Golf de Andratx

Played on Monday, April 24th, 2006.

A nice course, bit difficult to find: initially, follow the signs to Andratx, and then those to Camp de Mar. At the circle where the resort (orange marker) is sign-posted, go straight through, and take the next left to get to the course. My internet reservation worked out ok. Most of the front-facing personell at the club seems to be, or at least speak, German; English is also not a problem. Staff was very friendly and efficient.

Carts are mandatory before 14:00h, which puts the total fee at EUR 95. This includes a free bottle of water in your cart. The course is nicely laid out, and calls for precise driving. It's definitely one of the more challenging courses on Mallorca; not recommended for high handicapers, you'll enjoy the course if you're at or below 24 I'd say. The greens were nicely shaped, very undulating but rather bumpy, which made putting quite a challenge and a bit of a hit-and-miss afair. The fairways were in good shape; as a rule, they run in a bowl-shaped fashion with uphill slopes to the right and left, which help to feed slightly off drives onto the fairway. The fairways are not very wide though, and hitting them takes some precision in your drive.

You have to stick to the path to the right of the course with the cart, which is not great; many golfers seem to have difficulties optimizing the process of finding the right spot to get out, take a few clubs, hit the ball and get back into the cart to move on, as was amply demonstrated by the flight in front of us. I never realized the amount of trips back and forth to your cart to change clubs could be so numerous.

So play was slow; we took a good five and a half hours to get around. Upon return to the club house, just after 18:00, we were informed that the had closed for business already; not great. We could not get anything to eat or drink anymore, which was rather disappointing.

Even with the carts, having to stick to the paths with these, you've got to do a fair bit of walking. One of the players I joined up with, an elderly gentlemen, found it just too much. If you are elderly or disabled, it is apparently possible to get an exception granted so that you can drive on the fairways, one of the members told me.

Summarizing, a nice layout, but cumbersome to play due to the cart on road rule; poor greens on the day I was playing. Service hours not great. Don't play after 12:00 if you want to have a drink afterwards.