Club de Golf Valderrama

The Valderrama Championship course has been described by professionals and leading golf writers as having one of the best fairways in Europe. Not an easy course, it has been designed to call forth thought and precision for every shot.

The Par 71 Championship Course measures 6356 metres from the professional tees. The fairways have been described by top pros and leading golf writers as the best in Europe, if not the world. It is not an easy course - nor was it intended to be. It is designed so as to call for thought and precision for every shot.

The course was designed in 1974 by Robert trent Jones, Sr, one of the great golf course architects, and was originally known as Sotogrande New. In 1981 its name was changed to Las Aves.Its incarnation in its present form began in 1984, when Jaime Ortiz-Patiño was able to acquire it from the developers who a few years earlier had laid out the very extensive Sotogrande area so imaginatively and tastefully. Ortiz-Patiño had been one of the first to build a house, and for some years he had nursed the secret ambition to bring Las Aves to a greater potential.

In 1984 he was able to acquire, along with the golf course, certain additional parcels of land that would allow this. Robert trent Jones willingly agreed to come back and redesign his original layout of ten years earlier. Together the two men spent many hours walking around the course and discussing where and how improvements should be made.

Ortiz-Patiño renamed the course Valderrama, after the ancient estate on which the land is situated.The pair shared a common aim: to create a course that would present a test of golf to the everyday golfer and the first-class player alike, and would bring out the best golf that is in him.Valderrama has since risen in the Golf World rankings to become the No.1 golf course in mainland Europe, a position proudly held since 1989."

The first hole is named Sol y Sombra, the second El Arbol, the third El Tunel, the fourth La Cascada, the fifth Los Altos, the sixth El Vallejo, the seventh El Mirador, the eighth El Bunker, the ninth El Muro, the tenth El Lago, the eleventh Un Sueno, the twelfth Las Camelias, the thirteenth Sin Bunker, the fourteenth La Piedra, the fifteenth El Puerto, the sixteenth Muy Dificil in the words of 1989 Volvo Masters winner Ronan Rafferty 'one of the toughest par-4s I've ever played', the seventeenth Los Gabiones, the eigteenth called Casa Club.

This year's Volvo Masters, the end-of-season flagship of the European Tour has double cause to celebrate as the countdown begins towards the Valderrama showpiece from 1st – 4th November 2007.

The club will celebrate in style this year as the Volvo Masters commemorates its 20th anniversary, the longest-running single sponsorship in European golf.