There’s a point, not long after you leave Lisbon and head south, when Portugal starts to change. The city drops away, the landscape opens out, and pine forest, sandy ground and huge skies take over. For golfers heading south of Lisbon, it is also where a very different Portuguese golf story begins.
I’d been to Lisbon before, but I hadn’t realised how quickly you can find a completely different side of Portugal. Or how good the golf is getting.
This isn’t an undiscovered golf region. PGA Aroeira Lisboa has been here for more than 50 years, and Tróia has long been seen as one of Portugal’s most distinctive courses. But something is happening on this stretch of coast. Aroeira has a new identity as the only PGA National venue in Portugal, a renovated No.1 course and, this September, the Open de Portugal back on its fairways for the first time since 1997. At Terras da Comporta, Sergio García has built his first signature course. And Tróia is halfway through a major redevelopment of its own.
There’s a real sense of momentum. What I liked most, though, was how little the area feels like a golf destination. I love the Algarve, but this felt different: quieter and more understated, less obviously built around resorts. There are beaches, villages, pine forests and long stretches of countryside that still feel wonderfully natural. The golf is becoming seriously impressive. For now, at least, it hasn’t taken over.
Our trip took us south towards Comporta and Tróia, then back to PGA Aroeira Lisboa for the official Open de Portugal Pro-Am. Two rounds, one course we couldn’t play yet, and three very different glimpses of where golf in this part of Portugal is heading.
Torre at Terras da Comporta: Sergio García’s first statement
Our first round was on the Torre course at Terras da Comporta, and the sense that something new was happening was immediate. Torre opened in 2025. The par-72 course was designed by Masters champion Sergio García and is his first signature design. A few minutes away is its acclaimed sister course, Dunas, by David McLay Kidd. Between them, they have given this part of Portugal two genuinely significant modern golf courses almost overnight.
Torre looks and feels brand new. The fairways and greens were immaculate, and the place is so big that at times there seemed to be golf everywhere you looked. But what I remember most isn’t the condition. It’s the space. The whole place felt incredibly peaceful. At times it seemed as though we had the course to ourselves, surrounded by pine trees, sandy ground and enormous blue skies. It gave the round an almost private feel.
That starts before you reach the first tee. Practice facilities can feel like an afterthought, even at otherwise brilliant courses. Not here. There’s a huge grass range, a beautiful putting green and dedicated short-game areas, all kept to the same standard as the course.
For someone still fairly new to golf, I loved it. There’s something wonderfully dangerous about the half hour before a round, when you hit three good shots in a row and briefly convince yourself you’ve finally cracked the game. Unusually, that confidence came with me onto the course. For a while.
The danger of feeling good at golf
Torre looks generous. The fairways appear wide and the landscape is open, and on plenty of tees you feel as though the course is giving you permission to have a proper go. That can be dangerous for someone like me.
I was playing well. Possibly too well. Eventually I found myself in a bunker facing a shot where sensible Kelly would have got the ball back into play and moved on. Unfortunately, sensible Kelly had disappeared several holes earlier. Feeling rather pleased with myself, I tried something far more ambitious than my ability justified. Golf responded accordingly. Lesson learned. Probably.
It was also a perfect example of why Torre is more interesting than simply being wide and beautiful. It gives you freedom from the tee, but things tighten up considerably as you approach the relatively small greens. Sand, waste areas, angles and clever bunkering keep asking where you want to leave the ball.
The par-five 9th stayed with me. From an elevated tee, a lone pine sits in the middle of the fairway and makes you think straight away about which side of it you want to attack from. The 11th, another par five, has huge expanses of sand that make a brilliant picture from the tee. And the dogleg-left 15th asks exactly the question I was becoming increasingly keen to answer: how much are you prepared to take on?
Torre has already attracted plenty of attention, including being named World’s Best New Golf Course at the 2025 World Golf Awards. But some of what impressed me most was much smaller. One of our group left a pitching wedge on a previous hole. Within five minutes, a member of staff had found it and driven it back to him in a buggy. Someone else left a cap in the men’s toilets before the round. Same story: found, retrieved, returned.
Small things, perhaps. But they probably tell you more about the service than me just writing that it was excellent.
Even the temporary facilities work. The permanent clubhouse is still to come, so for now there’s an outdoor bar, a patio and a temporary pro shop. On paper that doesn’t sound particularly luxurious. In reality it still feels high-end. We did, of course, make sure the outdoor bar was working properly. A cold Portuguese beer mid-round confirmed that it was. Thorough research.
If I could go back tomorrow and replay one course from the trip, it would be Torre. Not for one extraordinary hole. I just loved being there.
Tróia Golf: watching a golf course be reborn
Our next visit showed golf from the opposite end of its life. Torre was pristine, finished and new. Tróia Golf was very much a work in progress.
The Robert Trent Jones Sr. course sits on the narrow Tróia Peninsula, between the Atlantic and the Sado Estuary, and is in the middle of an extensive renovation ahead of its planned reopening in early 2027. So we couldn’t play it.
Normally, visiting a golf course without playing would feel like being taken to a restaurant and told you can’t eat. This was different.
I’d never walked a course undergoing renovation on this scale, and it gave me an appreciation of course development I simply hadn’t had before. As golfers, we usually only see the finished product. A bunker is just there. A green is just there. A view opens up as you come round a corner, and unless you’re into golf architecture, you probably don’t think much about what it took to create it.
At Tróia, that process was on show. And it’s a fascinating course to watch it happen on. We’d seen the peninsula at its best a few hours earlier. Our first night was at the Tróia Design Hotel, and I woke up to a sunrise over the marina and the Sado River that set the tone for the day. It’s hard to be grumpy about not playing a golf course when you’ve started the morning like that.
Trent Jones Sr.’s original design already has serious pedigree. Pine trees, natural sand, elevated greens and strategic bunkering are central to its character, and its position between ocean and estuary gives it a setting like almost nowhere else. The par-four 3rd is its most famous hole; Jones reportedly rated it highly enough to include it in his own theoretical “ideal 18”.
So the job isn’t to create a completely different golf course. It’s to enhance what’s already there.
What I found particularly interesting was the work to strengthen the connection between the course and the coast. Parts of the surrounding landscape are being reshaped to open up views towards the ocean and make the Atlantic feel more present as you play. Even halfway through the work, you can see how that could transform the experience.
The facilities are changing too. The new clubhouse will have restaurants and terraces overlooking the course, which will greatly expand what happens before and after a round. For now, though, you need some imagination. There are areas under construction, shapes that aren’t finished, and parts of the experience that so far exist only on plans. Oddly, that’s exactly what made the visit so interesting.
Torre let us see a golf course at the very start of its life. Tróia let us see an old one halfway through becoming something new again. I’d love to go back for the after.
PGA Aroeira Lisboa: the Open de Portugal comes home
Day two took us back towards Lisbon, to PGA Aroeira Lisboa.
If Torre is the new generation of golf in the region, Aroeira is its history. Frank Pennink’s original course opened in the early 1970s, and it has long been known for golf played through towering avenues of pine. There are no fairway bunkers to speak of here. The trees are the defence.
Aroeira is now the only PGA National venue in Portugal, and No.1 has been extensively renovated, with work on the bunkers, the irrigation and the wider landscape, plus new tees for the tournament. Alongside it is a second championship course, No.2, which makes this a 36-hole resort barely half an hour from central Lisbon.
The timing of our visit wasn’t a coincidence. In September, Aroeira hosted the 64th Open de Portugal, the most important event in the Portuguese Golf Federation’s calendar, and its first return to the venue since Sweden’s Michael Jonzon won here in 1997.
It’s completely different from Torre. At Comporta, your eyes are drawn across huge open sandy landscapes. At Aroeira, you look down corridors of mature pine. Torre feels new because it is. Aroeira has the character of a place where golfers have been walking the fairways for more than half a century.
That morning, I wasn’t thinking deeply about any of that. I was mostly thinking: please don’t embarrass yourself.
My first Pro-Am
I was about to play in my first Pro-Am, and not just any Pro-Am. This was the official Pro-Am for the Open de Portugal. I’ve been playing more golf and I’m definitely improving, but I still very much think of myself as a beginner. Standing on the first tee knowing a professional is about to watch what happens next concentrates the mind wonderfully.
We played the front nine with Danish professional Frederik Kjettrup. He was very polite, fairly quiet and fascinating to watch. Everything seemed considered. He’d study the hole, weigh up what was in front of him and approach every shot with a thoughtfulness that made my own pre-shot routine look a little thin. Which, to be fair, mostly consists of hoping for the best. I think he could tell I was nervous. Whenever I hit a good shot, he’d give me a high five and seemed genuinely delighted for me. It was a small gesture, but it made the whole thing feel far less intimidating.
Then there was his short game. Watching professional golf on television doesn’t prepare you for how it looks and sounds from a few feet away. The strike is different. The flight is different. The consistency is frankly irritating. Kjettrup pitched balls close and read greens with a precision that made everything look remarkably simple.
Then it was our turn, and golf quickly looked difficult again.
For the back nine we switched professionals and played with Alfie Plant. The contrast in personality was noticeable but just as enjoyable. Alfie chatted and laughed with us all the way round, and there was never the slightest feeling that you didn’t belong just because your golf was on a rather different level from his.
His caddie even started helping me with my putting. Aroeira’s greens were quick and much more undulating than I’m used to, so the advice was very welcome. And something must have stuck, because my putting has genuinely improved since Portugal. I’m claiming professional intervention.
That was probably my biggest takeaway from the Pro-Am. I expected it to feel intimidating, and it didn’t. Both professionals made it relaxed and fun, and there was never any suggestion that someone fairly new to golf shouldn’t be sharing the course with them.
That matters. Golf can be intimidating when you’re learning. Golfers don’t have to be.
Pines, elevation and permission to hit driver
Aroeira gave me another surprise. With so many mature pines lining the holes, I’d expected it to feel narrow and claustrophobic. It didn’t.
I especially enjoyed how elevated many of the tees felt. You stand above the fairway, look down the hole and really want to take out the driver and let one go. Whether the ball then goes where I’d pictured is another matter entirely. But the feeling was there.
Torre had encouraged me to play freely because of its width and scale. Aroeira produced a similar feeling in a completely different landscape.
By the end of the round, the Pro-Am I’d spent so long worrying about had become one of my favourite experiences of the whole trip.
Same course, three days later
The tournament proper got under way on 17 September, the day we flew home. Three days later, on the course where I’d been praying not to embarrass myself, Denmark’s Sebastian Friedrichsen shot a closing nine-under-par 62 to win the Open de Portugal by three strokes and take his first title on the HotelPlanner Tour – 62! On those greens. I’m still processing it. It’s the best possible reminder of what Aroeira is: a course a nervous beginner can enjoy on a Tuesday morning, and one where a tour professional can produce something extraordinary on a Sunday afternoon.
The bit between the golf
One danger of a short golf trip is getting home and realising you’ve seen an airport, a hotel and several fairways, but not much of the place you actually visited.
Our schedule was fairly relentless, but there were enough glimpses of life away from the courses to make me want to go back.
It helped that we stayed in two very different places. Our first night was at the Tróia Design Hotel, in a Grand Apartment with Marina View. “Room” doesn’t really cover it. It was much more like a spacious one-bedroom apartment, with a separate living area, a walk-in wardrobe and two private balconies overlooking the marina and the Sado River. The views were stunning.
For the next two nights we moved closer to Lisbon, to the Crowne Plaza Caparica Lisbon. It’s a good base for exploring the Caparica coast and a short drive from Aroeira, and there was a distinct tournament-week feel about the place, with a number of the professionals seemingly staying there too. It also has its own nine-hole, par-three course on site. Our itinerary was too packed for us to play it, sadly, but if you’re here on a golf trip it’s a lovely bonus for an evening knock or a warm-up before the main event.
One evening took us to Borda D’Água, a relaxed beachfront restaurant, just as the sun was setting. It was exactly my sort of place: unfussy, with a beautiful view, the kind of restaurant where you could wander in off the beach and accidentally stay for hours. There was excellent Portuguese wine, fresh seafood and one particularly memorable plate of octopus. For the record: 10/10.
That evening summed up something I’d felt all trip. Comporta doesn’t feel like a golf resort. It feels like somewhere that happens to have increasingly exceptional golf. There’s an important difference.
Why golf south of Lisbon is having a moment
Perhaps that’s what makes this part of Portugal so interesting right now. There isn’t one story. There are several. At Aroeira, more than half a century of golfing history is being refreshed, and it has the Open de Portugal back to prove it. At Tróia, an established classic is being reinvented. At Terras da Comporta, entirely new golf is being created almost from scratch.
Old and new sit surprisingly comfortably side by side. But what I found most appealing was everything around them. The Algarve has spent decades establishing itself as one of Europe’s great golf destinations, with extraordinary depth, infrastructure and choice. This part of Portugal isn’t the Algarve, and it shouldn’t try to be. The appeal of heading south from Lisbon towards Comporta and Tróia is exactly that it offers something else: city and coast; mature pine-lined golf and huge modern landscapes; fresh seafood beside the Atlantic and seriously ambitious new courses that somehow haven’t overwhelmed the places around them.
Perhaps that will change. Places get discovered, hotels arrive and tee sheets fill up. But right now there’s a wonderful sense of catching this part of Portugal in transition. We played one course with more than 50 years of history, and watched it welcome back its national open. We walked another halfway through being reborn. And we played one that has barely begun its life.
Somewhere between Lisbon and Comporta, Portugal is quietly building a golf destination with an identity very much its own.
Planning your trip: golf near Lisbon
- PGA Aroeira Lisboa: About 30 minutes’ drive south of central Lisbon, across the Tagus. It’s a 36-hole resort with the No.1 and No.2 championship courses.
- Terras da Comporta (Torre and Dunas): Roughly 1 hour 15 minutes by car from Lisbon.
- Tróia Golf: On the Tróia Peninsula, reached by car ferry from Setúbal or by road via Comporta. It’s closed for renovation and due to reopen in early 2027.
- Where to stay: For Tróia and Comporta, the Tróia Design Hotel sits right on the marina, and its apartment-style suites have views across the Sado River. For Aroeira and Lisbon, the Crowne Plaza Caparica Lisbon is a short drive from the course and has its own nine-hole, par-three course.
- When to go: Spring and autumn offer the best golfing weather and quieter courses.
- Getting there: Fly into Lisbon Humberto Delgado Airport and hire a car. You’ll need one to explore this coast properly.
Golf near Lisbon: FAQs
What are the best golf courses near Lisbon?
South of the city, the standouts are PGA Aroeira Lisboa’s No.1 course, host of the 2026 Open de Portugal, and the Torre and Dunas courses at Terras da Comporta. Tróia Golf, a Robert Trent Jones Sr. classic, will join them when it reopens in 2027.
When does Tróia Golf reopen?
Tróia Golf is scheduled to reopen in early 2027 after a major renovation, which includes a new clubhouse and work to open up views of the Atlantic.
Who designed the Torre course at Comporta?
Torre was designed by Masters champion Sergio García. It’s his first signature course, and it opened in 2025 at Terras da Comporta.
Where was the 2026 Open de Portugal played?
The 64th Open de Portugal was played at PGA Aroeira Lisboa from 17 to 20 September 2026. It was won by Denmark’s Sebastian Friedrichsen with a closing round of 62.
How far is Comporta from Lisbon?
Comporta is roughly 1 hour 15 minutes’ drive south of Lisbon, which makes it easy to combine a city break with golf on the coast.
Where should I stay for a golf trip south of Lisbon?
Splitting your stay works well. The Tróia Design Hotel is a great base for Tróia and Comporta, and the Crowne Plaza Caparica Lisbon puts you a short drive from PGA Aroeira Lisboa, with a nine-hole par-three course on site.
