Falling for Victoria

ONE company likes golf in Portugal so much it has invested over £2billion over the last seven years acquiring some of the country’s leading courses and hotels. And if golfing paradise means lush courses, swimming pools, bars and sunshine the Algarve is certainly the place to visit.

It also means more Brits than you can shake a lob wedge at, but there are mercifully plenty of courses to go round. Oceanico Group is run by an Irish accountant, Gerry Fagan and an English estate agent, Simon Burgess. Most recently the pair have tied up a deal thought be worth around £125m with the Godfather of Algarve golf, Andre Jordan who created the Vilamoura resort, championship courses and marina from scrub farmland that he acquired for a song.

Locals reckon he got a lot more than £125m but no-one is saying quite how much.

There is a lot of building work underway at Vilamoura as Fagan and Burgess try to deliver their version of the Pinehurst resort in North California. Villas, apartments and hotels are springing up and great cranes tower above the skyline like giant storks.

Happily, the courses are all in first-class condition.

The most recent addition to the Vilamoura selection of The Old Course, Pinhal, Millennium and Laguna is the Victoria designed by Arnold Palmer and opened in 2004.

Golf does not come cheap with the rack rate for a green fee a steamy £110, although discounts can be had. On the warm, sunlit Sunday morning in February when I played it was very quiet.

I was lucky enough to be drawn with one of Scotland’s brightest young teaching professionals, Derek Wright from Hamilton, and his affable dad Billy, a man you would not wish to play for serious money off his 11 handicap.

As Derek said as he was hitting the ball miles off each tee, ‘there are no real stand out holes early on. Good but not stand-out.’

Then you get to the turn and how things change. Try to get a decent score posted on the front nine because it can all go sadly wrong coming home. Water is the big hazard and nowhere more so than on the 12th, a 550-yard picturesque brute on the stretch known as Victoria Corner.

A lake runs all the way down the left hand side of the fairway and snakes in where a well-struck second would land. It is a case of giving it everything off the tee then lay up. Then go for the green with water to the left and back. Walk off with a par here and the sun will shine on you whatever the weather.

At over 7,000 yards off the back tees Victoria – which played host to the WGC World Cup won by England in 2005 (Luke Donald is pictured above crossing one of the course’s fairway bridges) – never lets up. The 310-yard, par-four 15th does offer a chance to draw breath though.

Having completed the 18 whatever your score, make sure to enjoy the excellent food and Portuguese wines to be had in the clubhouse, and savour the course you have played.

And to really get the most out of Victoria, leave the buggy in the shed, and walk it.

For further information about Oceanico properties visit the easy-to-navigate website www.oceanicodevelopments.com and for more details about their golf portfolio golf visit www.oceanicogolf.com

For information on Aphrodite Hills, visit www.aphroditehills.com and for details on The Elysium, visit www.elysium.com

British Airways Holidays can tailor-make a five-night stay in Cyprus from £750 per person, based on two sharing. For reservations visit www.ba.com or call 0870 2433 406