Arcos Gardens reopens

After the apparent definitive closure of the golf resort Arcos Gardens, located a couple of miles from Arcos de la Frontera (Cádiz) last May, an Asturian businessman called Omar Suárez Sancio has delivered the welcome news that the course will be reopening imminently under the name Arcos Golf.

The 18 hole layout, originally designed by the prestigious Landmark Land Company, will soon be opening its doors again to visiting golfers which is great news for tourism in the area.

Landmark, one of the biggest names in golf design and management, counts Kiawah Island and Doonbeg amongst its achievements: renowned ‘in-house’ designer Pete Dye has lent his name to 17 courses worldwide.

This is super news, especially since Cádiz was hit by a triple whammy earlier this year – the demise of the aforementioned Arcos, Golf El Puerto and Benalup Golf which seriously diminished the province’s golf offer.

Perhaps Arcos was distinguished from the other two by the quality of the design: it had held the Q2 European Tour Qualifying School and was a stiff, if fair, test of golf affording views to the nearby UNESCO town of Arcos de la Frontera and featuring greens which were large, yet undulating.

Omar Suárez Sancio in his role as director (together with Francisco Valenzuela President of local business Grupo Empresarial Valenzuela) has managed to perform the maintenance works in record time in order to achieve an immediate reopening.

Starting on 24th July, work took place on the greens and fairways which had been left abandoned and were in need of TLC.

A more efficient irrigation system has also been installed.

Support has come from high circles including 1995 Ryder Cup wining Captain Bernard Gallacher who owns a property on site.

“I’ve come to work non-stop until we achieve our objective and it is my intention that this magnificent golf course returns to a position in the market which it deserves” said Omar Suárez Sancio recently, “I am sure that the new management model will be more competitive, optimizing to the maximum those recourses we have in our hands, making the course both sustainable from both an economic and environment standpoint.” Of course, these recourses included a vast real estate offer surrounding the course and, as many of Golf Leisure Breaks clients can attest, a quaint boutique hotel called Cortijo Fain which only numbered eleven individually decorated rooms.

For the time being the hotel will become the new club house; whether it will revert to accommodating guests is yet to be seen but the reopening of the golf touristic sector in Arcos de la Frontera, and the new jobs which this will generate, is to be applauded.