Buzios

The resort town of Búzios – popularized by film star Brigitte Bardot in the 1960s – is a beach retreat located on a peninsula to the east of Rio de Janeiro. Once a hideaway favoured by pirates and slave traders, it's now a vibrant tourist trap with over twenty beaches attracting all sorts of water sports enthusiasts. For those who prefer their sport on dry land, the 18-hole Búzios course fits the golfing bill nicely.

American architect Dan Blankenship designed Buzios in the late 1980s when he worked for Perry Dye but construction was put on hold when President Fernando Affonso Collor de Mello froze bank accounts throughout Brazil due to a financial crisis in the country at the time. After working for a few years in Asia, Blankenship formed Gold Tee Golf International and returned to complete the Buzios project in 1996.

The course is routed over a landscape where fairways move from areas of dense vegetation to open hillside with a number of lakes coming into play as holes slope dangerously towards the water. The signature hole at the 17th is an old Dye favourite, a par three played to an island green – now where have we seen that sort of short hole before?