Real Sociedad de Golf de Neguri

Neguri, or Real Sociedad de Golf de Neguri to give the club its full title, was founded way back in 1911 and the original course was an 11-hole affair located in Lejona. Forty-five years later, the club moved to its present site in Getxo, Punta Galea, to the north west of Bilbao.

Architect Javier Arana, a Real Neguri member, was asked by the club to design its new course and he duly obliged, routing the fairways around 65 hectares of a large estate in such a way that they were able to comfortably co-exist with residential plots which had been set aside to fund the golf project.

Measuring 6,900 yards from the championship tees, the course is laid out in two loops of nine that each end close to the clubhouse. It is a golfing layout for the connoisseur, with wide fairways, enormous greens and minimal greenside bunkering.

Some of the holes on the property sit along the cliff tops, two hundred feet above sea level, and there are fine vistas of the Cantabrian Sea to be glimpsed through the trees.

One of the best holes on the course is the 211-yard, par three 14th which is played uphill to a green protected by a single bunker – but what an intimidating sand trap that solitary hazard is, with its steep face visible from the tee, sitting right in front of the raised putting surface.

The club has only hosted one professional championship of note (the 1968 Spanish Open, won by Australian Bob Shaw) but the course has been used for a number of important national amateur championships: six times for men (the last in 2010) and five times for ladies (the last in 2007).

Real Neguri was also chosen as the venue for the 45th edition of the prestigious Jacques Léglise Trophy in 2011, when the amateur boys team from Great Britain & Ireland defeated Continental Europe by a score of 14.5 points to 9.5 points.

Visitors must play the course with a member but Real Neguri has a reciprocal arrangement with many Spanish clubs to allow their members courtesy of the course. Tenby also has such a link with Real Neguri so some lucky golfers from Wales may have had the chance to play here for nothing. If you are one of them, why not write a review?

The following edited extract is from “The golf courses of Javier Arana” by Alfonso Erhardt Ybarra and is reproduced here with kind permission from the author:

The course of the Real Sociedad de Golf de Neguri benefits from an excellent routing that extracts the maximum value from a relatively small property; the distances between each green and the following tee are virtually non-existent. Arana had no need for aggressive earthworks or artificial trappings to breathe life and excitement into the course. Despite an apparent absence of hazards, Real Neguri has withstood its first fifty years admirably, without any lengthening or any addition of sand traps to the forty-five existing ones.

The course defences have always consisted of extraordinarily tall Atlantic pines – which have disappeared from some of the holes, but are in the process of regaining ground – and the cliff-edge location, with the wind playing a central role in shot execution, such that Real Neguri can feel like an entirely different course depending on the strength and direction of the breeze.

The routing is divided into two clearly distinct portions. The first nine holes lead us to the edge of the cliff over an un-wooded area exposed to the sea breeze; the back nine flow through the majestic forest of Atlantic pine. One of the main impressions one takes away from the course is that it plays longer than the scorecard length. The terrain is very flat, and there are hardly any elevated tee shots; in addition, the various doglegs are almost impossible to shortcut.

The orientation of the greens is another of the highlights at Real Neguri. Other than perhaps the 17th, the greens at La Galea are apparently simple, with no very noticeable folds or internal contouring. It is standard practice for the green to be built with the far end higher than the near end, affording the player a view of its entire surface and which helps stop the ball on target.

At La Galea, however, Arana decided that his greens would follow the tilt of the fairways; and this, coupled with his customary fondness for tiers, means that no fewer than eight of the greens run away from the player and to one side.

If you would like to find out more or purchase “The golf courses of Javier Arana” then click the link.