Costa Adeje

A decade after José "Pepe" Gancedo fashioned Golf del Sur on the island of Tenerife in the late 1980s, he created another 18-hole layout along the coast at Costa Adeje. Often referred to in his native Spain as the “Picasso of golf” for his original designs, Pepe laid out a fine course incorporating original low stone wall farm terraces across some of the fairways that slope down to the sea.

And like Golf del Sur, he used local black volcanic sand in all the waste areas and greenside bunkers, adding a stunning visual impact to the golfing landscape at Adeje – incredibly, though, the club decided in late 2008 to replace the contents of the greenside traps with white sand – sacrilege!

Somewhat unusually configured with six par threes, six par fours and six par fives, the course is routed in two distinct patterns – the fairways on the front nine largely run uphill or downhill and the back nine holes are laid out mainly across the hillside.

The 187-yard par three 7th hole is rightly assigned stroke index 1 on the scorecard as the tee shot must carry all the way across a barranca to the green so it’s all or nothing here. Interestingly, the 240-yard par three 10th is marked stroke index 2 on the back nine – now when did you last play a course where the hardest two holes were par threes?