For so many years I had been driven past Vila Sol Golf Course on route to Vilamoura to report on the Portugal Masters.

And in travelling the main thoroughfare from Faro to Vilamoura each year we passed by a fairway where set into the banking of this particular fairway is the words ‘Vila Sol’.

However I was always curious what hole it was where the sign was located.

I found out first hand last year as it was Vila Sol’s sixth hole and one of the most picturesque and delightful holes on this splendid Donald Steel designed course laid out in 1991 on the Portuguese Algarve.

And what is more surprising is that on the very day I should write this feature I received an email from Donald in my new capacity as Secretary of the Association of Golf Writers (AGW), and with Donald, and former golf writer for the Sunday Telegraph, having been President of the Association from 1993 to 1998.

Donald, who is a proud life member of the AGW, had earlier been appointed President of the British Association of Golf Course Architects (1986 – 1989).

Vila Sol is one of hundreds of golf courses Donald has designed or redesigned including the Forest of Arden, Mill Ride, Stoke Poges and Woodhall Spa in England, the renowned Abaco course in the Bahamas and Royal County Down (No. 2 course) in Northern Ireland.

And Donald was the first golf architect to work at St. Andrews since 1913 in carrying out extensive modifications on the Jubilee Course, so much so the 15th hole was renamed ‘Steel’s Gem’.

‘Gem’ is a word often used in describing a golf course and the same justifiably applies at Vila Sol.

Vila Sol, and owned and superbly managed the Prestana hotel group, was opened in 1991 and the European Tour quickly recognized its worth by staging the 1992 and 1993 Portuguese Open, and won respectively by Northern Ireland’s Ronan Rafferty and a year later by England’s David Gilford.

In a reflection of the toughness of the course 59 players over the two years, 26 in 1992 and 33 in 1993, posted scores of 80 or worst.

In fact, Gilford shot a final round 74 and won in a play-off from Spain’s Jorge Berendt who had shot a course record 63 on the opening day of the 1993 event.

Designing Vila Sol – Donald Steel in his own words.

I have been very fortunate and also grateful as Donald has kindly provided the following fascinating and wonderful insight in designing Vila Sol.

“Prior to starting work on the course Vila Sol was essentially a thick woodland of largely umbrella pines with a thick low undergrowth of some sort of prickly plant which gave us sore shins when walking through it- as was necessary to see the site.

The area which is now the 6th, parallel with the main road, was clearer as was the preceding hole along the ridge. Plotting the boundaries of the course was vital as the plots for housing development were key to the financial success although it was quite a time before the plots were developed.

However, it was possible to design the layout in  two loops of nine and to have balanced nines in spite of wishing there was a little more land.  The third nine came several years after the opening of the 18-holes. Two Portuguese Opens were played in the early years.

The fairways are not wide but are wide enough. As a result, a feature of the course is the almost total absence of fairway bunkers. Even so, great premium is placed on hitting the fairway. If there are no fairway bunkers, they can never be in the wrong place! No adjustment has, therefore, been necessary against the increasing distance the ball travels. Courses can no longer be protected as stoutly as is desirable.

The large lake on the 6th and 7th was built to provide feature and as a source of sand. Further lagoons were built as part of the planning condition to purify the recycled water from nearby Quateira- a lesson to others.

Architects are not good judges of their own work but feedback as always been favourable. Vila Sol has few, if any, enemies. It was designed to give challenge and enjoyment in equal measure. if there is a decline in the popularity of the game, it is largely because too many courses are too long, too difficult and take too long to play- and are maybe too expensive to play. I hope Vila Sol is not in that bracket. It was certainly great fun to build.”

Vila Sol boasts three nine hole layouts – Prime Course (3241 meters, 3655 yards), Challenge Course(3094 meters, 3403 yards) and Prestige (3081 meters, 3389 yards).

On my first visit I tackled the Prime and the Challenge each playing to a par 36 and boasting the standard mix of four par threes and four par fives.

The longest hole is the hole I had been admiring for many years – the par five, sixth hole and measuring 515 meters/567 yards off the white tees, and also ranked the 9th hardest hole.

Vila Sol’s shortest hole off the white tee is the par three, 13th measuring 177 meters/195 yards.

Like many of the courses on the Algarve, Vila Sol rewards accuracy off the tee and quickly punishes anything astray.

Herein lies the pleasure in playing Vila Sol threading your way, as you have to do, through the pines.

And this is very much the scenario at the third hole, an uphill par four, ranked the No. 1 index holes, and measuring 385 meters/424 yards.  The goal of the tee shot is to get yourself to the dog-left so as to present a second shot you place between two rugby goal post like tall pines trees guarding either side of the fairway and some 50 yards short of the green.  If you manage to ‘convert’ your second shot then there’s the strong reward of a par, as par on this hole is a great score.

The fourth is a great par three at 190 meters off the white tees, 158 meters off the yellow and with the key to avoid two bunkers sunk into the left bank of this raised green while there’s a lone pine right front of the green you need to avoid.

Local knowledge plays a big part in playing the dog-leg left-to-right par four, fifth hole and with the key being how much of the water guarding the right side of the fairway do you bite off.

That now leads us to the sixth and the hole I had been admiring for so many years.

And the sixth, and seeing it in all its glory, quickly became my favourite, and what a golf hole.

Standing on tee soaking up the view reminded me so much of the first hole at the Balcomie Course at Crail in Scotland and also the first at the Portstewart Golf Club in Northern Ireland where you stand high above the fairway, and with a sense of authority over the fairway well below.

Fortunately, I managed to get a good drive away that landed short of a water hazard occupying the left portion of the fairway but I then made a mess of my second playing a ‘Dam Busters’ shot that stopped just short of a marker post on the opposite side of the hazard.

However the water line was well back from the red marker post on this day and, while it was very moist under my shoes, I got a great shot away that fell a 9-iron distance short of the green from where I found the green and two putted for a very grateful par.

Before heading off the seventh I looked back admiring the hole and thinking to myself the memories I will now carry when next driving past Vila Sol.

The par four 11th is another wonderful hole measuring 456 meters off the white tees with a water hazard lying less than a 100 meters off the tee, and putting a little extra pressure on you to find the the uphill fairway.

The pick of the four par threes on the course is the 13th measuring 159-yards and the second hole on the course after the sixth where you stand high on the tee to a green below, but in this case the green is protected by a strong ring of pine trees from an 8 o’clock position all the way around the clock face to 4pm.

And if you managed to miss the pines there is two well-placed bunkers front right and most of the way up the left side of the putting surface waiting for any ball off line, and with pines trees acting like guards in front of this left bunker.

The key to playing the 14th is to study your stroke saver as there’s water, and for the most part unseen in playing your second shot, that guards the approach shot and ready to swallow up any shot short.

There’s a feature on the 16th tee that really has nothing to do with golf but will clearly draw your attention – a sculpture of a birdie-like creature that is standing over a large egg.

The hole itself is the second shortest of the par fours measuring 346 meters and with second playing to a small green guarded both front left and front right by bunkers.

The final hole at Vila Sol is a flat dog leg right-to-left hole all the way until the last 50 meters or so, and where the fairways runs down to a sunken green, and guarded by an unseen bunker on the right.

On a sun-splashed day it was a sheer delight to play Vila Sol.

And Donald Steel is to be congratulated as here is a golf course, and a year away from it’s 25th anniversary in 2016, where the advances of new and modern technology meets a genuine challenge as you weave your way past century old pines.

Here is a full photographic presentation of Vila Sol.

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