With Royal Valderrama Club warming up for the LIV Golf League (30 June-2 July), Finca Cortesín in perfect shape for the Solheim Cup (22-24 September) and Royal Las Brisas finalising details for the Women’s Spanish Open (23-26 November), the Costa del Sol is set to shine brightly under the world's media spotlight in the coming months.
The first of those events – on an extraordinary course that has hosted the Ryder Cup, the Volvo Masters, the Am-Ex World Championship, the Spanish Open and the Andalucía Masters – will offer spectators an exceptional opportunity to see in-person many of the finest players in the world who, thanks to LIV Golf, will be teeing up in a tournament in Spain for the first time.
It will be a delight to see top stars such as Dustin Johnson, Cameron Smith, Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka in action, to name but a few. And the same will be true of the presence at Valderrama of the legendary Phil Mickelson, almost 26 years after the historic 1997 Ryder Cup was played for the first time on continental European soil, outside the British Isles. It will also be a pleasure to see Sergio García – winner of three Andalucía Masters at Valderrama – in action again, and we will have the opportunity to observe Eugenio López-Chacarra for the first time as a professional.
After this grand feast of golf – which will be accompanied by other leisure activities that customarily accompany LIV Golf tournaments and will undoubtedly delight the many spectators expected to flock to Valderrama – will come the major event of the year for international women's golf, the Solheim Cup. Finca Cortesín, another of the Costa del Sol's most renowned international courses, and also with an impressive track record as a venue for top tournaments (three editions of the World Match Play Championship), will be filled with fans from all over the world watching this duel between the best players from Europe and the United States.
With still months to go, more than 45,000 tickets have already been sold, which suggests that Finca Cortesín could become the first Solheim Cup event to be “sold out”.
A couple of months later, it will be the turn of another of the Costa del Sol's magnificent courses, Royal Las Brisas, designed – like Valderrama – by the legendary designer Robert Trent Jones Sr., with whom another brilliant architect who designed Finca Cortesín, Cabell B. Robinson, worked.
This Marbella course also has a stellar history as the host of major tournaments, including two editions of the World Cup and two Spanish Opens. The first World Cup in 1973 brought together such huge stars of the day as Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Johnny Miller.
The Costa del Sol is, in short, is in the global limelight and local, provincial and regional authorities, together with private enterprises, will want to make the most of this fantastic opportunity to demonstrate, once again, why the “Costa del Golf” is one of the leading tourist destinations attracting the most travelling golfers in the world.
