Penina Hotel & Golf Resort

The story here begins with a rice-growing estate. John Benedict Stilwell bought the 146-hectare Tapada da Penina in 1961, then asked Sir Henry Cotton to shape a course from the flat Algarve ground. When the hotel and course opened on 5 November 1966, inaugurated by President Américo Tomás, they marked two firsts for the region, the Algarve’s first 18-hole golf course and its first five-star hotel. Designed by Leonardo de Castro, with interiors by Conde Lencastre, the hotel still has the measured, established feel of a place that helped put Algarve golf on the map. One of its rooms also hosted the signing of the 1975 Alvor Agreement, an important step in Angola’s route to independence.

Sir Henry Cotton’s Championship Course remains the central round, a par 73 measuring 6,273 metres from the white tees. Streams, ditches and water hazards demand proper attention, while the raised greens and modest changes in level make approach play more exacting than the open setting first suggests. The course has hosted the Portugal Open ten times. Alongside it, the Resort Course offers a useful nine-hole par 35 round, or an 18-hole par 71 loop, and the academy has an 80-metre-wide natural Bermuda-grass practice area, target greens, bunker and short-game greens. It is a sensible place to settle into the week before taking on the main course again.

There are 188 rooms and suites, facing either the mountains or the pool, with Grand Suites extending to 148 square metres and including two bedrooms and a separate living room. Meals can move easily between the Sagres buffet restaurant, Le Grill and the Sir Henry Cotton Club, while L’Arlecchino brings seasonal Italian cooking to the resort. Alvor is 5 km away, and the hotel runs a seasonal complimentary shuttle to its private concession at Alvor Beach, where guests have sunbeds, shade and towels. For a quieter afternoon away from the fairways, the 1,454-hectare Ria de Alvor Nature Reserve lies 4 km from the hotel.