Ladies European Tour

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.

Gower Comes From Six Back to Win the Super Bock Ladies Open

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Six shots behind, no idea of the scores, and a boyfriend on the bag doing the maths.

Most tournament winners spend the final round with one eye on the leaderboard. Ellie Gower spent hers studiously ignoring it, which turned out to be the better plan. The 24-year-old Londoner began the last day of the Super Bock Ladies Open at Vidago Palace six shots off the lead, signed for a 67 — the joint-best round of the day — and won by two on Thursday 22 October. She found out afterwards. By asking.

Ellie Gower holding the Super Bock Ladies Open trophy at Vidago Palace, October 2026

The Final Round

Starting at three under par in the third-to-last group, Gower birdied the 3rd, 4th and 8th to turn in a four-way tie for the lead at six under. A bogey at the 10th barely registered. She birdied the 13th and 14th back to back, then holed a 15-footer for eagle at the par-5 17th — a nine-iron approach with the wind behind — to go four clear. A three-putt at the closing par three merely trimmed the margin to two. (LETAS)

Her total of 208, eight under par, left compatriot Billie-Jo Smith second on six under after a closing 71. There is some history here: Smith was also the player Gower beat in a play-off for her first LETAS title, at the Calatayud Ladies Open in 2024. As rivalries go, it has so far been conducted entirely in one direction. (O Jogo)

“How Have I Done?”

Gower’s boyfriend, PGA professional John Wilding, was on the bag — as he was in Calatayud — and following the live scoring as they went. When she walked off the 18th and asked how she had done, he suggested she might want to dust off her Portuguese for the presentation. Her parents were there to see it, which they had not been two years ago.

The €8,000 winner’s cheque also represents a modest improvement on her last visit. At the inaugural edition in May 2025 she finished 50th and took home €273. Vidago, it seems, rewards a second look. (O Jogo)

Ellie Gower holding the Super Bock Ladies Open trophy at Vidago Palace, October 2026

The Ones That Got Away

Scotland’s Lorna Mcclymont had built a three-shot lead with a bogey-free 65 in strong winds on day two, the second time in three weeks she had led a LETAS event going into the final round. A closing 76 dropped her to third on five under. Czech amateur Anna Ludvova matched Gower’s 67 to share fourth with Norway’s Silje Torvund Ohma, a shot further back.

For Portugal, Sofia Barroso Sá opened with a 71 and became only the sixth Portuguese player to make the cut at a LETAS event on home soil, before a final-round 79 left her tied 47th. Sara Gouveia, back after more than a year out with a back injury, and amateurs Francisca Ferreira da Costa and Laura Santos missed the cut. (Mais Beiras)

What the Super Bock Ladies Open Win Means

With seven Ladies European Tour cards for 2027 going to the top of the Order of Merit, and the top 30 spared the first stage of Q-School, this was a timely win. It lifts Gower from 54th into the top 20 with two events left. She admitted, with some candour, that one fewer week at Q-School suited her nicely.

The season resumes at the Santander Golf Tour – Girona event from 12 to 14 November. (Golf News)

Playing It Yourself

The Vidago Palace Golf Course is open to visiting golfers, and the 17th — the par five where the tournament turned — is the hole to circle on the card. Most of us will not be getting home with a nine-iron.

The par-5 17th hole on the Vidago Palace Golf Course in autumn

Stay at the Vidago Palace Hotel, whose owners, the Super Bock Group, put up the trophy, and a cold Super Bock on the terrace afterwards seems only fair. Add a couple of days on the coast at Oporto Golf Club and Estela, an hour and a bit away, and the north makes a fine autumn trip.

Browse our Porto and Northern Portugal golf holidays and play the course where this year’s title was won.

Second Super Bock Ladies Open Tees Off at Vidago Palace

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A royal spa hotel, a 1936 golf course and 84 players chasing a Tour card.

For a country that runs on golf tourism, Portugal went a surprisingly long time without a professional women’s tournament. When the LET Access Series (LETAS) pitched up at Vidago in May 2025, it was the tour’s first Portuguese stop since the Azores Ladies Open in 2017. Eight years is a long time to wait for a tee time.

The wait, happily, has not become a habit. The Super Bock Ladies Open at Vidago Palace returns for its second edition from 20 to 22 October 2026, and on 15 October the Portuguese Golf Federation (FPG) announced that Turismo Porto e Norte has increased its backing. The tournament carries a €50,000 prize fund and a field of 84, and is the third-to-last event of the LETAS season. With seven Ladies European Tour cards for 2027 going to the top of the Order of Merit, that makes it rather more than a pleasant week in the hills. (LETAS)

Vidago Palace Hotel façade and gardens, Vidago, northern Portugal

The Home Contingent

Portugal’s hopes rest chiefly with professional Sofia Barroso Sá. She is a three-time national champion and former Texas Christian University regular who climbed to 135th in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, played two Ladies European Tour events as an amateur in 2025 — finishing 30th at the Tenerife Women’s Open — and made her LETAS debut at the Women’s Irish Challenge at Malahide in July.

Sofia Barros teeing off

She has form against all comers, too: in 2022 she became the first woman to win an event on the FPG’s own circuit, ahead of a field that included 22 professionals. (Sul Informação)

Two amateurs complete the home team: Francisca Ferreira da Costa, the reigning national champion, and Laura Santos, who has just won the Taça da FPG – BPI at the age of 14. Most of us, at 14, were still losing balls to the nearest pond.

Last Year’s Story

The inaugural edition belonged to France’s Sara Brentcheneff, who won at 17 with a 12-under-par total of 204, two clear of Norway’s Madelene Stavnar. Still an amateur, she had to leave the €8,000 first prize on the table. She did get to keep the trophy. (Record)

The Course

The Vidago Palace Golf Course began life in 1936 as a nine-hole layout by Philip Mackenzie Ross, the Scot better known for restoring Turnberry’s Ailsa after the war. Cameron & Powell extended it to a par-72 eighteen that reopened in 2010, measuring 6,308 metres from the back tees. The opening four holes run through the wooded centenary park, the next eleven drop into the Oura Valley, and the closing three climb back to the high ground for views across the hills and villages. Every tee is held up by walls of local stone. Last year’s first-round co-leader, Germany’s Leonie Harm, liked the way it alternates tough holes with gettable ones — though she also noted there was not much room off the tee. (Visit Portugal)

Tee with local-stone retaining wall on the Vidago Palace Golf Course

The Palace

The Vidago Palace Hotel was King Carlos I’s idea: a grand spa built around Vidago’s celebrated mineral springs. The king was assassinated in 1908, and the hotel opened on 6 October 1910 — the day after Portugal declared itself a republic. Timing, as every golfer knows, is everything. Restored and reopened in 2010, it now has 70 rooms and suites, a spa designed by Pritzker laureate Álvaro Siza Vieira and membership of The Leading Hotels of the World. (Vidago Palace)

Pro-Am and Pro-Am Kids

The week starts on Sunday 18 October with the Pro-Am. The same day brings a Pro-Am Kids and golf taster sessions for around 50 juniors from clubs across the north — part of the FPG’s push to take professional and amateur golf beyond the coast and into the interior.

Making a Trip of It

Vidago is about an hour’s drive from Porto and 15 minutes from Chaves, where the Roman bridge still spans the Tâmega and the pastel de Chaves — a crescent of flaky pastry filled with seasoned veal — is sold warm from the oven. Late October in Trás-os-Montes also means chestnut season, with castanhas roasting on street corners. And there is a particular pleasure in watching a tour professional play a hole on Thursday, then trying the same shot yourself on Friday. Usually a humbling one.

Browse our Porto and Northern Portugal golf holidays and add a few days at Vidago Palace to your next trip north.