol Occidental.
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IGNACIO DEL CUVILLO, managing director of RCG Guadalmina
“The 2020 Women’s Spanish Open at RCG Guadalmina is going to be memorable.”
The return of the Women’s Spanish Open to the RCG Guadalmina three years after the splendid and very emotional triumph of one of the most famous “daughters” of this Marbella club, Azahara Muñoz, takes place in very special circumstances, unthinkable before the Covid-19 showed its claws with all its rawness.
“For us,” says the managing director of the host club, Ignacio del Cuvillo, “it is a challenge because the occasion will require it, and we will make every effort to achieve a memorable Open de España 2020.”
This experienced and prestigious manager recognizes that the challenge is “very complicated and complex because our history for having hosted the Open in 2017 set the bar not high, but practically at a stratospheric level”. That Open, he says, “was the perfect celebration: it could not and will not be repeated.”
“What is happening,” he continues, “is that we welcome this year’s tournament with an additional illusion and that is that we are preparing a course to host a Spanish Open as part of a much more ambitious project that extends into the immediate future to achieve for the Costa del Sol the coveted venue of the Solheim Cup in 2023”.
“We are not the Solheim course,” Del Cuvillo clarifies, “we are the course of the Open de España 2020, but we respond to a request from the municipality, from the City Council, from the Sports Department, by which we offer the South Course of the RCG Guadalmina as the venue for the first Open de España Femenino to be held in Marbella within the commitments of the Solheim 2023”.
“It is an opportunity”, he continues, “that is offered to us in the new stage of the RCG Guadalmina as the members’ club that has been consolidated since July”. And the fact is that the RCG Guadalmina had been managed as a society until July 1, when the Board of Directors headed by Juan Ramón Martínez Landazábal took over the management of the club, explains Del Cuvillo. “Hosting the Spanish Open,” he says, “is its first great challenge as a club, to host the tournament and respond as a club to the demands of the Ladies European Tour and the organization.”
-What does it mean, from the meteorological point of view, that this year’s Open de España will be held in November?
-In September 2017 we bet on insurance in that sense because we knew that in that month it was very difficult for the tournament to be suspended due to rain. Now we hope that November will surprise us and be a month in which the weather serves as an attraction for the European and world public to see that the players practice this sport in short sleeves and sunshine.
-Can we already anticipate some of the participants’ names of note?
-It is still too early to confirm players, but what we can anticipate is that, looking at the calendar of competitions in the different Circuits -the European, the Asian and the American-, this date has been expressly chosen to become in the future an indisputable appointment of women’s golf, because no event can overshadow this Open de España, the final of the Race to the Costa del Sol. There is no competition in the other Circuits and therefore we can of course expect the best European players and also those North American and Asian players who are attracted by the more than 700,000 dollars in prizes. It would be a wonderful occasion for the three Tours to coincide in Europe, in Marbella and at the RCG Guadalmina.
-How is the tournament going to be different in this Covid-19 era?
-One of the first concerns that arose when we received the proposal to host the tournament was the situation due to the Covid-19, but that happened in February, when the coronavirus was not yet so evident, and we gave a resounding yes to the organization of the Open de España thanks to the invaluable support of the City Council. When the events that everyone has seen in recent months have occurred,
we have become aware that any sporting event, and even more so one of this magnitude, must have the maximum security guarantees.
In the professional tournaments that have been held recently, both in the American, European and Asian Circuits, the players were confined, protected in a bubble, and that could only be achieved in those courses that can count on a nearby hotel. Because it is not only the fact that the players are in the hotel but they have to move, and undesirable situations must be avoided at all times.
In Guadalmina we are very fortunate to have two hotels, one next to the beach and the other -the Barceló Marbella- near the clubhouse. The Barceló chain is characterized by the fact that since the Covid-19 situation began, it has made every effort to ensure that all its hotels are one hundred percent safe establishments for its guests through the “We care about you” program. The Barceló Marbella, just a couple of hundred meters from the clubhouse, will be the headquarters hotel for the players, organization, VIPs and TV production. The players will have their life, breakfast, lunch and dinner at the hotel, from where they will leave exclusively to participate in the tournament and, once they finish, they will go back to the hotel. With this we guarantee that it will be a highly protected tournament where the highest security requirements will be met.
-Is it already known if the public will be allowed on the field and, if so, under what conditions?
-It is not yet decided if the public access will be allowed, and if so, we will study the formula for the spectators to keep the safety distances and maintain at all times the protective measures. For them we will use volunteers not only from the club but also from all the clubs in the area, and we will also have the support of the Marbella Town Hall, which will help us to coordinate the movement of the public, in case it is allowed. Anyway, the success of this tournament lies in the fact that the diffusion through social networks, television and media in general is going to be huge. In 2017 we were told we had reached 270 million viewers. With the hunger and need for live golf, for golf that is not canned, this tournament can reach audience figures comparable to the men’s tournaments, so success is guaranteed.
-Has the course undergone any special preparation for the tournament?
-We have prepared the course by making some adjustments during the year, taking advantage of the confinement situation. The LET had given us some indications about restructuring and renovation and construction of tees, which we have already done, we have removed trees, and in September we started a program of double verticut (vertical cut) with stubble to improve the playing conditions of a Bermuda that, obviously, being November, is in a state of lethargy.
We have the help of the Royal Spanish Golf Federation through its Green Section program, with David Gómez Agüera, who lends us not only machinery to prepare the course for this tournament but also greenkeepers and staff who will work as a support team during the tournament.
“Finally,” says Del Cuvillo, “I would like to make an appeal to the golf clubs in the area so that, as far as possible, they collaborate with the RCG Guadalmina and its members (around 2,000), since we will have the course closed for two weeks and it would be appreciated if we could count on their solidarity and if they could make us some interesting offers”.
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MANUEL CARDEÑA, Councilman Delegate for Sports of the Marbella Town Hall
“We want the Open de España to be a recognition of the entire golf tourism sector.”
Deputy Mayor and Councillor for Sports of the City Council of Marbella, lawyer, with extensive management experience in various public administrations, Manuel Cardeña speaks in this interview of the Open de España Femenino and golf as a tourist attraction in his municipality.
-What does it mean for Marbella, the municipality with the most golf courses in our country, to host the Spanish Women’s Open again?
-It is very important for everybody to know that Marbella is open, that it has the possibility to host this kind of events, that we have the best golf offer, that we can welcome with total guarantee all the golfers who visit us… I think there is no better option than hosting a great championship such as the Spanish Open, a prelude to the Solheim Cup 2023, which will be played on the Costa del Sol. We want the Spanish Open to be a recognition to the whole golf tourism sector, which has had a hard time during these months, and let’s see if with events like this one they can continue offering Marbella what they give every year, which is a lot of wealth and employment. For us it is very important that it is held at the RCG Guadalmina and that the image projected abroad is very positive.
-What do you think about the fact that the Spanish Open will be held again at the RCG Guadalmina, which already hosted it in 2017?
-It is a great choice, not only for the quality of its golf facilities but also for the involvement of its members and the club’s management in hosting and supporting this important tournament. For this reason and for its proven organizational experience, the fact that the Open de España will be played at the RCG Guadalmina is a guarantee of success.
-How has the health safety of the players been planned?
-In terms of health, the tournament will be developed with all the guarantees for both the players and the organization and, if necessary, for the public. The collaboration of the Hotel Barceló Marbella, located next to the golf club, is essential in this regard, becoming a bubble hotel to ensure the health safety of the players at all times.
-What does golf mean as a tourist resource for Marbella?
-I believe that for many years it had not been taken into account. So to speak, the golf courses were sports facilities that had been created randomly, and it has had to be the reports of the Andalusian Government, the Provincial Tourism Board or the City Council itself that have served to really see the importance of golf as a major tourist attraction. Of the more than 1,400 million euros generated by golf in the province, 20 percent corresponds to Marbella. In the Patronato’s report you get an idea of what golf generates.
-Has the idea that golf is not an elitist sport but, in fact, a very popular one, with close to 300,000 players in Spain alone, finally changed the minds of political leaders?
-I think so, there are less and less political prejudices in that sense. Golf is not a sport for an elite, golf is a sport that has become popular and is a first level tourist industry that generates many jobs and that we have to defend at all costs.
The effort that was made from 2016 of the union of all administrations, regardless of the political sign, to try to bring to the Costa del Sol first level tournaments has put us again in the Circuit,
our name sounds strongly in the world of golf. In spite of having the best golf offer in Europe, we must never get comfortable, and the work of the golf courses with the different public administrations will bring us the Solheim Cup, the first women’s sporting event in the world, which will give us an even greater international projection as the great golf destination that we are.
But this does not stop here because we must continue working to try to continuously attract top-level events, and we must also thank Deporte and Business, Inigo and Alicia, for the commitment and effort they make so that we can achieve this type of world-class events and that we are always a reference for golf.
We will continue working to remain in the limelight with big tournaments because our golf tourism industry demands this type of events and we have to be the best in Europe and the best in the world.
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