Logroño

Logroño lies halfway between Burgos and Pamplona, on the Camino de Santiago pilgrim way that leads to the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, six hundred kilometres to the east.

Early in the new millennium, the local authority decided to establish a municipal golf course within the newly created 1,100-acre La Grajera nature reserve on the outskirts of the city, commissioning Marco Martin and Blake Stirling from Stirling&Martin Golf Architects to design the 18-hole layout.

Opened for public play in 2003, the Logroño course extends to a lengthy 6,746 metres from the back markers, thanks in no small measure to the 618-metre 4th, which is reputed to be the longest hole in Spain.

Fairways are set out on hilly terrain, with substantial elevation changes encountered on both nines and an intimidating barranca to be carried on the back nine at the 493-metre 12th and 415-metre 18th.

Greens are reasonably contoured so, provided pins are placed in sensible positions, there’s no reason why a good score can’t be achieved here – though maybe not to the extent of threatening Miguel Ángel Jiménez’s fantastic course record of 60!

Architect Marco Martin very kindly supplied us with the following background information on the course:

Logroño is one of the very few public initiatives to promote golf in Spain. The golf course was promoted by the City Hall of Logroño as a way to recuperate waste land near the city, transforming it into a full recreational area where people can go jogging, cycling, horse riding or play padel tennis.

Environmentally, it was also a great project because we used most of the closed organic land fill of the city. The first three holes on each nine and the driving range are located on top of a 30-year-old landfill. To cover that area, we deposited more than 1.5 cubic metres of dirt and then we shaped the holes. No one can imagine they are playing golf on top of hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of organic and non-organic land fill.

With a tight budget, we also built a complementary 9-hole Pitch & Putt course to welcome new players and to let everybody enjoy a short game golf course.

Thanks to Logroño, some others city halls in Spain decided to invest some money in helping the promotion of golf. In the same way, we designed Xherry Golf in Jerez, Cadiz, which opened in 2002. It’s another great public golf course with 9-hole pitch & putt and large driving range.