Valle del Golf

Top 50 Golf Courses of Argentina 2021 It’s just over two years since we updated our Argentinian listings so it’s time to reveal the results from our latest biennial ranking update for this important golfing nation. With around 350 courses in operation around the country, Argentina accounts for nearly half the number of golfing layouts on the continent so it’s a big hitter on the South American sporting stage. We’ve added another ten tracks to the listings so we now feature a Top 50, thanks in no small measure to the efforts of our Argentina Correspondent Javier Pintos and his team of panellists who look after business in that part of the world. We’re grateful for their efforts in helping to promote so many of the best courses within a very proud golfing region. The big news is that we have a new No.1. After two editions in the top spot, the Blanca & Colorada course at Olivos Golf Club in Pablo Nogués drops one place to make way for the Red course at the Jockey Club in San Isidro, which was designed by Alister MacKenzie back in the mid-1930s. It was described in volume 2 of The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses as “no match for MacKenzie’s best, but the mounding around some of the greens has to be seen to be believed.” Jockey Club Red course Well-travelled golfer Bob McCoy (The Odyssey) told us at the end of last year that “all the flat land for the fairways was dug up to create swales and hollows (with) the excess soil used to create humps and bumps in the fairways and around the greens”. Prolific reviewer Peter Wood posted the following last month: “The Jockey Club is not a striking course visually, but if you think your way around you will enjoy yourself with Dr MacKenzie’s wonderful strategic design.” There’s not much movement near the top of the standings until we chance upon the highest new entry, the 18-hole layout at El Terrón Golf Club which is situated a short 15-minute drive from Córdoba airport. Opened at the end of 2019, it’s a Tom Weiskopf design that’s laid out within a 370-acre housing development, with holes arranged in two distinct returning loops of nine across a rolling landscape. El Terrón Golf Club Along with La Paz in Ascochinga, Córdoba in Villa Allende and Potrerillo de Larreta in Alta Gracia, the golf facility at El Terrón is now at the forefront of tourist golf attractions in the local area. The biggest upward move in the upper half of the table is made by the Blue and White nines at Pilar Golf Club, where this layout improves its position by four places to reach #24 in the new listings. Designed by Ron Fream to a championship standard for its owner, the course has hosted the Abierto de Argentina championship three times in the new millennium and it also staged the first Latin America Amateur Championship (organized by the USGA, R&A and Augusta National) in 2015. Pilar Golf Club In the bottom half of the table, two courses advance three places. The 18-hole layout at Golf Club Sierra de la Ventura (at #31) lies 100 kilometres northeast of Bahía Blanca and it dates back to 1935, when Pedro Churio (the professional at Ituzaingo Golf Club) designed an initial 9-hole track with the enthusiastic support of workers from the Southern Railroad Company. Sixteen years later, Luther Koonz was engaged to add another nine holes and his out-and-back layout, with several holes played across the Arroyo San Diego, is the one that’s still in play today. Golf Club Sierra de la Ventura The 18-hole layout at San Eliseo Golf and Country Club (at #33) sits an hour’s drive south of Buenos Aries city centre, with holes routed around a substantial residential development. Several interlinked lakes were fashioned during construction to provide material for sculpting fairway and greenside mounding on a very flat landscape, with a little of the surplus soil reserved for the island green on the par three 17th hole. San Eliseo Golf and Country Club Nine of the final fourteen slots at the foot of the new chart are occupied by new entries, led by Club Mar del Plata Los Acantilados at #37. The club was founded in 1907 but its current three 9-hole loops – Merlo, Laguna and Medio – date back to the late 1950s, when they were laid out by professionals Pedro Churio and Agustin Posse. The Merlo and Laguna nines are regarded as the premier 18-hole set-up, combining to form the Colorada course. To view the complete detailed list of our latest Top 50 Golf Courses of Argentina click the link.

Top 40 Golf Courses of Argentina 2019 This is the fourth edition of our ranking chart for Argentina and we’ve now added another ten tracks to form a new Top 40. We’re indebted to our Argentina Correspondent, Javier Pintos, for his help with this expansion, allowing us to showcase an even wider selection of golf facilities in a country that occupies a mere 16% of the South American landmass while containing 49% of the continent’s courses. Dwelling a little longer on the statistical side of things, apart from the ten new entries in our updated standings, we have another ten courses making an upward move, sixteen dropping down at least one place and only four remaining in the same position. The most significant of these non-movers is the Blanca & Colorada course at Olivos Golf Club, which remains our number 1 course in Argentina. Designed by Luther Koontz – the American engineer turned architect who worked with Alister MacKenzie during his visit to South America in 1930 – the original 36-hole layout at Olivos has been transformed over time into a fabulous 27-hole facility, with the principal 18-hole course comprising the White and Red nines. Our man Javier was here last year, calling it “one of the best maintained parkland courses in Latin America,” and “one of the best tests for amateur golfers” when it’s prepared for competition. Our International Correspondent David Davis also visited, saying that “everything from look, feel, atmosphere and general set up is that of one of the lovely old world classics you would find in the UK”. Nonetheless, David was concerned about the apparent lack of a tree management program, which is now affecting playing strategy. He also thought the club might not fully realise its responsibility to ensure this Golden Age classic fully reaches its potential. In his opinion, what it might require is a person “to provide the course with the loving attention it needs and give it a thoughtful reno/restoration to finally take care of it for generations to come.” Thankfully, we understand the club has now adopted a policy of planting no additional trees and those in place are slowly being thinned out, along with the removal of lower branches for those that remain. For now, Olivos holds onto the #1 spot in Argentina but for how much longer is anybody’s guess. At number 2, the Red course at the Jockey Clubis the first of three highly-regarded layouts in Buenos Aries to make 3-position advances within the Top 10 of the new national table. Designed by Alister MacKenzie (who also mapped out the Blue course for the club at the same location), the Red course is set on rather flat terrain which is far from the best ground ever given to the Good Doctor to fashion a golf course. Nonetheless, “the mounding around some of the greens has to be seen to be believed,” according to author Tom Doak in Volume 2 of his book The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses. A recent reviewer thought it was “a true test of technique, confidence and strategy,” where the architect’s “little islands of magnificent elegance represent green complexes that sit starkly on the plain… a bold near miss will be very costly but a conservative strategy might avert disaster without yielding a great score.” Also rising three places to number 8, we have the century-old course at San Andrés Golf Club, laid out by Mungo Park Jr. in 1907. Mungo, from Musselburgh’s famous Park family, arrived in Argentina in 1903, winning the first edition of the Rio de la Plata Open (the precursor to the Argentine Open) two years later. He would go on to win this event on another two occasions, with all his victories taking place at San Andrés. His wife, Grace, was also a good player, becoming the country's first Ladies' Open champion. In the past, reviewers have called this an “old school city course [that has] the rich feel of a members club with much tradition” and “a real golf club [with] one of the best courses in the country”. The city of Buenos Aries has grown up round about the property but inside the perimeter fence you are totally unaware of the outside world – isn’t that the way it should always be, even within a big city? The 18-hole layout at Nordelta Golf Club largely reverses a five-position fall the last time we re-ranked this country by climbing three places in the right direction to number 9. One of a handful of Nicklaus Design layouts to be found in Argentina, Nordelta was specifically built by senior designer Greg Letsche as a tournament track and it’s been used in recent years as a venue for both the Argentine Open and the Argentine Amateur Championship. The course is the centrepiece of a gated community and it’s a challenging par 72 layout with typical Nicklaus features like waste areas, large lakes and multiple bunkers protecting the landing areas. Fairways are routed across former wetlands with holes that require precise play and more than a little patience if a decent score is to be achieved. The highest new entry in our chart arrives at number 13 and it’s the new course at Ellerstina Polo, a facility that extends to nine polo fields, two of which were transformed (together with another small piece of land) into an innovative 32-acre golf course four years ago by architect Matthew Dusenberry. Author Tom Doak in Volume 2 of his book The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses calls it “a quintessential Porteño setting for golf” with “nine greens built around the perimeter of two old polo fields, and thirty bunkers set out to defend the greens from multiple angles…. altogether, it’s a near-perfect backyard design”. Javier, in a recent 6-ball review, said it was “something you will find nowhere else in the world” while David, in another 6-ball review, called it “something completely new and exciting… what Dusenberry created is to say the least magnificent – in terms of land usage – and extremely unique… they created a highly undulated property full of short grass everywhere, making the game incredibly fun and all about finding the proper angles for approaches into greens based on the pin positions.” Another new entry appearing at number 16 is the new Robert Trent Jones Junior-designed course at Termas de Rio Hondo Golf Club, which was profiled in the R&A publication Golf Around the World 2019: “The high desert plain of South America known as the Gran Chaco can be a forbidding stretch of land. The arid soil and scorching temperatures – often reaching 115˚ (46˚C) in summertime – combine to stifle settlement and development. But among those oases of growth is the spa resort city of Termas de Rio Hondo in the province of Santiago del Estero. And it’s here, 700 miles northwest of Buenos Aries, that glove-trotting architect Robert Trent Jones Jr. debuts his second course in South America and his first in Argentina – the 39th country in which he has worked. The 235-acre golf course sits just west of town, straddling the Dulce River and just behind a dam that forms the Rio Hondo Reservoir. A walkway from the golf course brings city residents to a recently restored estuarial nature reserve. The golf course has been turfed in Paspalum – a turf type easily adaptive in the high desert conditions.” Nicolas Iorio, partner with Javier at WeGolf and GIA (Golf in Argentina), attended the recent official opening day for this new golf facility and was very impressed by what he saw, remarking that it’s a serious contender for a slot in a South American Top 10. Now there’s another continental chart we must get around to compiling in the very near future… As for the present, there are some new courses under development: Mendoza Norte Country Club in the Las Heras wine region will provide a high quality golf product; Estancia El Terron by Tom Weiskopf in Córdoba is due to officially open in November with 12 holes already fully playable; and La Providencia Resort & Country Club by Vicente Fernandez in Buenos Aries enjoys a lovely location and it should feature in the next ballot. There are also plans in progress for course upgrades and redesigns by international golf course architects which will hopefully raise the level of the golf offering in and around the capital. Golf in Argentina has made great advances in the new millennium. Apart from a couple of links layouts by the ocean, the country had only one old-school parkland courses to attract golfers to the game up until the arrival of Robert von Hagge’s 27-hole complex at Buenos Aries Golf Club in 1994. In the last couple of decades, renowned architects like Jack Nicklaus, Bob Cupp, Greg Norman, Robert Trent Jones Jr., Tom Weiskopf, Matt Dusenberry and Randy Thompson have added contemporary layouts to widen the choice of golf courses for the more discerning golf tourist in the modern era. That’s why WeGolf re-branded last year, becoming Golf in Argentina.com, with the launch of a new logo, website and social media channels to keep up to date with the dynamic changes in the local golf market. The intention is to attract more golfers from every corner of the world who will enjoy a destination which is not only golf-related, but a complete vacation experience. To view further details of our Top 40 Golf Courses of Argentina click the link. If you’d like to comment on these revised national rankings then please do so via the “Respond to this article” link at the top or bottom of this page. It’s always good to receive feedback when we update our charts so we’re happy to have you contact us if you’ve something you’d like to say. Jim McCann Editor Top 100 Golf Courses

One really famous Argentinean golf hole is the 15th at Olivos Golf Club, which is included in the book 1001 Golf Holes you must play before you die. Javier Pintos (our Argentina Correspondent) isn’t sure if it’s the best hole in the country but it’s certainly the most famous. As a fun exercise, he has created “My Best 18 golf holes in Argentina” to fashion an imaginary golf course with his favourite holes. My best 18 golf holes in Argentina Hole 1 – SAN ANDRES GOLF CLUB – Par 4 420 yards A great opener, tree-lined on both sides and with a very tricky green described by Tom Doak as the best putting surface in Argentina. It’s a two-tiered platform, with the chance of a very tough short pin and the back left position demands one of the most precise shots in the country. Hole 2 – BUENOS AIRES GOLF CLUB – Par 5 515 yards A 90-degree dogleg caused by a lake which was easily carried in the 2000 EMC World Cup when it played as a par four hole. The second shot uphill offers a challenge with bunkers on the left and a canyon with trees on the right where recovery is tough. It has a big sloping green with plenty of good pin positions but it still offers a good chance for a birdie to get your round going. Hole 3 – CAÑUELAS GOLF CLUB – Par 3 155 yards This hole features an island green, similar to the famous 17th at TPC Sawgrass, where the tee is a little bit raised from the green level which has two platforms and is bigger than the famous Florida version. It usually plays into the wind in a wide open place so correct club selection is the difference between an easy par or disaster. Hole 4 – CHAPELCO GOLF CLUB – Par 4 420 yards This hole is furthest from the Clubhouse, in the middle of a Valley which is usually the breeziest part of the course. Into the wind, club choice can be driver and long iron, without the wind the mound that splits the fairway can be carried to leave only a wedge to a small sloped green. Hole 5 – GOLF CLUB ARGENTINO – Par 4 360 yards One of the great short par fours in Argentina, where length off the tee is important but isn’t mandatory. The fairway is pretty open until 150 yards from the green with a cross-bunker on the left and big oak tree on the right at 100 yards to a very small green which breaks from front-to-back, making it very tough to hold an approach shot. Hole 6 – MAR DEL PLATA GOLF CLUB (Playa Grande) – Par 4 360 yards This is the best par four in the country. A slight dogleg left with a small forest on the right and sand mounds on the left, with two pine trees that really come into play off the tee on a left to right sloping fairway. Wind is always a factor and it can play from a short lob wedge to a 7 iron into the wind. The green slopes from back-to-front and anything over the pin will require the fastest putt in Argentina. Hole 7 – EL DESAFÍO MOUNTAIN RESORT – Par 4 330 yards Another great example of where a short par four can be great. It’s driveable from every tee except the black for amateur players and the clever shot is to aim to the right side and let the terrain make the ball break back to the front part of the green for an easy chip or a putt. Don’t miss left where bunkers and dense fescue rough can be a nightmare. Laying up is easy but it will leave a very difficult approach shot so this one calls for brave hearts. Hole 8 – El POTRERILLO DE LARRETA COUNTRY CLUB – Par 5 550 yards A great golf hole, with a stream that runs along the right of the fairway then crosses in front of the green before continuing on the left side. Usually a 3-shotter, there’s danger for the tee shot on the left side with rocks and trees. Laying up isn’t hard but the small, water-protected green also has a bunker on the right side, making it one of the most challenging short shots you’ll face. Hole 9 – HURLINGHAM CLUB – Par 3 176 yards One of the nicest half-way houses you will see in Argentina stands before the 9th tee. After a hot-dog and either a soup in winter or something fresh in summer, you will face this very challenging par three with a bunker on the right side and an undulating green that slips away to the back and left. Hole 10 – JOCKEY CLUB RED COURSE – Par 5 500 yards “The hole without a par” as it is regarded, this fantastic MacKenzie green has really everything to be a nightmare. It is a short par five where even pros after a 300-yard tee shot can easily make a 7. It has a big bunker on the right side and almost half the green is up the hill where short balls will definitely roll back to the front of it. And the back part rolls away to the end so you need to be extremely precise with the approach shot. It’s my favourite hole on this course. Hole 11 – ESTANCIA LA PAZ – Par 5 531 yards This amazing golf hole starts the stretch with the river on the right side. A fairway that rolls downhill where a good tee shot will give you the chance of going for it but you have to carry almost up to the green’s edge as the ball could roll back like that famous 15th hole at one of the Majors… a hole that is not only great but very nice! Hole 12 – NORDELTA GOLF CLUB – Par 3 200 yards This hole faces the biggest lake on the property and it’s one of the first that was finished during construction. It plays to a two-tiered green with a bunker on the right side and some room to miss on the left. Into the wind you can consider it a short par four and lay up… just joking, but a great golf hole! Hole 13 – MARTINDALE COUNTRY CLUB – Par 4 430 yards Although not a big fan of this course, I really like the challenge of the second shot to a two-platform green where the high part is on the right over the bunker and the left is the lower portion. It’s pretty wide off the tee, but if missing on the right then the approach remains extremely demanding. Hole 14 - PILARÁ GOLF CLUB – Par 5 540 yards It plays as a true links hole, slightly downhill with small bunkers spread for the tee shot which, if you carry, there is a chance of getting home in two shots. A very small green is protected by a big bunker on the right and a smaller (and deeper) one on the left. A layup will provide an easy approach and a chance for a birdie. If you go over the green, marsh and water will destroy your chances of making this a good birdie chance. Hole 15 - OLIVOS GOLF CLUB – Par 4/5 480 yards Described as one of the 1001 holes to be played before dying, this fantastic par five (par four for professional events) is a strong dogleg right with the second shot going downhill with a small lake on the right. The green has three protecting bunkers (right, left and long). You have to love it, if played during fall the oak trees frame it in amazing colours. Hole 16 - SAN ISIDRO GOLF CLUB – Par 3 190 yards This might not be a popular choice. There are a couple of holes on the course I could have selected (7th, 8th, 14th, 15th) but I need a par three to balance the imaginary venue and this one provides challenge and beauty surrounded by 60+ year-old trees and a tough shot over a front/right bunker with only a small space left for a running shot. Hole 17 - MAR DEL PLATA GOLF CLUB (Playa Grande) – Par 4 420 yards The most iconic green on the course – the only one that doesn’t totally break towards the ocean – for a hole that will always provide a strong test. The tee shot is not easy but there is room in this left-to-right sloping fairway. Everything short of the green will roll backwards to the front right and will leave a tough chip over the bunker. It’s one of the toughest greens to read. Hole 18 - JOCKEY CLUB RED COURSE – Par 4 340 yards There could have been many other choices like 18th at Pilará, Nordelta, Mar del Plata, Buenos Aries Golf Club, San Andres and others, but finish facing that amazing clubhouse and try to beat the Valley of Sin on a severely sloped green. It’s just a great finish to my imaginary favourite course in Argentina. 19th Hole – The Terrace at MAR DEL PLATA GOLF CLUB After the round, just take an imaginary flight to the terrace at Playa Grande facing the course, the port, the ocean and the sunset and enjoy a nice “picada” with a cold beer and be glad to be a golfer, there is no place in South America for an after-round drink like this one. This is just my choice, using my imagination, listing the holes I enjoy more with some criteria on quality, golf design and challenge. It’s a very nice par 74 which I will play always in my mind as my favourite round in Argentina. Javier Pintos We.Golf