Vilamoura

Tee Times Golf Holidays Nominated for Europe’s Best Golf Tour Operator 2026

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Tee Times Golf Holidays has once again been nominated for the prestigious Europe’s Best Golf Tour Operator 2026 award at the World Golf Awards, one of the most respected and recognised accolades in the international golf tourism industry.

A Record of Recognition

This nomination marks another important milestone in a journey that has seen Tee Times establish itself as one of the leading names in golf travel. Over the years, the company has received multiple World Golf Awards distinctions, including Portugal’s Best Inbound Golf Tour Operator, Portugal’s Best Outbound Golf Tour Operator, and Europe’s Best Golf Tour Operator, reflecting its long-standing commitment to excellence and customer satisfaction.

From Vilamoura to the Wider World

Founded in Vilamoura in 1993, Tee Times Golf Holidays has grown alongside the Algarve’s rise as one of Europe’s premier golf destinations. What began as a small local business has evolved into an internationally recognised golf tour operator, helping thousands of golfers enjoy unforgettable golf experiences every year.

Portugal, Spain and Beyond

Today, Tee Times offers one of the most comprehensive golf holiday portfolios in the market, with programmes available throughout Portugal and Spain, from the Algarve, Lisbon and Porto to the Costa del Sol, Costa Blanca, Madrid, the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands. In addition, the company has expanded its offering to include a selection of renowned international golf destinations, giving clients access to some of the finest golf courses and resorts around the world.

Built on Partnership and Trust

Over more than three decades, Tee Times has built strong relationships with golf courses, hotels and tourism partners, earning a reputation for expertise, reliability and exceptional service. The company currently handles around 120,000 rounds of golf annually, a reflection of both the scale of its operation and the trust placed in it by golfers worldwide.

The nomination for Europe’s Best Golf Tour Operator 2026 is a recognition not only of the work and dedication of the Tee Times team, but also of the confidence shown by the thousands of clients who choose the company to organise their golf holidays year after year.

How to Cast Your Vote

Voting for the World Golf Awards 2026 is now open and is available to both industry professionals and golf travellers.

If you have travelled with Tee Times Golf Holidays, booked a golf holiday through our team, or simply followed our journey over the years, we would be delighted to receive your support.

Vote for Tee Times Golf Holidays as Europe’s Best Golf Tour Operator 2026

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Vote for Tee Times Golf Holidays as Europe's Best Golf Tour Operator 2026 at the World Golf Awards

Every vote is a recognition of more than 30 years of dedication to golf tourism, the trust of our clients, and the strong partnerships we have built along the way. Your support can help us continue to strengthen Tee Times Golf Holidays’ position among Europe’s leading golf tour operators.

Thank you for your trust and support.

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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Amendoeira Signs Water Reuse Protocol With Águas do Algarve

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The resort’s efficiency awards now come with a signature on paper — and some serious plumbing next door in Vilamoura.

Amendoeira Golf Resort marked a quiet but considerable moment this week: a formal cooperation protocol with Águas do Algarve, committing the Silves resort to greater use of treated Água para Reutilização (ApR) on its two golf courses.

Signing ceremony for the Águas do Algarve water reuse protocol at Amendoeira Golf Resort, SilvesThe signing, held at the resort itself, closed a day in which Portugal’s Minister of the Environment and Energy, Maria da Graça Carvalho, opened some of the largest water infrastructure projects the Algarve has seen in years. For a region whose golf depends on rainfall it can no longer take for granted, the timing was not accidental.

The agreement was signed at Amendoeira by the resort’s CEO, Eng.º Parreira Afonso, alongside director João Fernandes and the administration of Águas do Algarve. Its purpose is specific: increase the share of treated, reused water irrigating Amendoeira’s Faldo and O’Connor Jnr. courses, reducing the resort’s reliance on groundwater and dams already under pressure from tourism, agriculture and a growing resident population.

Why the Algarve’s Golf Courses Are Watching Closely

Early Morning Irrigation Golf Course Algarve

Golf accounts for roughly 15 cubic hectometres of water use across the Algarve each year. Águas do Algarve’s own Water Efficiency Plan targets 8 cubic hectometres of treated reused water in irrigation by the end of 2025 — 71 per cent of it earmarked for golf courses. Reach that, and around half of the region’s forty-odd courses will be running at least partly on reused water rather than water drawn from boreholes and reservoirs. (Sul Informação)

The Bigger Story, Down the Road in Vilamoura

Amendoeira’s signature came at the end of a single, dense day of Algarve water announcements. That same Wednesday, Maria da Graça Carvalho inaugurated the new Água para Reutilização station at Vilamoura — now described as the largest wastewater reuse plant of its kind in Europe, built at a cost of around €13 million with roughly 12 kilometres of new pipework and ten delivery points feeding golf courses, gardens and farmland. (Algarve Marafado)

Founation Stone of the new desalination plant - Algarve

The minister also laid the symbolic first stone for the Algarve’s new desalination plant in Albufeira — a €107.92 million contract awarded to the Aquapor–GS Inima consortium, around €56 million of it funded through Portugal’s Recovery and Resilience Plan, designed to convert 16 million cubic metres of seawater into drinking water a year, with capacity to grow to 24 million. (Agroportal) A new wastewater treatment station at Albufeira Poente closed out the visit.

A Resort That Was Already Paying Attention

Amendoeira arrives at this protocol with some form. The resort already holds Green Key certification, Turismo de Portugal’s Sustainability Committed label, and the Save Water efficiency seal — recognition, in each case, for measurable changes rather than good intentions. (Amendoeira Golf Resort) Courses that plan for water scarcity now are the ones still worth playing in fifteen years.

Amendoeira Faldo Golf Course - Algarve

None of this changes what a round at Amendoeira feels like on the day — the Faldo’s tight, tree-lined finish is still the Faldo. But it says something about a destination when the golf infrastructure is built to outlast the next dry summer, not just survive it.


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