Chileno Bay Club

Scheduled to debut in 2009, the course at Chileno Bay is a big budget Tom Fazio design that had to wait a further five years before it finally opened, thanks to adverse financial conditions that impacted on most of the new top end golf projects around the world.

Overlooking the Sea of Cortez on the Baja Peninsula, the impressive residential development at Chileno Bay occupies a spectacular 1,200-acre site that includes, in addition to the ocean-fronting villas, a fabulous beach club and a lovely boutique hotel.

This 18-hole layout is very different to a regular Fazio design, with no rough to speak of and an extremely rugged style of bunkering. Effectively, golf balls have to be kept in play on the mown grass or they’ll be lost in the surrounding desert scrub.

It’s certainly a demanding course, with a slope rating of 145 from the back markers, but there’s sufficient fairway width to allow regular mid-handicap players to stay in the game quite comfortably – and perhaps enjoy the wonderful sea views along the way!