Some courses get renovated. This one was erased. The old Victoria Course, Arnold Palmer’s design, hosted the Portugal Masters from 2007 to 2022. In December 2023 it closed and the bulldozers arrived. Seventeen million euros later, Ernie Els had built something almost unrecognisable in its place.
He didn’t just touch up the greens. Els reversed the back nine routing, so par fours became par fives and vice versa. He added new green complexes across the property. He also replaced the old fairway surfaces with sand-capped ones. The result reopened in July 2025 as Europe’s first Els Club. It is also the Algarve’s first genuinely private members’ course. At 7,378 yards, it carries a Course Rating of 75.5 and a Slope of 137. Those numbers place it among the toughest tests in Portugal.
The Course You Can’t Just Play
Before you book anything, one thing needs saying plainly: you can’t simply walk up and play. There is no public green fee and no open online tee sheet. Access runs through a stay-and-play package at the adjacent Victoria Golf Resort & Spa. The minimum stay is three nights. Expect to pay between €880 and €1,080 per person in peak season. As I was a guest of the Els Club, I didn’t stay there myself. For most visitors, though, that package is the route in. It is closer to a golf pilgrimage than a casual round.
That restriction is what makes the experience different. The fairways stay uncrowded, even in high summer. A personal caddie master greets you by name within minutes of arrival. The pace of play is one most Algarve courses can no longer offer. Nobody is pushing you from the group behind, which leaves time to think through each shot.
If the budget or the booking window doesn’t stretch that far, Vilamoura still delivers. The neighbouring Old Course and Pinhal remain fully public and excellent in their own right. The Algarve sees roughly 1.5 million rounds of golf every year, according to its tourism board. The Els Club offers something rarer than volume: space, quiet and a sense of occasion.
Everything here feels new and built with tournament golf in mind. There is no faded resort charm and no clubhouse patina. The PGA Tour Champions agreed, and hosted its inaugural Portugal Invitational on the course in August 2026.
A Course Designed to Be Unsolved
Els and his senior design associate, Greg Letsche, worked this land twice over. First came the demolition. Then came the patient work of rebuilding. Eighteen holes emerged, with five par fives, five par threes and eight par fours. It is an unusual mix, designed to keep golfers guessing.
The old Victoria had grown predictable over two decades of tournament play. Professionals had solved it, shooting as low as thirty under par in its final year. Els needed something that couldn’t be solved so easily. Reversing the back nine was his answer.
That answer suits a man who knows tournament golf from the inside. Els is a four-time major champion and a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame. He has said his firm always designs with tournament potential in mind. Vilamoura was no exception, and the scorecard shows it.
The scorecard mix matters more than it first appears. Five par fives mean five chances to gain ground. Five par threes mean five tests of precision. Eight par fours hold the rest of the round together. Nothing settles into a comfortable rhythm, so you keep adjusting. That constant adjustment is the real challenge here.
The Front Nine: Room to Breathe, Reasons to Worry
On this occasion, we chose to play from the white tees at a long, for us, 6757 yards. Ground conditions were firm and running. In many ways, similar to links course. It proved to be the correct choice.
The 498 yard 1st hole
The opening hole doesn’t punish you, which feels almost suspicious. It is a long, generous par five with sand lining both sides of the fairway. Avoid the traps and a real birdie chance opens up ahead. You leave the green feeling slightly too comfortable, slightly too soon. Nothing about the hole looks threatening, and that is the design. Els rarely announces danger loudly. He prefers you to discover it yourself, hole by hole.
The 4th hole
By the fourth, water introduces itself. This 156 yard par three is deceptively pretty from the tee. A lake sits in front of a sloping green. Miss short and the water takes your ball. Miss long and the slope sends it sliding back toward the water. There is no theatrical carry and no forced decision from the tee. Instead, the hole quietly punishes the smallest misjudgement of distance. It is an early lesson in how this course works.
View down the 9th hole
The ninth closes the front nine with a sneaky par four of 395 yards. Trees crowd the left and screen the holiday villas from view. To the right sits something stranger: a giant sand-scrape dotted with small islands. It looks almost lunar against the manicured fairway beside it. Finding the green feels like solving a small riddle. Whatever you score, you will remember how that hole looked.
Walking off the ninth green, the round already feels earned rather than given. The front nine, for all its openness, has quietly tested you. The back nine is waiting.
The Back Nine: Water, Nerve, and a Tough Finish
This is the nine Els rebuilt from nothing, and you feel the change on the tenth tee. Water comes into play on five of the next nine holes.
Water everywhere on the 11th hole
The eleventh is the back nine’s centrepiece. It is also the hole Els’s design team points to as the one the reversal was built around. It is a true risk-reward par five, with water snaking in from the left. The water crosses the fairway and cuts across the front of the green. Lay up conservatively and you are rewarded with a simple wedge. Go for it in two and everything hangs on one swing. The green looks tantalisingly reachable. Most golfers overestimate their odds here at least once. That is exactly the trap Els and Letsche wanted to set.
The stroke index 1, 426 yard 16th hole
The sixteenth is the hardest hole according to the card. Longer hitters can attack the right half of the fairway, if they dare. The water awaits any tee shot that goes too far right. The second shot to the green is also over the water. There is a bailout left for the faint of heart but forget about par taking that route. Once on the putting surface, it’s not an easy two putt. The green slopes from back to front and from right to left. This is the hardest hole for a number of reasons. I can tell you that I was delighted with my par here.
The 202 yard 17th hole
The penultimate hole is a strong par 3. It is not for the faint hearted. Any shot slightly right will be wet. There is a bailout to the left of the green but we didn’t come here to bailout. Our 4 iron found the putting surface, much to our relief. This hole, along with the 16th can derail your score in a heartbeat. What followed was a memorable moment. I holed my putt for a birdie and I even have it on video!!
A Stage for Legends
The PGA Tour Champions did not choose this course by accident. In July 2025 the tour announced a five-year partnership with Arrow Global Group, Turismo de Portugal and Turismo do Algarve. That partnership brought the Portugal Invitational to Vilamoura. It was the first PGA Tour-sanctioned individual stroke play event ever held in Portugal.
The tournament ran from 31 July to 2 August 2026 over 54 holes. It offered a purse of $3 million. The field of 78 players included Hall of Famers such as Bernhard Langer, Colin Montgomerie and Padraig Harrington.
Harrington added a neat twist to the story. He won the Portugal Masters here in 2016, on the old Victoria layout. A decade later he returned to a course that no longer resembles the one he won on. However, it was another former Open Champion that emerged victorious that week. The winner on 19 under par was Zach Johnson from the USA.
Planning the Trip
Vilamoura sits about 25 to 30 minutes’ drive from Faro Airport. That makes a short golf break easy to organise. Because there is no open tee sheet, it pays to ask about availability early. Keep the three-night minimum in mind when you choose your dates. We played at the Els Club in early September, just before the start of the High season for golf in Portugal.
A three-night stay leaves room for more than one round. The Old Course and Pinhal are fully public. Laguna and Millennium also sit nearby. A second round on one of them makes a useful contrast. You will see how differently the Els Club asks its questions.
Come with a plan for the water holes. Think about the eleventh and twelfth before you reach the tenth tee. Decide in advance how aggressive you want to be. This course rewards a plan and punishes impulse.
Where You Rest, Beneath the Cascades
I stayed a short drive from the course, at the Hilton Vilamoura As Cascatas Golf Resort & Spa. It is set among five acres of manicured gardens. Its Moorish architecture gives it real character, unlike so many generic resort blocks nearby. Cascading waterways run through the grounds and give the hotel its name. After eighteen holes built around precision and nerve, the stillness feels earned.
Rooms open onto private balconies. Many face the neighbouring Pinhal course, and others overlook the landscaped gardens. The spa, reportedly Portugal’s largest, offers real recovery after a demanding round. There are six pools, including one styled like an ancient Roman bath. Families will find a kids’ club running through the summer. A free shuttle serves Vilamoura Marina and Falésia Beach. Both sit within twenty minutes of the hotel’s front door. It is the kind of convenience that turns a golf trip into something closer to a holiday.
Evenings move at an unhurried pace, with the waterfalls as a constant, gentle soundtrack. It is easy to see why so many golfers return year after year.
Is It Worth the Money?
With a minimum three-night stay and €880 to €1,080 per person in peak season, this is not a budget golf break. What you are paying for is exclusivity: uncrowded fairways, a caddie master who knows your name, a brand-new course built to tournament standard and the chance to play where the PGA Tour Champions has just played. If you want the cheapest round in the Algarve, look elsewhere. If you want a special occasion and a round you will remember, it is easy to justify.
The Els Club doesn’t lean on nostalgia or faded tournament glory. It asks hard, modern questions, hole after hole, and expects real answers. It wants precision early, courage through the water holes and composure by the eighteenth. You will remember the quiet menace of the water at the fourth. You will remember the lunar sand-scrape at the ninth. And you will remember navigating your way down the eleventh and sixteenth holes, distance meaningless, nerve everything.
Given the private nature of the Els Club, the course was as you would expect. It was in immaculate condition. Tees, fairways, rough, bunkers and greens, all perfect. The greens were running at a sporty 10.8. If you found yourself above the hole however, they were closer to 14.
You will need to bring your ‘A’ game when tackling this course as it tests both your swing and your decision making. Fall short, and the water, the bunkers and those putting surfaces will be waiting. Els has called this project one of his very best. Sitting on the clubhouse veranda with a cool drink in hand, it is easy to believe him.
At a Glance
- Location: around 25–30 minutes’ drive from Faro Airport, in Vilamoura, Algarve
- Par-72 course, redesigned from the former Arnold Palmer-designed Victoria Golf Course (opened 2004)
- Complete rebuild by Ernie Els and Greg Letsche, reopened July 2025
- Championship length of 7,378 yards, Course Rating 75.5, Slope 137
- Five sets of tees to choose from.
- Europe’s first Els Club, and the Algarve’s first private members’ golf club
- Access: stay-and-play packages at the adjacent Victoria Golf Resort & Spa, minimum three nights
- Typical peak-season price: €880–1,080 per person, with no public green fee
- Fantastic practice facilities, with full length range and short game area
- Courses Nearby: Vilamoura Old Course, Pinhal Golf Club, Laguna Golf, Millennium Golf
- For more information, visit the Els Club Vilamoura website
- View the Victoria Golf Resort & Spa website here
Jim Callaghan CCM is a former Club Manager with experience of overseeing several top Scottish Golf Clubs.
Now, as European Editor of Golf Operator Magazine and World’s Best Golf Destinations, he shares insights into club operations and his golfing adventures across Europe.
Jim is also an Ambassador for premium clothing brand Fenix Xcell Clothing and also for the Spanish local DMC, Costa Verde Golf and is host of @JimTheSeniorGolfer on YouTube.
If your club/resort or brand wants to reach over 450,000 golfers, contact Jim at [email protected] or call 0044 (0) 78522 88732
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