This was the big surprise of my recent 5-course trip to the Girona area. I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it again: there’s an awful lot of pleasure to be gained from the first play of a lowly ranked regional track that turns out to be a right little golfing gem.

Costa Brava’s Verde eighteen holes will probably never make the national chart. The course is short and not too difficult, but what an absolute delight to play such as well-maintained layout routed around a large residential development next to Santa Cristina D’Aro.

Originally designed by John Hamilton Stutt in the mid-1960s, the course is one of the oldest in the region. Early in the new millennium, the club revamped the layout, reassigning a few of the original holes to a new Red nine and adding others to what is now the Green 18-hole course.

There’s plenty of gentle movement in the land early in the round and the opening five tree-lined holes are played in splendid isolation, with the next one on the card only revealed as you arrive at the tee.

An attractive pond sits to the front right of the short par four 7th before a very short uphill par three moves play to a higher level, where the routing returns the outward half to the clubhouse following a blind tee shot at the 9th.     

The longer back nine does enter a bit of a lull on flatter ground between the 11th and 14th, with three of these holes played as par fives, but the pace picks up again with a couple of short holes at #15 and #17, the second of which features a lovely winding ditch to the right and rear of the green.

Costa Brava’s a perfect place for golf society outings and if you ever do get here to play then be sure to check out the hand painted porcelain plate presentation in the clubhouse lobby which displays more than forty plates relating to the golf clubs in the Federación Catalana.

Jim McCann