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Tom Lehman Completes a Field for the Ages at the Portugal Invitational

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Six Ryder Cup Captains, Five Hall of Famers, and One Week Until the Invitational Tees Off

Portugal Invitational - PGA banner

With just over a week to go, the Portugal Invitational field has found its final and most decorated piece. Tom Lehman – the 1996 Open Champion, a former World No. 1, and captain of the United States at the 2006 Ryder Cup – has confirmed for the tournament’s first edition at The Els Club Vilamoura, running from 31 July to 2 August. He joins a 78-player field already carrying five World Golf Hall of Fame members and six Ryder Cup captains. For a competition that did not exist twelve months ago, staged on a course a short drive from Vilamoura’s marina, this is no small thing for the Algarve.

Lehman Brings the Claret Jug to the Algarve

Lehman won his Open Championship at Royal Lytham & St Annes, a victory that also carried him to the top of the world rankings that summer. Across his career he collected five PGA TOUR titles, and in 2006 he led the United States as Ryder Cup captain. It is a résumé that would headline most senior tournaments outright. At the Portugal Invitational, it simply joins the queue.

Tom Lehman, 1996 Open Champion, confirmed for the Portugal Invitational

He arrives alongside a run of late confirmations: Darren Clarke, Steven Alker, K.J. Choi, Justin Leonard and Y.E. Yang have all signed on this week. They complete a field that already included Ernie Els, Pádraig Harrington, Bernhard Langer, Colin Montgomerie, Retief Goosen, Stewart Cink, Zach Johnson and Miguel Ángel Jiménez. Between a Claret Jug, a green jacket and a Wanamaker Trophy, there is barely a major left uncollected.

The Numbers Speak for Themselves

Seventy-eight players from seventeen countries make up the field, including five World Golf Hall of Fame members and six Ryder Cup captains. Eighteen players have appeared in a Ryder Cup themselves. Between them, they carry 224 PGA TOUR victories, 247 PGA TOUR Champions titles, 20 major championships and 44 PGA TOUR Champions majors. Tournament director Todd Rhinehart said the strength of the field reflects exactly what organisers hoped to build in the event’s debut year. Few would argue.

A Venue fitting the Tournament

The Els Club Vilamoura sits on the site of the old Victoria Golf Course, an Arnold Palmer design that hosted the DP World Tour’s Portugal Masters from 2007 to 2022 and produced winners including Shane Lowry and Pádraig Harrington. Ernie Els redesigned the layout himself, keeping one nine on its original routing and building the other from nothing. The result is the fifth Els Club anywhere in the world, and the first in Europe.

The Els Club Vilamoura, redesigned by Ernie Els, host of the 2026 Portugal Invitational

The tournament carries similar weight. This is the first PGA TOUR-sanctioned individual stroke play event ever played on Portuguese soil, and the first PGA TOUR Champions event staged anywhere in Europe, backed by a five-year partnership between PGA TOUR Champions, Arrow Global Group, Turismo de Portugal and Turismo do Algarve. It sits inside a three-week European swing, following the ISPS Handa Senior Open and preceding the Staysure PGA Seniors Championship. For a resort that has spent decades building its name on courses like Vilamoura Old Course, Laguna and Millennium, this is the kind of validation that does not arrive often.

More Than a Golf Week for Vilamoura

The Portugal Invitational lands in peak summer, when Vilamoura’s marina is already at its liveliest – boats moored three deep, restaurant terraces filling from early evening, the kind of atmosphere that makes late July here feel like a festival with a leaderboard attached. Visitors staying through tournament week will find themselves within a few minutes of Vilamoura’s other courses – the Old Course, Laguna, Millennium and Pinhal — with Vale do Lobo and Quinta do Lago not much further beyond.

Vilamoura marina in summer, host town for the Portugal Invitational

A Week Out, and Counting

The tournament will be broadcast live in the United States on Golf Channel, the exclusive home of PGA TOUR Champions, with international coverage reaching more than 170 countries through 25 broadcast partners. Full spectator and ticketing details are available at portugalinvitational.com for anyone planning to watch from the ropes.

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For anyone planning to do more than watch, the timing is worth noting. The tournament plays out at a course, in a town, that welcomes golfers on the same fairways once the crowds go home. Browse our Vilamoura golf holidays and build a trip around it.


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Vilamoura Summer Tournaments 2026: Four Courses, Four Weeks

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One Course a Week, Right Through August

The Vilamoura Summer Tournaments return this August with four Individual Stableford Net competitions, one per course, spread across the month. Entry includes lunch, warm-up balls and a shared buggy for each round — a straightforward package for anyone who fancies pairing a summer stay with some competitive golf.

4 Golf Tournments in August in Vilamoura

The Schedule

Three of the four rounds fall on a Tuesday, with the closing event shifting to the Monday before month’s end. The Old Course opens on 4 August, priced at €195. Pinhal follows on 11 August, then Millennium on 18 August, with Laguna closing things out on 24 August — the latter three each priced at €125.

The Four Courses

The Old Course was laid out by Frank Pennink in 1969 and reworked by Martin Hawtree in 1996. Doglegs and well-guarded greens ask for precision over power, and a recently rebuilt clubhouse and TrackMan-equipped driving range give the round a modern edge either side of it.

Pinhal is Vilamoura’s second course, dating to 1976 and remodelled by Robert Trent Jones in 1985. Pine trees line most fairways, which makes for a shaded round in August and a genuinely tricky one — the 18th, a blind uphill approach guarded by three bunkers, has a reputation for wrecking scorecards.

Vilamoura Old Course
Pinhal Gold Course, Vilamoura

Millennium has been open since 2000 and is the most played course at the resort. The front nine winds through pine trees; the back nine opens into flatter, more forgiving terrain. A fair test for most handicaps, and a sensible one to start a golfing week on.

Laguna is the outlier of the four — low-lying, largely treeless, and built around a series of lakes that come into play on eleven holes. Wind off the coast is the real defence here, along with 79 bunkers for anyone who finds dry land.

Millenium Golf Course
Laguna Golf Course
Format and Prizes

Each tournament runs as a standalone Individual Stableford Net event. Prizes go to the top three overall finishers, with Nearest the Pin and Longest Drive awards presented separately for men and ladies at every round.

What’s Included

Lunch, warm-up balls and a shared buggy come with every entry, whichever course is on the card that week. The Old Course carries the higher fee of the four, reflecting its status as Vilamoura’s original layout; the other three rounds are priced identically.

Four courses, four Stableford rounds, one August circuit — golfers can enter a single tournament or take on the full set. Sign up for the Vilamoura Summer Tournaments 2026 and pick your course.


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Algarve’s Two Biggest Tourism Bodies Confirm Merger to Form AETA

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On Monday 6 July, Quinta do Canhoto in Albufeira hosted a milestone moment for Algarve tourism.

Some 250 people watched AHETA and AIHSA, the region’s two largest tourism business associations, sign a Memorandum of Understanding formally launching their merger into a single body: AETA, the Algarve Association of Tourism Companies.

Two Associations, One Long-Discussed Union

AHETA, founded in 1995 and representing hotels, tourism real estate and entertainment, and AIHSA, founded in 1971 and rooted in hospitality and restaurants, bring a combined membership of around 1,300 businesses to the new entity. Presidents Hélder Martins and Daniel do Adro both framed the merger as additive rather than a break from the past — a modern structure built to lead Algarve tourism’s future without erasing either association’s history. (Publituris)

A Full House of Regional and National Backing

AETA dignitaries at merger

The ceremony was presided over by Pedro Machado, Secretary of State for Tourism, Commerce and Services, who closed proceedings by welcoming a stronger, unified Algarve tourism sector as good news for Portugal’s wider economic competitiveness. André Gomes, president of the Algarve Tourism Region, and António Pina, president of the Algarve Intermunicipal Community, both spoke in support, while Albufeira’s mayor, Rui Cristina, was among those present, calling the merger a sign of the maturity and strategic vision of the region’s business community. Francisco Calheiros, president of the Portuguese Tourism Confederation, rounded out the institutional line-up. (Publituris)

Why This Matters for Golfers Booking a Trip

Industry consolidation rarely makes for gripping reading, but a region that speaks with one voice tends to invest more coherently in the things golfers actually notice — course maintenance, service standards, transfers that run on time. The Algarve has never lacked for courses. What this merger suggests is a sharper, better-resourced case for keeping them, and everything around them, at the level this destination is known for.


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