Just 10 minutes from Marbella’s famous Puerto Banús is a nine-hole par-36 course full of pleasant surprises for golfers: El Higueral Golf. Located in Benahavís municipality, it is a top-quality course that is popular with both residents and visitors to the Costa del Sol.
Course designer Rod Bastard has taken advantage amazingly well of the terrain’s natural slopes and contours to create a beautiful, well-balanced, stylish and charismatic golf course. Play it once and you will like it. Play it twice and you will love it, even though only nine holes are completed. At the moment El Higueral Golf has two par 3s, two par 5s and five par 4s (par-36). Holes number 4 and 6 are probably among the most beautiful in Marbella.
The course has a perfect equilibrium between difficulty and enjoyment. Although buggies are allowed on the fairways, this course is a very easy to walk and is normally playable in less than two hours. The distance between greens and tees is reduced, highlighting the fact that the ladies’ tees have been precisely placed to ensure a fair and competitive game against the course and men. Losing balls is not easy, roughs are very forgiving in most cases and the condition of the course is always well-manicured.
The clubhouse area including bar, terrace and parking is quite reduced but conveniently sized for the actual number of holes, and is comfortable and easy.
El Higueral Golf has a very friendly, relaxed and positive ambience, with professional and dedicated personnel.
The pricing policy perfectly matches the quality offered and the level of demand. You can play nine holes for €33 of a Twilight green fee for €25. If you want to play all day long it’s €45. Play in the morning, relax on the beach and come back for another round!
For those who like to play El Higueral often, they have created a flexible membership package which provides economic benefits the more you play.
From Kenya to the Costa del Sol
The designer and manager of this nine-hole course is a professional who was born in Kenya and first came to the Costa del Sol in 1978 with his parents. They stopped here on the way to London in a light plane owned by his father, who loved the area because it reminded him of Africa in a certain way. The family set up home here and bought a tennis club in Benahavís, El Madroñal.
Rod began playing golf quite late. He played tennis and his coach in this sport at the US university where he studied was a keen golfer and injected him with the same poison! Rod was 18 years old. As a golfing pro he competed on the Challenge Tour and tried various times to make the jump onto that circuit’s big brother, the European Tour, but he had to combine work with competition and was unable to dedicate his body and soul to trying to realise that dream.
His working experience in the golf sector has previously been associated with the Los Arqueros and Marbella Club clubs, as well as various golf shops.
His entry into the world of design came in a quite casual way. As he explains, “The company owned the plot and a designer had created a design for the course, but they bought more land and my boss asked me if I could so something new. So I made a drawing, taking advantage of the fact there was already a routing, and I could leave and return to all that, and I gave it to him. He said the design was attractive, came along with a business group, and we walked the plot and he said, go ahead.”
The objective
The undeniable success of the course can, according to Rod, be explained simply. The key is people have fun here, because the idea of the design was not for a competition course that would cause headaches for everyone. The objective was to make it visually attractive so it was interesting and sufficiently easy for players of all levels. With my design I want you to find more hazards if you play well and, if you play worse, to not find bunkers or problems in the area where your ball lands. The aim is to always have fun.”
When Rod developed the design he paid special attention to women golfers. “Women’s tees are normally 15 metres ahead, and that seems to be a little unfair to me, because it doesn’t give them the same options as the men. What I did here was move them forward more so that a big-hitting woman had the same chance of reaching the par-fives in two as a professional and the option of scoring an eagle, and she could also reach the par-fours with her drive. It’s not just the drive: men also hit further with the irons, so we have to give women the same opportunities.”
Asked what his favourite holes were, he replied that “there are some that will surprise people because they have nine-hole par-three courses on their mind, and when you reach the fourth hole, which is a par-five that drops to a lake, you don’t know it’s there and you’re surprised to find a hole of this category”.
He also highlighted the sixth, with a riverbed on the left and two tees that require a massive flight of the ball over a gully (i.e. 190 metres over the distant riverbed to reach the playing area); and the third with its green almost on an island, in the style of the famous 17th at Sawgrass. “Each hole has its particular flair,” says Rod.
As for its expansion to 18 holes, the powerful business group that owns El Higueral is committed to carrying out the work as soon as it has all the administrative permits, which depend on the Junta de Andalucía (regional government) in the final stage of the process. The magnitude of the project is demonstrated by the fact that adding nine holes to the current layout, on the other side of the Guadalmina river, will require the construction of a bridge and a large section of road detouring from the current one that connects Benahavís village with the coast.
