A Ryder Cup legend has designed one of the best new golf courses in Europe

Sergio Garcia has designed the Torre course at Terra da Comporta in Portugal – and it’s one of the best new golf courses in Europe.

Morfontaine. Les Bordes. Puerta de Hierro. To this short list of European clubs that have two courses of the highest calibre, we will shortly be able to add Terras da Comporta. That was my first thought as I walked off the 18th green after playing the first-ever round on the brand new Torre course, designed by Sergio Garcia.

The three-ball who hit the first drive, took the first divot, made the first pitch mark, hit the first bunker shot and missed the first six-foot putt on Torre was made up of Terras de Comporta’s GM Rodrigo Ulrich and Matthias Nemes, whose company has overseen the construction of Torre for its superstar designer, Sergio Garcia.

Torre will have a soft opening on June 16. When it does, it will mean that within two years, this club south of Lisbon has remarkably opened two courses of continental Top 100 calibre. 

That’s not to say you can assume Torre will enter the continental European ranking that is published at the end of this year; other panellists will visit between now and then and I also need to fully digest what I experienced.

But even if it doesn’t make it in, it will be in the top 110 – which is always populated by courses pretty much every bit as good as the ones that are just inside the cut-off mark. 

Irrespective of whether it gets in or not, Torre is categorically another success for Terras da Comporta and its owner Vanguard Properties, as well as Ulrich and master shaper Conor Walsh.

They are the constants from the first course, Dunas. The difference with Torre is a superstar player as the designer rather than a superstar architect, with David McLay Kidd creating Dunas. 

Garcia has done some previous design work, but he considers this his first keynote piece of work, with his own full team being involved from day one through to the finish. Clearly, someone playing competitive tour golf could not be on site every week, so he required assistance.

That was provided by Nemes’ company NCM Network, which has successfully played a similar role for Jose Maria Olazabal. Nemes oversaw the development of the course with Snorri Vilhjalmsson his lead architect. Walsh’s company built it.

It has unquestionably been built well. That was very, very obvious from my round there. It opens within six weeks but it could probably be sooner, with consistent warm weather on the way to really get the new turf to really pop. 

When it receives the first golfers, I fully expect reports to be glowing about its presentation. The greens are already superb throughout, as are the front nine tees and fairway. The back nine was grassed second and is playing catch-up; my favourite hole, the 12th, was the last to be done, but it’s not far away now.

No doubt helping with its impressive progress is the fact that very little earth was moved in construction. Only on the 2nd and 8th holes was anything significant done. And the fact it sits on piles and piles of sand. 

It has that aspect in common with its sister Dunas, but there are key differences. I won’t delve too deep into the agronomy for fear of your eyes glazing over, but there is an important contrast. Whereas Dunas is that most rare of beasts, a continental European course that has fescue grass, Torre has the more standard bent greens and Bermuda tees and fairways.

Fescue gives Dunas a firm, fast feel that enables the ground game to be used – and having walked it after playing Torre, it is in spectacular condition two years on from opening, which is a credit to all concerned because getting fescue to flourish in Portugal is not a straightforward task.

But just because Torre is on Bermuda/bent rather than fescue, do not think for a second it is going to be a lush, soft target golf experience. In fact, I’m going to predict as it settles down, it will be so super firm that you will have to be very mindful of how far your drives will bounce along its fairways.

The courses are five minutes’ drive apart – Torre will have its own clubhouse – so the land is naturally not dissimilar. Like Dunas, it is a couple of kilometres inland, though from the 12th green you get a nice view of the Atlantic.  

Dunas’ site is indubitably one of the greatest I’ve seen in continental Europe, and while Garcia & Co didn’t quite get that same 10/10 landscape to work on, Torre unmistakably enjoys a wonderful canvas. It travels over constantly undulating sandy ground comprising natural hills and valleys, as well as mature pines and colourful, varied native vegetation. 

In short, Team Garcia were given every chance of success. They didn’t miss. It is to my eye a bit tighter than Dunas, but is not narrow by any means. Beyond the fairways are miles of sandy waste areas – but relatively few bunkers. There are just 39 across the 18 holes and this restraint deserves credit.

Prolific bunkering is a pet hate of mine, so I relished how few Torre has (it’s not that I can’t get out of them, I just think overusing them is lazy and a resource-killer). 

Greens are much, much smaller than on Dunas, and the movement in them usually less severe. There are no elephants buried under Garcia’s greens, but they are relatively small and there are subtle slopes on every part of every green. 

You won’t be embarrassed by putting at Torre, but you might at times be left mystified, which to my mind is a good combination.

There are six tees. The blacks at 7,337 yards are for Garcia and his friends alone. The whites are 6,836 and strong amateurs will definitely find that a good challenge. The yellows are perfect for most of us at 6,380 and leave lots of mid-to-short-iron approaches. 

The blue (5,589), red (5,309) and orange (4,207) tees mean everyone can play Torre and enjoy it. And that was the aim.

“You know, creating super challenging courses is a problem because you think, ‘Oh, maybe we will have a tour event here or something’ and so you make it super, super difficult,” Garcia tells TG. 

“The problem is that you have got to realise that the other 51 weeks of the year you get amateurs playing and you want them to come back. 

“So for us, one of the most important things is, ‘Yes, let’s make it challenging for pros if they play here, but it’s the amateurs who will come to play… and we want them to come back!

“When they finish playing, we want them to think, ‘We can’t wait to come back and play it again’. Instead of saying, ‘OK, I’ve played this course, that’s it.

“I have friends that have told me about courses they have played and said, ‘Well, we checked the box, I don’t need to go back’. 

“So that’s as a designer, and as an owner of a course as Vanguard are, you are trying to avoid that. I want people to go and enjoy my course! I want them to have a good time!”

It’s hard to imagine many not, and the enjoyment starts on the 1st. I thought it was a great start, a par 4 of 370 yards that plays more like 340 because of its downhill nature. You can cut the corner and leave a short iron in, which is a help when you have to finesse your approach over a couple of pines at the front of the green while also getting your ball to put its brakes on or run through to the sandy waste area.

The tempo is maintained with the blind drive over the brow of a saddle between dunes on the 2nd. It’s 479 yards off the yellows, so catch the downslope over the hill and you have a chance of getting home in two.

The 5th is a cute par 3 to a small-ish, heart-shaped green with a super pin position back right that will entertain and befuddle in equal measure unless you can flight your wedge or 9-iron onto that tier.

The strength of Torre though, for my money, comes in a wonderful stretch of holes from the 9th. The front nine closes with a majestic par 5 that is just over 500 yards off the yellows and is stroke index 3.

It begins with a drive over a lone pine that really isn’t a factor in your shot other than as a target line. The fun is only just starting though, because then you must decide whether to go for the green by aiming over a fairway bunker on the left side of a hole that swings right to left, or lay up down the right and get a clear approach up the green.

Next, a mid-length par 4 where the land slopes left to right, so you feel you have to hug the sand hill on the left. There is space, though, and even if your ball trickles right, that’s actually not a bad angle from which to attack a green with a steep run-off to the right and a large bunker front left.

Now you tackle the second par 5 in three holes, and it’s another cracker. It is laid out in the shape of a reverse h, meaning you have two fairways to go for. The left-hand leg of the h is a safer and less intimidating shot to take because opting for the right route asks you to fire over a sandy waste area. The bold who decide on the right-hand leg, however, get a much better angle from which to have a go at the green, which is perched significantly uphill and with a sandy waste area eating in from the left.

It’s a superb hole, but it is bettered by the following one. The 12th is a sporty two-shotter that is impossible not to fall in love with. A hybrid or even a long iron threaded down the relatively narrow fairway leaves a tricky second to a well-protected green. Push it right and you’ll end up in a collecting bowl that is six feet below the surface. You can take it from me that the chip up is an exacting one to land softly enough to stay on the green.

A low-key finish after these pyrotechnics would be a letdown, but Torre obliges with a majestic two-shot climax. This left-to-right dog-leg is probably the most inviting tee shot on the course, one where everyone can swing freely with loose shoulders. Picking the right line to cut off as much of the sandy waste area as possible is of course important, but even if you are too ambitious, you’ll find your ball easily and still have a chance of getting close in two.

In fact, the optimum angle is something a little less ambitious that lands up the left side because even if that leaves you one more club in, it is a much better angle from which to avoid the centre-right front bunker.

It is one of the favourite holes of former Austrian national team player Nemes, who talks about Torre as he would a child he is especially proud of.

“The finishing hole is quite something I think. Standing on the tee and hopefully having had already a nice round, you get a wonderful visual feeling with the sand, fairway and hole away in the distance.  

“I agree with you that 12 is an absolute knockout too, a tricky little hole where you have to decide where to lay up and then try to locate the green with a lot of bunkering and slopes around it to defend it. Plus, spectacular views.

“My personal favourite is the 9th; standing on the back tee you are overlooking this par 5, with the 1st on the right side, the short game area on the left, and in the future there will be quite a landmark building for the clubhouse. 

“It’s a downhill tee shot and we actually built the hole around that pine tree that was existing, to make sure we had it on the fairway, but not in a way that it’s unfair. You can easily fly it and it’s not going to disturb you. 

“The elevated back tee is intimidating but even as you move down onto more forward tees it remains very dramatic. It’s a long hole and you need to be pretty long to reach in two. A well-defended green too, so it’s not that easy to get your birdie but it’s an opportunity, and a wonderful hole to finish the front line.”

None of our group made a birdie on the 9th on the first round to be played on Torre, but we had a lot of fun trying. I suspect that is going to be a scenario played out hundreds and hundreds of times every week when this new star of Portuguese and continental European golf opens its doors.