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Portugal’s Golf Course Rankings Shake Up

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The “King” has been toppled after 15 years. A new course is at the top.

Top100GolfCourses.com has published its 2026 update to Portugal’s Top 50, and it is being called the most volatile edition in the list’s history, with only four courses holding on to their previous position. That is a lot of movement for a country with around eighty-six eighteen-hole courses spread across five regions.

For anyone planning a golf trip to Portugal this year, it is also useful reading: a top spot is not permanent, and neither is a top-ten place secure. At the summit, a course that only opened in 2023 has done something no course outside the Algarve has managed since 2008: taken the national number one spot. (Top100GolfCourses.com)

A New Name at the Top

Fairway through dune land at Dunas Terras da Comporta golf course near Lisbon

Dunas Terras da Comporta, an hour south of Lisbon on the edge of the Sado Estuary, now sits at number one in Portugal. Designed by David McLay Kidd through natural dune land, it has collected a run of international honours since opening in 2023, and this latest placing confirms it as more than a passing trend. It is the first time since 2008 that a course from the Lisbon & Central region has led the national ranking. Five minutes away, the Torre course, designed by Sergio García, gives the estate a second layout worth building a trip around. Play Dunas Terras da Comporta and the case for both makes itself.

Monte Rei Steps Aside

Monte Rei North golf course in the Eastern Algarve

For fifteen years, Monte Rei North held the number one position in Portugal without serious challenge. That run ends this year. The Jack Nicklaus Signature design near Tavira in the eastern Algarve now sits at number two, still firmly inside the country’s elite, still one of the more complete tests of golf on the Iberian Peninsula. Set among cork oak and pine, the course rewards accuracy over power, and its practice facilities are as complete as its ranking suggests. Fifteen years at the top is not a run many courses anywhere in the world can claim, and second place on a list this competitive is no demotion. It is simply Portuguese golf catching up with itself.

Quinta do Lago South Returns to the Podium

Monte Rei North golf course in the Eastern Algarve

Quinta do Lago South climbed three places to number three, reclaiming a podium finish and reasserting its position as the Algarve’s leading traditional resort course. Set within the Ria Formosa Natural Park, it pairs golf with one of the region’s more distinctive landscapes, saltwater marshland giving way to fairways rather than the other way around. The course has long been the benchmark against which newer Algarve designs are measured, and this year’s ranking makes that case with numbers rather than reputation alone.

Rankings shift from year to year, this year more than most, with six courses entering the Top 25 for the first time. What doesn’t shift is why golfers keep returning to Portugal: more than three hundred days of sunshine in the Algarve, a growing case for Lisbon & Central, and courses across both regions built for a repeat visit, not a single tick on a list. Browse our Algarve golf holidays and see the courses behind the numbers.


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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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Ryan Fox Wins the 2026 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale

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The First New Zealander to Lift the Claret Jug Since Bob Charles in 1963.

Victorious Ryan Fox holds the Claret Jug aloft

Ryan Fox won the 154th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale on Sunday, birdieing four of his last six holes to finish at ten under par and edge Cameron Young by a single stroke. It is Fox’s first major title at thirty-nine, and it makes him only the third New Zealander in history to win the Claret Jug — the first since Bob Charles in 1963. Sam Burns, who had led since Friday, closed with a two-over 72 to finish third. Scottie Scheffler and Tommy Fleetwood tied for fourth.

A Brutal Cut Set the Tone

Packed Stands at the 18th, where many watched their favourites miss the cut

Royal Birkdale’s firm fairways and pot bunkers made their intentions clear early. The cut line settled at one-over 141, and it caught two of the season’s form players. Matt Fitzpatrick, in contention for PGA TOUR Player of the Year, opened 72-72 and missed his first major cut since the 2024 PGA Championship. Wyndham Clark, the reigning U.S. Open champion, ballooned to seven-over after eight holes of his second round before a late eagle-birdie-birdie surge softened the damage — not enough to survive the weekend. Royal Birkdale does not care about reputation. It only cares about ball-striking.

Burns and Fox Rewrote the Record Books

Sam Burns set a course record to go into Sunday leading by 2

The weekend belonged to two players moving in opposite directions on the leaderboard. Sam Burns’s (pictured above) back-to-back 62-65 set a new record for the lowest 36-hole score in major championship history and put him two clear heading into Sunday. Ryan Fox matched that third-round 62 himself, closing the gap and setting up a final round that neither man’s card could have predicted. Lucas Herbert added his own piece of history along the way, matching a nine-hole scoring record during the tournament — a reminder of just how scoreable Birkdale played once the wind finally eased.

The Birdie That Won It

Sam Burns, joy of the winning putt

Fox’s final round was quiet until it wasn’t. Four birdies across his last six holes turned a share of the lead into a genuine chance, and on the 72nd hole he had a decision to make: play safe for a likely play-off, or go after the pin. He told his caddie they were going to “take it on.” An eleven-foot putt found the middle of the cup. Cameron Young, playing in the group ahead, closed with a bogey that left him a stroke short. Fox called the two shots into the final green “probably the two best of my life” — a fair claim, given what they were worth.

A Long Wait, Finally Over

Fox has spent the better part of a decade as one of the most respected ball-strikers on either the DP World Tour or the PGA TOUR without a major to his name, including a runner-up finish at the 2024 U.S. Open that left him agonisingly short. The Claret Jug carries a winner’s share reported at $3.2 million from a $17.5 million purse, but for a player who has built his career on consistency rather than headlines, the number matters less than the name now attached to the trophy. New Zealand golf has waited sixty-three years for a moment like this. Fox delivered it in front of a crowd that had adopted him as their own by Sunday afternoon.

Where the Season Goes From Here

Scottie Scheffler and Tommy Fleetwood’s tie for fourth keeps both inside the conversation as the majors season winds down. Fleetwood, still chasing a maiden major of his own, will point to Birkdale as further evidence that the breakthrough is close rather than distant. Scheffler, already the game’s dominant figure, adds another top finish to a résumé that hardly needs one. Sam Burns leaves Birkdale with a share of record-book history even without the trophy, and a 54-hole lead he will want back sooner rather than later.

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For golfers inspired to test their own ball-striking against the same firm-and-fast conditions that decided this Open, the Algarve’s coastline offers a similar examination without the risk of a rain delay. Palmares, set along the cliffs above Meia Praia beach, plays as firm and demanding as anything Royal Birkdale served up this week.

Browse our Algarve golf holidays and see what the fairways have in store.


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