June and July Golf in the Algarve: A Golf Secret

The crowds have gone. The mornings and evenings have not.

The Algarve’s peak golf season belongs to spring — April and May bring mild temperatures, green fairways, and full tee sheets. What follows in June and July is a different proposition entirely. Fewer golfers. Longer days. A pace that feels closer to what the region actually is, rather than what the calendar tells most visitors to expect.

The Early Tee Time Is Your Friend

The Algarve coastline bathed in evening light during summer, Portugal
Summer in the Algarve means sunrise before 6:30am. An early tee time — 7am, or earlier at some courses — puts you on the fairway in conditions the midday golfer never sees. The light in those first hours is something particular: low and warm across the fairways, with a stillness to the air that belongs entirely to early morning. The cork oaks hold the shadow a little longer. The dew is still on the rough. By the time the sun is fully overhead, the round is done and the terrace is waiting.

The Long Evening Is an Underrated Asset

The Algarve in late June sees the sun set at around 9:15pm (timeanddate.com). That is not a minor detail. It means a back nine after dinner without the feeling of racing the clock. It means the kind of long, golden-hour light that does things to a links-style layout that a noon round cannot replicate. The western Algarve, in particular — where the Atlantic horizon sits just beyond the last fairway — earns that final hour of daylight more than most places. Summer evenings here are not a consolation. They are the whole point.

Green Fees in Summer: A Different Equation

Palmares Golf Course overlooking Meia Praia bay and the Alvor estuary, Lagos, Algarve
Peak spring green fees at the region’s flagship courses can be significant. Summer rates — particularly in June, before the school holiday surge — offer considerably better value without a corresponding drop in course quality. The greens have been through a full season of careful preparation. The price is lower because demand is lower. That gap is wider than most golfers realise, and it is one of the better-kept secrets on the European golf travel calendar.

The Courses That Reward a Summer Visit

Not every course in the Algarve plays identically in summer. Layouts with Atlantic exposure — set above the western coastline, or at elevation — benefit from the prevailing coastal breeze throughout the morning hours. Palmares, rising above Lagos and the long sweep of Meia Praia bay, is one of those courses: the views across the Alvor estuary alone justify the drive west. Boavista — designed by Howard Swan and chronically underappreciated — sits on the same western stretch, its two distinct sections climbing and descending through landscaped valleys in a way that rewards patience and repeat visits. Further east, the umbrella pines of Vilamoura Old Course offer shade and quiet that the busier spring months rarely allow.

The Region in Summer

The Algarve coastline bathed in evening light during summer, Portugal
The Algarve does not slow down in summer so much as settle into itself. The limestone cliffs along the coast turn amber in the late afternoon light. The fishing boats sit low in Ferragudo harbour. The market stalls in Loulé carry the smell of fresh bread and dried herbs, and the restaurants fill gradually rather than all at once. Evenings stretch long enough to make dinner feel genuinely unhurried. A cold Sagres on a terrace facing west, with the light still in the sky at nine in the evening, is one of those small, specific pleasures that cannot really be argued with. Golf brings you here in June and July. The region is the reason you book again.

Browse our Algarve golf holidays and start planning your summer.


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The Open de Portugal Returns to PGA Aroeira Lisboa

After nearly thirty years away, one of European golf’s most storied tournaments comes home to the Wentworth of Lisbon

This September, the pine forests south of Lisbon will host professional golf again. The 64th Open de Portugal takes place at PGA Aroeira No.1 from 17 to 20 September 2026, marking the return of tournament golf to a course that has been part of the game’s fabric in Portugal for over half a century. The event is part of the HotelPlanner Tour and carries a prize fund of €300,000, with 156 players competing over four days. (HotelPlanner Tour)

Open de Portugal Returns to Aroeira

A Tournament Older Than the European Tour Itself

The Open de Portugal has been running since 1953 — nearly two decades before the European Tour existed. When the Tour launched its inaugural calendar in 1972, this was one of the events on it. That kind of longevity is rare in professional golf, and it places the tournament in company that very few events on the current schedule can claim. For the Portuguese Golf Federation, this is one of the centrepiece moments of the national golfing calendar.

The Course and Its Reputation

PGA Aroeira No.1 opened in 1972, the work of architect Frank Pennink, and was quickly given the nickname ‘the Wentworth of Lisbon’ by visiting players. The comparison was always a compliment with range — the course measures 6,122 metres over a traditional par 72 layout, winding through dense pine forest, and precision rather than power is the dominant theme, with tall trees doing the work that fairway bunkers do elsewhere. It is a course that rewards patience and punishes optimism.

Aroeira Fairway and Green

In 1996 and 1997, the course hosted the European Tour’s Portuguese Open — and the 2026 return closes a gap of nearly three decades. Portugal’s only PGA National, PGA Aroeira has recently emerged from a period of significant renovation, with new tees, reshaped bunkers, and cleared woodland between fairways opening up the layout and showing the course at its best. The resort was also named Europe’s Best Eco-Friendly Golf Facility 2025 at the World Golf Awards — recognition that the work done here goes beyond the scorecard.

What Brings 156 Professionals to Lisbon

The Open de Portugal is a Road to Mallorca event, awarding 2,000 points in the rankings that determine which players graduate to the DP World Tour at the season’s end. For many in the field, September at Aroeira will be one of the defining weeks of their year. The HotelPlanner Tour has been a reliable launching pad — recent winners at Royal Óbidos and other Portuguese venues have gone on to establish themselves at the highest level.

Aroeira Tee Lined Fairway

September at Aroeira

The conditions in mid-September around Lisbon are, frankly, excellent for golf. The resort sits within a protected pine forest on the Setúbal Peninsula, about 30 minutes from central Lisbon, with the Atlantic close enough to keep temperatures civilised. When the professionals leave, the course will be in tournament shape — and open for the rest of us.

PGA Aroeira No.1 is part of the Tee Times Lisbon Portfolio portfolio. If you would like to play the same course that hosts the 64th Open de Portugal, we can book your round.

The Open Championship 2026: Royal Birkdale Prepares for Its Biggest Week

Record demand, a stellar field, and links golf at its most unforgiving — July cannot come soon enough

The 154th Open Championship arrives at Royal Birkdale on 16 July 2026, and the appetite for it borders on the remarkable. More than one million ticket applications were submitted for a week that is expected to draw over 300,000 spectators — which would set an all-time attendance record for golf’s oldest major. The Claret Jug returns to the Lancashire coast, and the world, in considerable numbers, intends to be there. (Golf Digest)

Royal Birkdale Golf Course Southport

A Course That Has Earned Its Place in the Rota

Royal Birkdale has hosted The Open eleven times. Only St Andrews has done so more. The course sits within a natural landscape of sand dunes and willow scrub, with fairways running through hollows that create amphitheatre-like conditions — some of the best spectator sightlines in championship golf. Its roll call of champions is a short history of the modern game: Arnold Palmer in 1961, Tom Watson in 1983, Padraig Harrington in 2008, Jordan Spieth in 2017. Birkdale does not flatter the fortunate. It finds out the worthy. (Golf Digest)

Scheffler Carries the Jug In

Scottie Scheffler won the Claret Jug at Royal Portrush in 2025 and arrives at Birkdale as defending champion and world number one. He is the kind of player links golf rewards: methodical, patient, built for the long game. The question is not whether he is the favourite — he is — but who, among a field of 156, has both the game and the temperament to take it from him.

Open Championship Claret Jug Trophy

The European Case Has Never Been Stronger

The 2026 major season has already produced a compelling storyline for European golf. Aaron Rai’s victory at the PGA Championship — the first by an English-born player since 1919 — announced a depth of European talent that the big events are no longer able to ignore. Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood, Shane Lowry and Robert MacIntyre complete a contingent that thrives in exactly the conditions Birkdale will provide. Fleetwood, who grew up in Southport, will be playing The Open in his own back garden — a fact the crowd will remind him of, loudly, at every opportunity. (Tee Times)

Spieth Returns to the Scene

Jordan Spieth won The Open at Birkdale in 2017 with a final round that remains one of the great modern major performances. He returns this July still chasing the PGA Championship — the one title that would complete golf’s career Grand Slam. The venue has history for him. Whether that history helps or haunts remains to be seen.

Jordan Spieth Winner 2017 Open Championship

Something New for 2026

The R&A have introduced a Last Chance Qualifier on the Monday of Open week — twelve players competing over Birkdale’s links for the 156th and final spot in the championship. Drama before the main event begins. It is, as additions to major weeks go, a good one. (Today’s Golfer)

The Open has a way of reminding golfers why links golf is the purest version of the game. If it has you thinking about that kind of test in warmer climes, the Algarve golf courses offer firm fairways, coastal winds, and conditions that prepare you for whatever Birkdale might throw at a field in July. Browse our Portugal golf holidays and see what the Iberian peninsula has waiting.