{"id":15019,"date":"2016-07-04T14:29:29","date_gmt":"2016-07-04T14:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/luis-navarro-operations-director-of-rio-real-golf\/"},"modified":"2016-07-04T14:29:29","modified_gmt":"2016-07-04T14:29:29","slug":"luis-navarro-operations-director-of-rio-real-golf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/luis-navarro-operations-director-of-rio-real-golf\/","title":{"rendered":"LUIS NAVARRO, OPERATIONS DIRECTOR OF RIO REAL GOLF"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cRio Real is a standard bearer for tourism\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Until a few months ago manager of Aloha Golf Club, Luis Navarro recently joined the management at the Rio Real golf course and hotel, also in Marbella. Navarro has had an extensive professional career in the world of golf\u2026 <\/p>\n

\u201cI began years ago,\u201d he recalls, \u201d mainly because I enjoyed playing golf, sharing ownership of the A\u00f1oreta pro shop.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was an agronomy engineer and then I had the chance of doing a greenkeeper\u2019s course with the Royal Andalucian Golf Federation. That gave me the opportunity of taking on that job at Alicante Golf, where later I became manager for five years. After that I moved on to El Bosque Golf Club, where I only remained for a few months because Aloha contacted me \u2013 I stayed there for eight years as manager. <\/p>\n

\u201cNow,\u201d he says, \u201cI\u2019m starting a new era with great enthusiasm at Rio Real, probably the best commercial course there could be for visitors, with a fantastic hotel and superb amenities in an incomparable location, just five minutes from Marbella town centre, in the heart of the Costa del Sol.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 Does your move to Rio Real mean changes for the club?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My job will entail continuing the work of Juan Cantos. I\u2019ve joined this company because the golf manager, Juan, decided to retire. Logically, the owners have had to think about his replacement, and to that end they set their sights on me. So I am taking on the responsibility for all the club\u2019s current and future operations. I\u2019m not coming here to make changes, but rather to consolidate Rio Real as what it already is \u2013 a great club, a great golf resort, with a very attractive hotel \u2013 and to ensure we continue to grow and become even more well established. Our aim is for the club to remain a standard bearer for tourism in one of the finest areas of Spain, Marbella. <\/p>\n

\u2013 In any event, there are some projects on the immediate drawing board\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rather than immediate I would say in the near future. The plan is to develop a top-level beach club. And with that project we will be able to complement the resort\u2019s amenities: a charming boutique hotel, a first-class golf course, designed by Javier Arana, possibly Spain\u2019s finest golf architect, and the beach club. <\/p>\n

\u2013 For when is it planned?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The project is now ready and the licence applied for. When we have that, we\u2019ll schedule the work and carry it out as soon as possible. <\/p>\n

\u2013 In 2015 Rio Real will celebrate its 50th anniversary. How is it going to celebrate the milestone? <\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an important anniversary, as we are one of the few courses on the Costa del Sol to reach this total, together with Guadalmina, Sotogrande and the Parador. So we want to do many things to celebrate it, although we don\u2019t yet have a complete schedule of activities. We have all this year to prepare it, but we must do it very well. <\/p>\n

\u2013 Have you contemplated carrying out any finetuning to the course?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not much \u2013 because it\u2019s actually in magnificent condition. We recently opened up for play two greens that had been renovated, the 5th and 13th, which are more undulating now to make them more interesting. We are also adapting the irrigation system to use recycled water. Acosol\u2019s pipeline now reaches us and I believe that very soon we will be able to have recycled water available, which is the objective for all courses on the Costa del Sol. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-destinations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15019\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}