Ribagolfe Lakes was designed by former European Tour player Peter Townsend with European Golf Design, opened in 2004 within a native cork oak forest near Samora Correia, about forty minutes east of Lisbon. It was built as a genuine championship test, and it plays like one.

Narrow, tree-lined corridors reward accuracy over power, and the oversized greens look forgiving until you're actually putting on them. Water hazards run throughout the round, most dangerously at the risk-and-reward par-four 14th. Since 2009, Ribagolfe Lakes has hosted the first stage of the European Tour Qualifying School every year, earning it the nickname ''the Valderrama of Portugal'' among the players who've tested themselves here. Expect genuinely wild surroundings, too: local wild boar are known to leave their mark on the fairways from time to time, part of the charm of playing somewhere this untouched.

Facilities include a driving range, golf academy, resident professionals and a clubhouse restaurant. Pair it with sister course Ribagolfe Oaks for two very different rounds in one visit, and book both through Tee Times.