Colin Montgomerie Headlines the Legends Tour Return to Costa Navarino

The Staysure Legends Tour brings Major champions back to Greece for a third consecutive year, 12–14 June

The Staysure Legends Tour arrives at Costa Navarino next week for the third consecutive year, and this edition arrives with perhaps its strongest field yet. The Costa Navarino Legends Tour Trophy runs 12–14 June across two of the destination’s four championship courses — the fourth event on the 2026 Staysure Legends Tour calendar and the tour’s first continental European stop of the season.

Colin Montgomerie at the Staysure Legends Tour 2026

Colin Montgomerie is confirmed as the headline name. There are worse ways to spend a week in June. (legendstour.com)

Montgomerie Leads a Field Worth Watching

Montgomerie arrives in Messinia with a record that requires no embellishment: eight European Tour Order of Merit titles, 31 wins on tour, and the captaincy of Europe’s victorious 2010 Ryder Cup side. He is joined by defending champion Peter Baker, who won the 2025 edition without dropping a shot across the entire final round — a performance that set a bar most mortals would struggle to locate, let alone clear.

Paul Lawrie, the 1999 Open Champion, is also in the field. Lawrie was the story of last year’s event, carding a course-record ten-under 62 on The Hills Course in round two before Baker edged him on the final day. Michael Campbell completes a headline quartet that accounts for three Major titles between them. (golfbusinessnews.com)

The Courses: Designed for This Level of Golf

The tournament is played across two of the four layouts at Costa Navarino — The Hills Course and the International Olympic Academy Golf Course, both designed by two-time Masters champion José María Olazábal. Both sit at Navarino Hills, the 125-hectare development named the World’s Best New Golf Development at the 2020 World Golf Awards.

The International Olympic Course at Navarino Hills, Costa Navarino, overlooking the Bay of Navarino, Greece The Hills Course at Navarino Hills, Costa Navarino, overlooking the Bay of Navarino, Greece

Elevated above the coastline with sweeping views of the Bay of Navarino and the Ionian Sea, both courses offer the kind of elevation changes and precision demands that tend to separate a good field from a great leaderboard. The Hills Course, scene of Lawrie’s record round last year, will be carrying a certain atmosphere going into the final day. (costanavarino.com)

The Setting

Costa Navarino sits in Messinia, in the southwest Peloponnese — a region of olive groves, ancient hilltop fortresses, and one of the most storied stretches of coastline in the Mediterranean. The Bay of Navarino, watched over by the 13th-century Niokastro fortress, was the site of the last great naval battle fought under sail.

The coastline of Messinia in the southwest Peloponnese, Greece, home to Costa Navarino
The light here in June sits low and golden over the Ionian Sea well into the evening. The food is exceptional, the pace is unhurried, and the courses are among the most visually arresting in Europe. It is, in short, the kind of place that makes the rest of the tour calendar look like it is trying too hard.
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Costa Navarino is one of those destinations that tends to settle the argument before you have finished making it. Four signature courses, two of them designed by a two-time Masters champion, set above one of the most beautiful bays in the Mediterranean. Accommodation that matches the golf step for step. And a corner of Greece that most of Europe has yet to fully discover. If the tournament has planted a seed, our Costa Navarino golf holidays are a good place to start.


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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.