Gávea is Rio de Janeiro’s most prestigious golf club, dating back to 1921 when it was founded as Rio de Janeiro Golf Club by a group a group of expatriate technicians and managers of Companhia Tramway, Light & Power, holding company of The Rio de Janeiro City Improvements Company Ltd.
Five years after its formation, the club became known as Gávea Golf & Country Club, bringing in Arthur Morgan Davidson from Cruden Bay Golf Club as its first professional. The Scotsman was instrumental in having an 18-hole layout in play by the spring of 1929 and he would remain at the club for twenty years.
Stanley Thompson spent six months in Brazil during 1935, during which time he designed the new course at nearby Itanhangá and helped with the design of Teresópolis, a new course being built for the Guinle family in the mountains to the north of Rio. His third assignment was the remodelling of several holes at Gávea, adding new tees on #1, #15 and #18 and building new greens at #2 and #17.
The course is located in the shadow of Pedra da Gávea – an enormous rocky out crop that looms over the property – and it’s a short track measuring just over 6,000 yards from the back tees. It may not be that long but distance from tee to green is not important on such a strategic little charmer.
Gávea’s outward half twists and turns over hilly terrain before crossing a main road to begin the back nine. Holes 10 to 14 are laid out on a small parcel of land adjacent to the São Conrado beach, where a sizeable lake also comes into play. The busy main highway is then crossed again to complete the round adjacent to the fairways of holes 1 to 9.
The layout has been upgraded in recent times, notably by Dan Blankenship during the 1990s, when he redid the greens on holes 1, 2, 8, 9 and 15, constructed new fairway bunkers on a few holes, and installed the small pond in front of the 15th green. Gil Hanse, whilst working on the Olympic Course, remodelled the opening five holes on the back nine, creating large sandy waste areas and lessening the impact of the water on the playing strategy. He also reworked several greens in the main paddock to allow for more pin placements on these holes.
Gávea has hosted the Brazil Open sixteen times since 1945, most recently in 2014, and winners have included Billy Casper (1959), Peter Alliss (1961) and Gary Player (1972 & 1974). Brazilian golfing legend Mario Gonzalez, head pro at the club for thirty-five years, claimed four of his eight Open titles (and five of his nine Amateur victories) on home ground and he also beat Billy Casper by three strokes here in the very first head-to-head televised match in the series Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf back in 1961.
Special thanks to author Marcelo Stallone for gifting a copy of his book Gavea Golf & Country Club, published to mark the club’s 80th anniversary in 2001, which greatly assisted with composing this article.
