Costa del Sol golf

Two Tournaments, One Fortnight: La Cala’s Busy End to the Season

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The Ladies European Tour’s season finale, a sold-out amateur week and one very busy river.

If a late-autumn golf holiday in Spain is on the cards, La Cala Resort in the hills above Mijas has the liveliest fortnight of the season to offer. First the Ladies European Tour arrives to settle its season on the Europa course.

Fairway on the Europa course at La Cala Resort, Mijas, with the Sierra de Mijas behind

Then, almost before the grandstands come down, a field of amateurs takes over all three courses for the XXI La Cala Golf World Open. The professionals play for a €700,000 prize fund. The amateurs play for handicap prizes, a nearest-the-pin and the right to mention it at every dinner party until next November.

The Season Ends on the Europa Course

The Andalucía Costa del Sol Open de España presented by Oysho runs from 26 to 29 November 2026. It closes the LET schedule with a 75-player field, with both the title and the Order of Merit still to be decided. (Ladies European Tour)

It is La Cala’s first time as host. The championship moves around the Costa del Sol and spent the past two years at Real Guadalhorce, where Nastasia Nadaud of France won last year aged 21 — her first European title, and the youngest win in the event’s history. (Andalucía Golf)

Three Amateurs Among the Professionals

The organisers have invited three amateurs into the field: Paula Balanzategui, the reigning Spanish Women’s Amateur champion, Balma Dávalos from Castellón and Anna Cañadó, who plays college golf at Duke University. (Official Press)

Nobody should treat them as passengers. In 2022 the amateur Cayetana Fernández finished fifth in this championship, and plenty of seasoned professionals spent the weekend looking at her back. (Andalucía.com)

What the Field Will Face

Cabell B. Robinson designed all three of La Cala’s courses. On paper the Europa is the most forgiving of them — generous fairways, flatter ground, around 6,014 metres and par 71. The catch is the River Ojén, which crosses eight holes, with water guarding the 3rd and 14th greens for good measure.

The 10th Hole at La Cala Europa golf course

The layout rewards precise approach play over raw length, and the greens are undulating enough to demand a careful read. Forgiving is a relative term when a river keeps turning up. (Andalucía Golf)

Then the Amateurs Take Over

The World Open runs from 30 November to 5 December: 54 holes of individual handicap Stableford across the America, Asia and Europa courses, with 09:30 shotgun starts. A Texas Scramble opens the week, and a gala dinner, prize-giving and closing party finish it. Men and women of any age with a handicap can enter, though prizes go only to men up to 26.4 and women up to 36.4.

La Cala Asia Golf CourseLa Cala America golf course

The 2026 edition is fully booked. This is the twenty-first year, which suggests the people who go tend to come back. Anyone who fancies a place should aim for 2027 and register their interest early.

A Resort Spruced Up for the Occasion

La Cala Golf & Spa Resort has just finished a €5 million upgrade: a 50-metre tunnel linking the America and Europa courses, a new bypass road with two roundabouts, new buggy paths on the Asia and car parking almost doubled, from 173 to 333 spaces. (Andalucía Golf)

La Cala Golf & Spa Resort hotel above the courses in Mijas, Costa del Sol

The 107-room hotel was named was named Spain’s Best Golf Hotel at the World Golf Awards. Málaga Airport is about 30 minutes away, Marbella 20. (IAGTO)

Watch One Day, Play the Next

Tickets for the championship are on sale through openfemenino.com, and the dates make for a very civilised short break. Follow the leaders round the Europa on Saturday, then take on the Asia — the course professionals rate most highly of the three — on Sunday. You will at least know where the river is.

And if the World Open’s sell-out has left a gap in the diary, La Cala runs its own competitions through the year, from a St Patrick’s Day tournament in March to the Cudeca charity cup in May.

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Browse our Costa del Sol golf holidays and watch Europe’s best on the Europa before playing it yourself.

La Zambra – A return worth making

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The Costa del Sol has no shortage of places to stay. Finding one that stays with you is a different matter.

The approach to La Zambra already tells you something is different. The road climbs through the Mijas hills — white walls catching the late light, the Sierra sitting heavy behind the property, and the fairways of Los Lagos laid out below like someone planned the whole view deliberately. They probably did.

Zambra Resort Grandeur

La Zambra was the Byblos hotel in a previous life. In the eighties and nineties it was the kind of address that required no explanation — European royalty, celebrities, and Julio Iglesias arriving by helicopter with the casual confidence of a man who considers that a normal Tuesday.

The hotel closed in 2010. It reopened as part of Hyatt’s Unbound Collection, and whoever oversaw the restoration understood what was worth keeping. The blue tiles are still there. So are the whitewashed Andalusian walls and the courtyard patios that make you slow down without quite deciding to.

My room looked directly over Los Lagos. A welcome note on the desk — the kind of small gesture that costs almost nothing and lands better than most things that cost a great deal.

Zambra Resort Personal Welcome

Two Robert Trent Jones courses sit alongside the hotel, reachable by buggy from the door. Los Lagos is the more open of the two — wide fairways, lake hazards threading through several holes, a layout that rewards clean ball-striking without being punishing. Los Olivos is a different conversation entirely: tighter lines, more demanding approach angles, greens that require genuine thought rather than optimism. Twelve further courses sit within fifteen minutes of the hotel.

Zambra Golf Course View Distance

Dinner at Picador most evenings — genuinely delicious Andalusian cooking, executed with real conviction. Breakfast at Palmito is more generous than any round of golf strictly requires, which I chose to treat as preparation rather than excess. The spa is the largest on the Costa del Sol and earns that distinction quietly.

Málaga airport is twenty-five minutes away. Marbella is close enough to visit without it becoming the point of the trip. Mijas village, just up the hill, is the quietest corner of a coastline that is not always quiet.

La Zambra is not the kind of property that needs to compete for attention. The golf is excellent. The hotel earns its place alongside it. For anyone who takes this game seriously, that combination is rarer than it should be.

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La Zambra is bookable through Tee Times, with green fees, packages, and transfers all taken care of. Browse our golf holidays in Costa del Sol or go straight to the La Zambra resort page to put a special holiday together.

PGA Championship – A Week at Aronimink

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The 108th PGA Championship is well under way at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, and it has already delivered plenty to talk about — not all of it from the leaderboard.

The 2026 PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club

A Donald Ross Masterpiece

Aronimink is a genuine classic. Donald Ross designed it in 1928, considered it his finest work, and the course has done little to argue against him since. Precision over power is the governing principle — rolling fairways, demanding bunkering, and green complexes that have refused to yield cheaply to the world’s best players for nearly a century. (Wikipedia) World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who won last year’s PGA Championship at Quail Hollow, arrives at Aronimink looking to defend — despite three consecutive runner-up finishes on tour heading into the week. A field of 156 players is competing for the Wanamaker Trophy, with around 200,000 spectators expected through the gates across the week. (CBS Philadelphia)

It is, in short, a major championship firing on all cylinders.

The Weather Has Its Say

Stormy weather at Aroniminik

The weather, however, has not totally cooperated. Play was suspended on Tuesday during practice rounds, resuming just under two hours later. Saturday’s third round was halted again at 8:15 AM due to dangerous conditions on the course, with starting times pushed back and tee times restructured across both nines. May in the Delaware Valley is not without its charms, but it comes with no guarantees.

The PGA Championship will produce a worthy champion and a week’s worth of compelling golf. But for those watching from home and feeling that familiar urge — to play rather than observe — May on the Iberian Peninsula remains one of the more straightforward arguments in European golf travel.

May on the Iberian Peninsula

South Course Quinta do Lago

May is one of the more reliably beautiful months in the golf calendars of both Portugal and Spain. The Algarve’s courses tend to be at their finest condition of the year — fairways lush from the winter rains, greens running true, the mornings warm and still. The Costa del Sol tells a similar story. Neither is a secret, exactly, but both bear repeating when the alternative involves weather warnings and shelter announcements.

We cover Portugal and Spain in full, from tee times to hotel stays and transfers. If the mood is taking you, it’s a good time to start looking.