Wider fairways, fewer bunkers, a fifth less watering. Palmares has had a busy summer.
Anyone who played Palmares this summer will mostly remember the earthworks. The Alvor and Praia loops closed in turn, and green fees stayed firmly in place for a course that was very obviously mid-operation. A few visitors said so in public reviews. The patient has now been discharged.
What Has Changed
All three nines — Alvor, Lagos and Praia — have been reworked to improve conditioning, playing surfaces and landscaping. Every tee is being resurfaced with a grass better suited to the Algarve climate and every bunker rebuilt with new sand. A new short-game area and a larger putting green are going in too, along with an entirely new fleet of greenkeeping machinery. (Golf Business News)
Robert Trent Jones II Golf Course Architects oversaw the design work. Its president, Bruce Charlton, says the aim was to raise the “fun factor” for every level of golfer, chiefly by widening fairways and replacing sand with short grass around many of the greens. Some bunkers have also been moved and reshaped to follow Trent Jones Jr’s original strategy. This may sound like a kindness to the high handicapper. Anyone who has faced Palmares’s quick, heavily contoured greens from a tight lie will know better. (Golf Business News)
A Fifth Less Water
The quieter part of the project may matter most. The greenkeepers will now concentrate irrigation on the main playing surfaces, with the aim of cutting the area the resort waters by 20 per cent. It should lower running costs as well as water use. (Golf Today)
In a region where every summer brings fresh headlines about reservoir levels, that is a sensible line to draw. The fringes may look a little more Portuguese and a little less Augusta. Nobody came here for Augusta.
Three Nines, Three Characters
Palmares opened in 1975 as an eighteen-hole Frank Pennink design. In 2011 Robert Trent Jones Jr reworked the layout and added a third nine. All three loops start and finish beside the clubhouse on the hill, then descend through a 200-hectare amphitheatre towards Meia Praia and the Bay of Lagos. (Golf Course Architecture)
The Alvor is mostly parkland, and the Lagos mixes parkland with links. The Praia crosses the railway line to play links-style golf among the dunes, which makes it one of the few rounds in the Algarve where the railway timetable is part of the local knowledge.
Off the Course
The clubhouse, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning RCR Arquitectes, was named World’s Best Clubhouse at the 2025 World Golf Awards and is now home to Preceito, the resort’s new signature restaurant. Palmares has also joined the European Tour Destinations network, and Portugal’s first JW Marriott is due to open on site in 2028.
Until then, the adults-only Palmares Beach House Hotel, with twenty rooms looking over the course to the sea, is the obvious base. Lagos is ten minutes away, with Tivoli Lagos and Iberostar Selection Lagos Algarve for those who prefer an old town and a plate of grilled fish within walking distance.
Part of a Bigger Plan
Palmares is managed by Details, Portugal’s largest golf course operator, which looks after thirteen venues for Arrow Global. Its co-CEO, Nuno Sepúlveda, is unusually candid about the reason for the work: it was needed “to bring the golf course back up to the standards that a place like Palmares deserves.” “Back up” is not a phrase you often meet in a press release. After September’s reopening of the North Course at Monte Rei, he adds, “it made perfect sense for Palmares to be next.”
Gonzaga Liniers, who became general manager as the diggers arrived, expects Palmares to rank among the best golf destinations in Europe within two years, and says that “won’t just be down to the golf.” It is a bold timetable. The course, at least, is ready now. (Golf Business News)
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