The Top Luxury Hotel Golf Courses in the World
The rate at which new golf courses are being built has slowed, but exceptional new layouts are still debuting year after year. What’s more, some courses that first opened for play a year or two ago are truly coming into their own now, as their turf has firmed up and their greens have softened and settled into place. With that in mind, what follows is not a front nine or a back nine, but the best nine courses that have opened at luxury hotels and resorts in recent years. Consider this Elite Traveler’s ultimate stay-and-play package.
Costa Palmas, Baja California Sur, Mexico
Set on the East Cape of the Baja Peninsula about 67 miles northeast of Cabo San Lucas, the private, 1,000-acre community of Costa Palmas (pictured above) is home to a Four Seasons resort, as well as a new 18-hole championship golf course designed by Robert Trent Jones II. Built to offer an enjoyable round without the necessity of golf carts — though carts are available — the course is, in the words of its esteemed architect, “a golf symphony composed of three movements and two transitions.” The first movement brings golfers up to and alongside idyllic, windswept dunes and the Sea of Cortez; the second movement ventures higher into the hills, offering dramatic views of the Sierra de la Laguna Mountains; and the third movement returns to the water, providing glimpses of many of the area’s coves and harbors.
In addition to their unique locales, those three distinct sections of the course provide their own challenges — the ‘upland’ holes, for example, are punctuated by more strategically placed bunkers than the lower holes that play through the dunes — which means players will need to be creative, hitting a variety of different shots throughout their rounds. “The most interesting golf courses are the ones that you want to go back to challenge again and again and again,” says Jones. “I think here at Costa Palmas we’ve achieved that, but we’ll let the players decide.”
