Dynamite island for golfers!

New 6th hole at Anfi Tauro

The island of Gran Canaria is home to Spain's oldest golf course, close to the capital Las Palmas and built in 1891. And it took nearly 77 years before they built another one - at Maspalomas in 1968.

Now this rugged mountain outpost off the North African coast has been echoing to sounds of dynamite and giant earthmovers as another handful of courses are being developed in the next 12 months to meet a growing demand.

Previously the island had a reputation merely for fruit, vegetables and cut flowers to help fill Britain's supermarket shelves during the winter months. Now, while much of its fertile soil remains, the less hospitable, arid landscape is being taken over by rolling swards of fairway and tees and greens cut into mountainsides.

As I discovered on a visit last week to the island which hosted a golf tour operator's exhibition and the spectacular annual IAGTO travel awards, Gran Canaria is fast gaining reputation as the perfect golf destination.

Spectacular short 13th at Cortijo

The climate between November and March settles around a balmy 24 degrees and with a light breeze off the Atlantic - is ideal for golfers from the UK and Europe searching for quality courses to play in ideal conditions.

By the end of next year, the island will have seven courses stretching from Real Club de Golf de Las Palmas in the north to the exclusive Anfi Tauro in the south west, each with high-class facilities and linked along a 45-mile route by the new GC-1 highway.

I first visited Gran Canaria in the early 1990s when I had the chance to interview Seve Ballesteros, Jose Maria Olazabal, Ian Woosnam and Sandy Lyle, while they filmed a pre-season exhibition match at Campo de Golf de Maspalomas.

I recall the arduous 30-minute taxi ride from the coastal hotel up a narrow track to a mountain course often shrouded in mist. It was a tight, tree-lined course with small, demanding greens and deep bunkers that even the world's best players found tricky to handle.

Today the same journey will take you through vast new estates of villas and hotels with the course enclosed by holiday homes, schools and small businesses.

Maspalaomas - so much has changed

As well as its remoteness, it has lost some of its edge, with the inclusion of lakes and more open spaces but it's still a hospitable place to play golf, with its charming clubhouse and courtyard.

But if Maspalomas has had a make-over, the village of Anfi Tauro - between the breathtaking sailing resorts of Puerto Rico and Mogan in the south-west corner of the island - is experiencing major surgery!

The land on which a new 18-hole course is being developed, quietly provided a meagre living for those growing aubergines, tomatoes, bananas and Britain's winter demand for bouquets and bunches of cut flowers.

Now the diggers and blasters have moved in to create a spectacular golf course, designed by the renowned trio of von Hagge, Smelek and Baril, already responsible for the US PGA Tour courses at Doral and La Costa.

Dynamite created the almost complete 14th green at Anfi Tauro

A hotel, marina, watersports centre and major residential development is planned around the course which has been literally, in some parts, bitten out of the rock at a cost of over $20million.

Sales manager Tove Kolbjornsen told me how, in order to create the 6th and 14th greens, for example, the designer ordered several hundred tons of rock to be dynamited while all fairway grass has had to be specially created to accept de-salinated water from the nearby Atlantic.

A golf school and 9-hole academy course is already in place with the main course scheduled for opening later next year.

A ten-minute journey south on the motorway and two-kilometre trek through the mountains, reveals another spectacular course and major development.

Salobre Golf Resort was designed by Roland Faure in 2000, sweeping through land originally formed 14million years ago, when Gran Canaria was little more than a fresh volcano.

He has used the area with great skill, creating elevated tees on terraces - which make this a great 'driving course'. It's a great feeling to pick out shots against a background of crystal clear, blue sky and watch them fall to earth hopefully within the confines of the emerald fairways.

New Sheraton Hotel will overlook Salobre

It also has some terrific par-3s including the 99-metre third over water, the sixth, which perched along a shelf of rock and shale and the signature 14th settled below the new 5-star Sheraton Hotel due for opening next July.

The hotel will have 300 rooms a spa, three restaurants and four bars and its own private beach facilities - ten minutes away in Maspalomas.

Salobre also has several luxury villas for rent overlooking the course and aims to have a further 9-hole layout, designed by Ron Kirby, open next year.

Kirby is also nearing completion of the Meloneras golf complex attached to the Grand Hotel Lopesan Costa Meloneras on the outskirts of Maspalomas. It will offer four different tee options on each of its 18 holes, satellite navigation on golf buggies and spectacular views of both sea and mountains.

At present it looks like a wide, open expanse of newly seeded grass with few trees and exposed to the fickle Atlantic breeze. But I'm told it will quickly grow and will suit the links golfer as long as they can handle the giant drainage ditches, which have been used as features on many holes.

Driving at the short par-4 13th at Salobre

Head north towards the capital city and you'll find the exclusive Real club de Las Palmas, which nestles alongside a former volcano providing deep ravines as its key hazards.

The course was created in Santa Brigida, near to the famed Botanical Gardens, by Mackenzie Ross at the end of the 19th century to provide sport and entertainment for the rich, trading merchants and businessmen who populated the former home town of Christopher Columbus.

The course meanders between palm trees and beautifully tended gardens but at weekends is used almost exclusively by members and their guests.

Giant hazards on the 2nd hole at El Cortijo

Nearby El Cortijo Club de Campo is more a working class golfer's retreat but no less a test of driving and skills around the greens.

It was here that one of Spain's most famous sons, Sergio Garcia, claimed the Spanish Open title in 2002 with an incredible 13-under par total on one of the nations longest courses.

Though we played the last few holes in fading light after welcome, but over-indulgent pre-round hospitality, the par-3 12th hole stands out - demanding a fairway metal from a tee sitting over 200 feet above the green. The 14th is a daunting hole, too with a blind tee shot, laying up short of a lake into which the green encroaches on the far bank. The 16th is similar, tempting the big hitters to go for the green of this par-5.

All that spoils the course is its location, overlooked by ugly tower blocks on one side and a noisy building site on the other. Somehow I don't remember the TV coverage picking out any of this in sound or vision!

Floodlit Oasis

However, a nice touch on your way out of the complex is to call in at Oasis Golf (formerly the El Cortijo Golf Centre) which comes into its own at night.

As well as a lively clubhouse, bar and restaurant you can continue your golf on the 9-hole floodlit course (E30), created by Blake Stirling, formerly head designer for US legend Pete Dye.

I'm told many a private financial score was settled here by European Tour pros winding down after their tournament rounds and preferring not to return to the hotel rooms, too early!

	The Golfmagic Verdict
Rating: 8.5/10 Summary: The Oasis golf centre just about sums up golf in Gran Canaria. It's fun, it's accessible and reasonably cheap. Green fees at various courses can be negotiated at the Euro equivalent of around £25, though you'll play twice that at weekends on the better courses. The greens and tees are in good condition and the courses demand all your skills to score well. Add to this an ideal climate during our gloomy English winters, superb, modern hotels (like the Hotel Palm Beach in Maspalomas, where I stayed), a mere four hours flying time from London and daily flights from most UK airports and this island could soon be challenging Tenerife as the No.1 Canaries' golf destination. As well as the oldest course in Spain, Gran Canaria has given birth to a handful of young pretenders to help maintain its newly discovered golfing heritage and I strongly recommend you give this growing family a visit very soon.

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