Golf in Portugal has always had one eye on the future. From junior development circuits to the national training centre at Jamor, the FPG has spent years building the infrastructure of a sport with serious long-term ambition. The first University Team Golf Tournament, held at Jamor in 2026, is the latest piece of that puzzle — and arguably one of the most significant.
A New Competition on Home Ground
The Centro Nacional de Formação de Golfe do Jamor is state property, integrated within the national sports complex and managed by the FPG under a 25-year agreement. Its nine-hole course, inaugurated in 2013, has since been recognised with GEO Certified® status for its sustainability credentials. Located 20 minutes from central Lisbon, it made a fitting home for a tournament with growth at its heart.
The FPG organised the event with a stated goal: to bring golf closer to the university community. The mixed-team format — students from across Portugal’s higher education institutions competing together — added a dimension that pure strokeplay rarely achieves. It was competitive and sociable, which, when you’re trying to grow a sport inside a campus culture, is more or less the point.
Universidade de Lisboa Take the Title
The inaugural title went to Universidade de Lisboa. Their team — captained by Eduardo Bianchi and comprising Inês Simão Gonçalves, Mafalda Soares, Clement Guertener, Enzo Blanc, Tomás Massena, William Bao, Francisco Jorge, and Dinis Isidro — played with enough composure to claim a clear victory on the day. IP + Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa finished second, with Universidade Católica Portuguesa in third. (Federação Portuguesa de Golfe)
Nine teams, one course, and a first edition that delivered on both atmosphere and competition. The FPG’s instinct to stage it as a team event — rather than an individual ranking exercise — was well-judged. Universities rally around collective identity. Golf in Portugal now has a platform to benefit from that.
Portugal in the Wider Picture
This tournament doesn’t exist in isolation. Portugal already features as a qualifying venue in the R&A Student Tour Series — an international circuit designed to provide elite student golfers outside the USA and Mexico with high-performance competition. The Series was launched in 2019, and the R&A invests close to £500,000 annually in student and university golf through its Foundation Scholars programme. (The R&A)
What the FPG has done here is to complement that elite pathway with something broader — a domestic platform for students who love the game, regardless of whether they’re chasing amateur titles. The Portugal golf courses that host the international circuit are a different world from Jamor’s nine holes. But the pipeline runs in one direction.
Portugal’s golf ecosystem has momentum on multiple fronts. The Algarve remains one of Europe’s most established golf holiday destinations, the FPG’s youth development circuits have been expanding their reach, and the Portugal golf competitions calendar grows more varied each year. The first University Team Golf Tournament isn’t just a feel-good footnote to all of that. It’s evidence that the federation is thinking carefully about where the next generation of Portuguese golfers comes from — and making sure there’s a competition waiting for them when they arrive.
The awards came quickly and have not stopped. Dunas was named World’s Best New Golf Course and Europe’s Best New Golf Course at the 2023 World Golf Awards. In 2024, it collected three more — World’s Best Golf Course, Europe’s Best Golf Course, and Europe’s Best Eco-Friendly Golf Facility. It retained the Europe’s Best Golf Course title in 2025. It holds the number one ranking in Portugal on Top100GolfCourses.com and sits at number six in Continental Europe on the same list.
Together, Dunas and Torre make Terras da Comporta a genuine 36-hole destination — two courses of Continental European Top 100 calibre, side by side, an hour from Lisbon. That combination did not exist two years ago.
The signature hole is the 18th, where the green sits on an island and the round ends exactly as it should: with something at stake.
The second course, designed by Donald Steel, occupies more uneven terrain with more water in play and is generally the tougher of the two. Aroeira is now part of the PGA portfolio — under new ownership that has invested considerably in both course conditions and service standards. Between them, the two courses offer enough variety to fill several days without moving your bags — and they are in better shape than ever.
It earns its reputation quietly. The golfers who have played it tend to take care of the rest.
Like Aroeira, the course has since come under the PGA umbrella, with new ownership investing significantly in playing conditions and the wider visitor experience. The ferry crossing adds ten minutes and a considerable amount of anticipation.
