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)
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.
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)
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.
