Valderrama Golf Club
Also known as Real Club Valderrama, Valderrama Golf Club is one of the most-prized golf clubs of Europe. A living memento of the professional mastery of the professional mastery of Robert Trent Jones, Valderrama Golf Club was constructed and launched over four decades ago, in 1974. Since then, the course has undergone periodic changes and has managed to preserve its signature classic appeal over the course of the time.
Aside from the renovations, the club has also acquired multiple identities till date. Initially named as Sotogrande New, the course was named Las Aves in 1981 before it gained its current identity ‘Valderrama Golf Club‘ in 1984. However, despite it all, it has managed to bag a consistent increase in its popularity among the golfers from Spain, Europe as well as from across the globe.
Ranked as the 8th in Continental Europe, 2nd in Southern Spain and 3rd among the best golf clubs in Spain, Valderrama Golf Club is affectionately rendered as ‘The Augusta of Europe’ among golf communities. The course features some exceptional fairways that are considered as the best fairways of entire Europe.
The course features some of the most complex holes that throw an incredible degree of challenges and require utmost accuracy, focus, and precision on the player’s part. Each hole is specifically named. While all of them vary on their attributes and the degree of intensity, the 4th hole, named La Cascada is indeed the most prized cynosure on the course’s profile.
With its strategically placed sand traps, bunkers, slopes, greens, and alleyways, as well as the hazards that infuse a dab of a mysterious appeal – Valderrama is an ideal course to enjoy golf at its best, for visitors, spectators and golf players alike. Valderrama Golf Club hosts a number of events and championship tournaments throughout the year.
Valderrama hosted the American Express Championship where Tiger Woods, the uncrowned king of golf outclassed Miguel Angel Jimenez in a sudden-death play-off. The nail-biting match turned out to be a treat to watch, where Jimenez started off setting a grip on the game only to be overruled by Woods, who elegantly inched his way forward and ended up making his first 14 holes in 7 under par.
Not forgetting the tumultuous surprises that Valderrama throws as the game proceeds, Woods seemed to have lost as his full hit nine iron third came spinning back from beyond the flag and into the water hazard by the green. Having made a strategic yet risky move taking the eight, the feat turned out to be his ticket to acing the American Express Championship.
