A Quick Getaway to Spain: Monte Mayor

48 hours of golfing paradise

Words: Owen Blackhurst

The one thing you can’t accuse us of at GP is treading a well-worn path on your behalf. This is why we you’re just as likely to find us playing scratchy municipal courses as submerged in golf Jacuzzis filled with Dom Perignon.

What I’m trying to say is that we spend a fair amount of time finding places we think will add something to your life, rather that merely subtracting from your bank balance. We like to re-invent the wheel of an area and give it a bit of love.

So when, on a drab afternoon, my bloodshot eyes widened at the sight of a course snaking through the lush Spanish Andalusian hills, I got on the phone, pronto. And what I found out added a bit of confusion to the Quick Getaway rubric. “Certainly,” they said when I enquired if we could visit Monte Mayor.

And while they didn’t say “certainly not” when I asked if we could stay, they had to say no, because Monte Mayor is a private community. So in that sense, this trip became a bit of a cut ’n’ paste job. Like a golfing cocktail, it’s one part fantasy, three parts quick getaway with a dash of property thrown in for good measure.

The first part of the “quick” is easy. Rather than flying directly into Malaga, opt instead for Alicante. This will serve two purposes. Firstly, you get to drive for three hours along some of the most scenic coastline in the world and secondly, this will get your golfing appetite as wet as an otter’s pocket.

And this is where the fantasy comes in, because what La Perla Living, and more so Lawrence Maeck have created, is a bonafide, 100 per cent, all-singing, ball-stealing, heart-grasping monster. Look at the aerial shots; this course was built and designed within the mind’s-eye of an aesthetic genius. It doesn’t just undulate, it wobbles.

No two holes are the same, cavernous ravines await anything stray and some of the pin positions are tastier than chips on a rainy Wednesday. It’s beauty and the beast.

Should you want to purchase a villa at Monte Mayor (and believe me, with views of Gibraltar and Morocco, you should), then you’re looking at a cool £800,000.

But this is no ordinary development. The concept is about space and quality and respecting the surroundings.

Overlooking some monstrous developments on the edge of Marbella, Monte Mayor is located in four million square-feet of lush glory. You will not have neighbours peering over your fence, and you definitely won’t have golf balls sailing through your new patio window.

And if you don’t believe me about the quality, then consider this. The stones in the 22km of pathways are made of Portuguese granite, and each one has been chipped and laid by hand. And that’s just the pathways.

Everywhere you look, there is an accent on bespoke style, and if I had money to burn on a second home, then Monte Mayor would stink of flaming euros. With the perma-tanned “my yacht’s bigger that your yacht” resort of Puerto Banus nearby, you won’t go short on all night watering holes. But it gets a bit, well, annoying watching rich berks drive round and round in Ferraris. And though we did spend a night (and the following day) watching the vapid and the vain, there’s only so much rum a man can drink before taking on Monte Mayor.

So with this in mind, you have three main options. You can either visit Gibraltar (actually, don’t bother, it’s only a rock and a load of British shops), play any one of a number of smashing courses (Valderrama, Soto Grande etc.), or do it the GP way. Which is to see what this part of the world is like away from the over-riding British influence.

The further you get down the Costa, the closer you get to Africa, and the further you get from Anglicisation. And you’ve got to fancy a bit of that, haven’t you?

We pitched up in Tarifa, the southernmost point of Spain, roughly an hour from Monte Mayor, and after a lazy morning spent exploring the dusty streets and trinket shops, the gnawing in our stomachs signaled lunch. Sometimes, you get lucky in life. And sitting eating a bowl of clams while sipping on a local rioja in an actual Spanish tapas house is my kind of luck.

Driving away from the south, we stopped at a roadside cafe and, while cradling a cafe con leche, sat and idly watched another continent. If you’ve never been this far south in Spain, you’ll have no idea how close the Atlas Mountains look. Close enough to feel, yet not quite close enough to touch.

Not this time, anyway.