Spend your holidays in a yacht is an amazing experience, but if you dock in a place where there is a golf course the amezement is doubled.

Mexico’s geography gives you the chance to enjoy sea breeze and, once you are on land, you can also cover idyllically staged championship fairways.

 

Magical Game

There is an extraordinary golf course in Manzanillo –Las Hadas–, located next to Marina Las Hadas. Robert von Hagge managed to combine the magic of the place and golf’s magic, with this unique 18-hole par 3 design that has a beautiful view of the sea called “Isla del Millón de Dólares” (Million Dollar Island), since having the green in an island is a real challenge.

 

 

The 18-hole par 71 golf course was designed and built in a 47-hectare undulating land full of palm trees and original flower arrengements. With almost 6,500 yards, it may seem a short course, but it is important to remember that the balls flight diminishes at sea level, and one or two poles more per stroke should be chosen.

Las Hadas, once considered by one of the world’s 100 best golf courses by Golf Digest, challenges the golfer, from any level, with its wide winding fairways surrounded by the river Salahua, whose bends turn each stroke into a challenge and at the same time into a memorable experience. That explains the presence of water in 12 of the 18 holes.

 

In the Midst of Water

If you are looking for a place where you can play whenever during the year, Marina Ixtapa is the perfect course, framed by Ixtapa’s weather. Robert von Hagge took advantage of the Marina designing this course between the channels. The zigzag fairways among the water represent a challenge to the average golfer, who should think of the precision needed in each stroke, specially with short clubs.

Marina Ixtapa Golf Club is part of an all-embracing tourist development, distributed in a 170-hectare area, where peaceful sailing channels wind and cross the development as well as the golf course.

Von Hagge made good use of 45 hectares to delimit the classically curved fairways that “punish” the golfer, whose stroke does not stay in the fairway while the ball is further.

 

 

“Super-mex” Style

One of the most spectacular golfing stages in Mexico is next to El Cid Resort Marina. It has 27 holes, standing out nine of them designed by “Súper Mex” Lee Treviño, a deep-sea fishing lover, who found in these latitudes the ideal place to come across a great variety of species such as marlin, sail fish and swordfish.

The courses El Moro, Castilla and Marina, the latter designed by Treviño, are situated in a biological reserve where deers, turtles, fish, exotic birds and crocodiles dwell sorrounded by exuberant vegetation and lakes, that provide the 27 holes of spectacular views, making it worthy of being considered one of the best courses by Golf Digest.

The course has five lakes, though Marina’s channels are all through it, being the most remarkable the 6th and 8th holes, where the player must cross the water with all the risk it implies.

 

 

The First One in Vallarta

The 18-hole course Flamingos Golf Club was opened 28 years ago and is designed among natural lagoons and marshes, in the midst of hundreds of palm trees and flowers.

During the round, the golfer commonly observes the local fauna, such as crocodiles, turtles, hares, badgers, racoons, armadillos and deers. In this paradise, Percy Clifford, English by birth, devised the design of an extraordinary course by the sea.

With a 4,000,0000 dollar investment, the course began a maintenance and renewal program based on a long term project created by the new owners; the plan is working since 2000, and the results are already perceived.

 

 

Pure Elegance

One of the most distinguished and exclusive clubs in Mexico is Marina Vallarta, an 18-hole course with a road par 71 of 6,700 yards, situated in the middle of Marina Vallarta.

The course designer is Joe Finger, who incorporated the beauty of local natural landscape into a special design that tests out the golfing skills of any player in search of challenges.

The round includes waterfalls, a peninsula full of palm trees and a natural lagoon, plenty of wild life including cranes, white herons, iguanas and ducks.     

 

 

 

 

 

Texto: ± Foto: Fondo Nacional de Turismo