Millennium sits at the heart of Vilamoura's golf cluster, a short run from the marina and within easy reach of the resort's hotels. Opened in 2000, the course pairs a refurbished nine from the old Laguna layout with a newly built nine cut through umbrella pine woodland — a blend that gives the round two distinct characters rather than one.
The front nine, holes three to seven especially, plays tight and wooded, asking for accuracy off the tee where the pines close in. From there the course opens out, flatter and more exposed to the Algarve breeze, before water comes into play again on the closing holes. The par-3 6th is the hole most golfers remember: a lake guarding the left of the green, a deep bunker on the right, and not much margin for a loose shot. It's a course built for variety and for company — sociable enough for a mixed-ability fourball, sharp enough to punish carelessness on the closing stretch.
Facilities are shared with the neighbouring Laguna course, including a driving range, putting green, and a resident academy for anyone looking to sharpen up beforehand. The clubhouse restaurant and bar make an easy stop before or after the round, and a complimentary shuttle runs from a selection of Vilamoura hotels. For golfers splitting a week across the region's courses, Millennium is a relaxed, well-paced day out.

The Old Course is Frank Pennink's original design for Vilamoura, laid out in 1969 as one of the first courses built in the resort. Martin Hawtree remodelled it in 1996, keeping Pennink's routing intact while bringing the course up to modern standards. Set in the heart of Vilamoura, twenty minutes from Faro airport, it's known across the Algarve as the Grande Dame of the region's golf courses, and hosted the Portuguese Open in 1979.
It's pure parkland golf, routed through mature umbrella pines that do most of the defending. Fairways roll gently, with a few steeper slopes, and doglegs come mainly on the back nine. Water only enters the equation once, on the 4th, the course's signature hole: a par-3 that asks for a precise tee shot up and over a large pine, to a green guarded by water on the far side. The buggy here is optional rather than essential.
The clubhouse has been rebuilt in recent years, with a British-style restaurant and snack bar, and the driving range now runs on TrackMan technology, with an on-site academy staffed by resident professionals. Locker rooms and a pro shop round things out. Book a round at one of Vilamoura's original courses, and one of the Algarve's most storied.

Monte Rei Golf Course is Jack Nicklaus's only design in Portugal, and the first of his Signature courses to reach the country when it opened in 2007. The North Course sits in the eastern Algarve, in the foothills of the Serra do Caldeirão, with mountains behind and the Atlantic in view to the south, on a 1,000-acre estate near Tavira. It held Portugal's number one ranking for close to fifteen years, a run few layouts anywhere can match.
Water comes into play on eleven of the eighteen holes, and the routing keeps each one in its own corridor, so there's rarely a view of another group's game. It's a par-72 layout of eight par-4s, five par-3s and five par-5s, running to over 6,500 metres from the championship tees, with doglegs on several holes and tees set high enough to catch the wind. The 13th is the signature hole: a downhill par-4 from an elevated tee, its green pinched between a lake and a run of sand. The 18th closes matters with a 550-yard par-5, the lake shadowing the approach and, for the longest hitters, still tempting a run at the green in two.
The buggy is included in the green fee, useful across terrain that rolls more than it lets on, and the practice facilities stretch to a full driving range and an on-site academy with resident professionals. A clubhouse restaurant and snack bar, locker rooms and pro shop round out the day. Book a round at Monte Rei and see why it's held its place among Portugal's finest for the better part of two decades.

Quinta da Ria sits inside the Ria Formosa Natural Park, on a stretch of the eastern Algarve where no villa or apartment block is allowed to interrupt the view. It is a rare thing in this region: a course with nothing around it but wetland, olive trees, and the sea. Designed by Rocky Roquemore and opened in 2002, it rewards patience over power, and the courses's own guests will tell you it's worth the drive east.
Five lakes work their way through the round, most notably guarding the 10th green, and the back nine edges close enough to the Atlantic that the sea breeze becomes a permanent playing partner. The par-3 17th is the hole most golfers remember: its green sits beside a small island that doubles as a bird sanctuary, a genuinely rare sight mid-round. Thick rough and flat, deceptively tricky bunkers punish anything sprayed off line, and the wind means club selection here is never quite as simple as the scorecard suggests.
Facilities include a driving range, a resident academy, and a clubhouse restaurant serving Portuguese food with a view back over the course. Quinta da Ria pairs naturally with its sister course, Quinta de Cima, next door, for golfers looking to spend a full trip on this quieter side of the Algarve. For anyone tired of playing the same handful of famous names, this is the detour worth making.

Laguna is Joseph Lee's design for Vilamoura, opened in 1990 on reclaimed marshland as part of the original 27-hole Vilamoura III complex. When the Millennium course was carved out of that same site in 2000, Laguna settled into the 18 holes it plays today, laid out over low-lying coastal ground in the heart of the resort.
It's the odd one out among Vilamoura's courses: few trees, open ground, and a links feel across several holes. Par 72, 6,121 metres from the white tees, with lakes shaping play on eleven of them; those same lakes double as a habitat for otters, terrapins and migrating birds, and sit close to the Vilamoura Environment Nature Park. Add 79 bunkers and a wind that rarely lets up on this exposed site, and accuracy matters more than length. The 9th is the signature hole.
The clubhouse is shared with the neighbouring Millennium course, and the resort adds a driving range, academy, restaurant and snack bar, locker room and pro shop. Book a round at the Vilamoura course built to play differently from the rest.

Golf at Vale do Lobo began in 1965, when Sir Henry Cotton was brought in to lay out the resort's first course, part of Trusthouse Forte and Costain's plan to build Portugal's first purpose-designed luxury resort. Two nine-hole loops opened in 1968 and 1972, and eventually became today's Ocean course. The Royal course as it stands opened in 1997, American architect Rocky Roquemore's reworking of Cotton's original drawings.
It's a par-72 layout of around 6,059 metres, rolling through pines and lakes, with some steep climbs on the back nine and a couple of doglegs. Water shows up on both nines, mostly visible from the tee. The 9th plays to a green that's almost an island. But the signature hole is the 16th, inherited from Cotton's original 1968 routing: a par-3 played along the coastal cliffs, often named among the most photographed holes in Europe.
The buggy is recommended here, and the resort backs it up with a driving range, an academy staffed by resident professionals, a clubhouse restaurant and snack bar, locker room and pro shop. Book a round on the course that gave the Algarve its most famous photograph, and pair it with its sibling, the Ocean course, next door.

Salgados is Pedro Vasconcelos's design, laid out with American architect Robert Muir Graves and opened in September 1994 within the wetlands of the Salgados Lagoon Nature Reserve, near Albufeira. A substantial renovation followed in 2012 under landscape architect Álvaro Mano, and the course has been freshened again more recently, including a new island green at the 12th.
It's a flat, links-style par 72 of around 6,100 metres, where water does most of the defending, in play on the majority of holes rather than literally every one. The signature pairing is the 6th, a par-5, and the reworked 12th, a par-3 played to that new island green. Palm trees line the fairways in place of the pines found elsewhere in the Algarve, and the wind off the coast is a constant factor on this exposed, open site. The flat ground means the buggy is optional rather than essential.
The clubhouse has a restaurant and bar, and the resort adds a driving range, resident professionals, locker room and pro shop. Book a round at the course built into a wetland reserve, and one regularly singled out as some of the best value golf in the Algarve.

San Lourenco Golf is a par 72 course located in Quinta do Lago and is considered one of the best and most beautiful golf courses in Europe. The fact that this is an award-winning course is no coincidence. Bordering with the breathtaking Ria Formosa Natural Park, some of its holes are blessed with what can only be described as exquisite beauty, complemented with salt water lakes. If the first holes present no major surprise or challenges, after the 3rd, closer to the estuary, San Lourenco starts to reveal itself. After the 5th hole, a par-3 and the course's shortest, you're introduced to a dolgleg, stroke 1 sixth hole where your main challenge will be to avoid the dense shrub, so make sure you get your distances just right. As you get to the 7th, life is by no chance made easier but you still get the bonus of the outstanding views from this elevated tee before you have to focus on how to get around that green almost entirely surrounded by water. On the back nine, the 12th is the most challenging hole on San Lorenzo, featuring a deep chasm along the left of a very narrow fairway. Holes 13th to 16th also face the ocean with the latter proving to be the most demanding par-3, featuring a whole 180 m carry to a shallow green. Seventeenth is, again, extremely beautiful but still falls short of the beauty that awaits you on the last hole. It is a great finale and one that will remain in your memory as it has an excellence that is renowned worlwide. It is, without a doubt, a course for special occasions, that will provide you with unforgetably beautiful moments. Of course such a unique course had to have unique requirements concerning the booking of your green fees and that is only possible if you are a guest at the 5 star Dona Filipa Hotel nearby or by contacting Tee Times who will make the required arrangements to book what will be one of the most special games of golf you will ever play in your life.

Few courses in the Algarve have been through a transformation like this one. Built originally by Arnold Palmer and home to the Portugal Masters every year from 2007 to 2022, the course was stripped back to bare ground in 2023 and rebuilt from scratch by Ernie Els and his design team, a reported €17 million investment that makes this Europe's first Els Club and the Algarve's first private members' course.
Els reversed the entire back-nine routing, so nothing about the old championship rhythm carries over. New green complexes and sand-capped fairways have replaced the Palmer-era layout hole for hole. The par-5 11th is the one Els's own team points to as the round's centrepiece: water down the left off the tee, a stream tight against the green, and a genuine risk-reward decision on the second shot. It plays every bit as sharp as its pedigree suggests, and the PGA Tour Champions has already picked it to host the inaugural Portugal Invitational in 2026.
Access here works differently to the rest of Vilamoura. The Els Club is a private members' course, and non-members can only play through a stay-and-play package at the adjacent Victoria Golf Resort & Spa, with a minimum three-night stay. It's a different kind of booking, but for golfers planning a longer Algarve trip, it's a rare chance to play a tour-standard course built by one of the game's great champions.

Vale do Lobo's Ocean Course carries the pedigree of few others in the Algarve: it was shaped by Sir Henry Cotton, a three-time Open Champion and the first professional golfer ever knighted for his service to the game. Two of his original nine-hole layouts, opened in 1968 and 1972, were finally combined into today's eighteen in 1995, completing a vision he never got to see finished.
The course builds gradually, its fairways undulating past a protected nature reserve before easing down toward the Atlantic. Everything sharpens on the closing stretch. The 11th and 14th, both testing par 4s, deliver some of the finest views in the region, and the par-3 15th plays right along the beach, close enough to hear the sea over your backswing. It is a round that rewards shot-shaping over brute force, exactly the kind of test Cotton favoured, and one that guests consistently rate among their Algarve favourites.
Facilities include a full driving range, a resident academy, and a clubhouse restaurant well placed for a post-round drink with a view. The Ocean Course sits alongside its sister course, the Royal, giving golfers a natural two-round pairing without leaving the resort. For anyone chasing that classic Algarve postcard, holes along the water, sea breeze in play, Cotton's design still delivers it.