Northern Spain encompasses the four autonomous communities that stretch out along the Atlantic coast – Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria and the Basque Country – from the border with Portugal in the west to the border with France in the east. It also includes the province of Navarra as it transitions from Green Spain to the semi-arid interior, together with La Rioja, which is famous for its red wine production.

All told, in an area of around 70,000 km², there are almost 70 golf facilities available to a population of around seven million people, comprising two 27-hole complexes (at Laukariz Country Club and Real Golf de Pedreña), thirty-two 18-hole layouts, twenty 9-hole courses and fifteen others (such as par three 9-hole tracks).

We don’t feature too many 9-hole layouts in our listings but there’s an ever-growing trend in the modern era to recognise these courses and we’ve added quite a few more in recent times, including the course at Real Golf Club de Zarauz in Gipuzkoa, which entered our Spanish Top 100 in 2020. It’s the fourth oldest golfing layout in the country, having been established in 1916, so locals have enjoyed playing on this links-like track for more than a century now.

The course at Real Sociedad Golf de Neguri near Bilbao is not only the leading layout in our North region, it's also highly ranked in both our Spanish and Continental Europe Top 100 charts. Designed by renowned Spanish architect Javier Arana in the late 1950s, the course has hosted many important national amateur championships, though only one major professional event, the 1968 Spanish Open, has ever been held here.