La Finca Cortesin

TL:DR This is a very, very good course.

Overall, I loved playing La Finca Cortesin. The course is in exquisite condition, the routing is creative, thoughtful, distinctive and characterful. The green sites and the greens themselves deserve special mention – the pinched landing areas, swales/bunkering and infinity greens are a compelling challenge to your short game and your approach game. The staff are tremendously kind and friendly, It costs, of course, a pretty penny, but I’d love to play it again.

Condition is exquisite – tees, fairways, run-offs, first cut, second cut, greens – the investment in Bermuda and in the “Better Billy Bunkers” have all paid off. It’s tour spec standard and a huge credit to them given I was playing at the end of August 2022 after sustained heat and no rain which must have been brutal on greenkeepers!

The design and presentation of the holes is excellent. Height and shape vary off the tee, fairways cant and ripple this way and that, length goes in and out, green sites are varied but have clear themes and repeated tests, greens are slick and subtle. (A curiosity with the Solheim Cup coming up in September 2023: the separation of the holes is so complete, and the distance between many holes so substantial that this is going to be a shocking on-course spectator experience. Tough on caddies too, but I assume they’ll buggy them between certain holes. But the above should in no way take away from a course that is exceptional for players (in their mandatory buggy!).

I played on the first wet day in ages and in heavy air and damp conditions the yellow tees played long. I was generally glad I hadn’t gone back to my more usual whites.

The first six holes are more or less together in their own segment of the course. The attractive downhill opening drive draws left but too far gets screened out. The long-iron second introduces the first of many large but deceptively narrow green sites: a recurring feature where pins can vary length hugely day-to-day and bunkers are used aggressively to pinch in landing areas. The third is a very gettable par 5 – worth the risk of the water on the left and the fourth an inviting driving iron/3-wood driveable par 4 over water. Bank your scoring early because the test now really begins! The fifth asks for a draw off the tee to keep the fairway but a clever bunker is nested into the knoll top left just pushing your line a little more towards running off to the right. The green is deeply bunkered on the line in from the right and runs from left to right – so a draw off the tee and a long-iron fade into a narrow green. Play too safe on the approach and you meet the second defining characteristic of many of the green sites – a pronounced swale on the high side of the green that has you chipping over a swale and then down towards the bunkers you’ve just avoided. A compounding feature (charming and terrifying at the same time is a kind of ‘infinity’ green approach – like the pools in a fancy hotel, many greens just stop at the edge and go straight off the side: it seems a miracle of modern green design and if you’re chipping from a swale down to a tucked pin with an infinity edge it gives you serious pause for thought! (And in turn influences how much risk you take on the approaches). The 6th is another long-iron par 3, somewhat similar in direction and design to the 2nd. I won’t go through all the holes in the same detail but you get the sense of characterful, intentional flair and thought in the design.