Travel
of an enormous Spanish hotel with a bar full
of Brits and a course bolted on, most famous
for staging charity golf events for former
England footballers. Pleasant surprise No.1 –
La Manga Club is NOTHING like that.
It’s a thriving community, with numerous
villas, a five-star hotel and plenty of self-
catering options, shops, restaurants, bars and
world-class sporting facilities, including three
golf courses, an academy with a range and
short-game area.
Originally developed in the early 1970s, a
more recent addition to La Manga are the Las
Lomas villas, which form a beautiful, well-
appointed village clinging to a hillside
overlooking the sea, the courses and the main
resort. You’ve got everything you need here
for a family holiday or a guys' golf trip; a
range of pools, a spa and gym, shops, cafes
for coffee or lunch, restaurants for dinner....
and it’s all within walking distance. Pleasant
surprise No.2. Our accommodation at Las
Lomas was stunning. The two-bed self-
catering (with maid service) apartment was
huge, with a kitchen, lounge, two large
bedrooms and a balcony with idyllic sea and
golf course views. If there wasn’t so much to
do at the resort, you could just spend a week
relaxing there! A regular shuttle service
connects the villas to the main resort, which
is a 10-minute drive away.
Bags dropped off, we wanted to get our
bearings – and flicking through the resort
guide, there was a picture of a charming little
bar right on the beach. It’s at the end of a
dusty, winding, cliffside track (which the
owner had built just so his wife could swim in
the sea) and it’s a picture-perfect secludedcove, with a pebbly beach and azure water. As
the kids paddled in the Med and my wife and
I sipped a beer on the terrace, I started to
realise what La Manga Club is really all about.
That's pleasant surprise No.3.
Of course, this is a world-famous golf
resort, and that’s really why I’m here, with
rounds on two of the three courses planned,
starting with the South – probably the best-
known of La Manga’s layouts, ahead of the
North and the West.
Work began on marking out the first two
(South and North) courses in January 1971
and in February of the same year the diggers
set to work to create the 14 lakes, 200
bunkers and 36 fairways and greens. Ten
months later construction work was complete.
Almost half a century later, both courses
are fully mature layouts, which can play asPerilous end
The climax to La
Manga's famous
South course is
dominated by a
water hazard.TODAYSGOLFER.CO.UK ISSUE 367 121