50 Glorious Years
The facilities at the La Manga complex in south-eastern Spain are off the scale. A quality hotel, soon to be converted to a Grand Hyatt overlooks the main part of the complex, which boasts three courses, the North, South and West, which provide ample opportunity for golf for all of those visiting and living at this exceptional resort.
La Manga has recently enjoyed its fiftieth anniversary. Gregory Peters founded the complex in 1972, and based it on the successful American model for a golf complex, which provided both sporting facilities and residential opportunities. Peters, who passed away in 2014, was quite the visionary. He was the first to bring this type of development to Europe and the success of La Manga today is in large part due to his foresight.
In the early days, the area immediately adjacent to the golf reception was a cricket pitch and the golf reception building its pavilion. It was the scene of some great matches in the early 80s, but is now an exceptional golf range and practice facility. The covered bays extend in an arc providing golfers with an ideal opportunity to hit balls in all weathers. This being Spain, many prefer to walk a little further and hit their balls in the sunshine. The uncovered bays still use golf mats; further along there is a major grass teeing area. This is reserved for members of the Real (Royal) Golf Club of La Manga, visiting parties, and the occasional professional event. The golf range itself has three dedicated studios that allow visiting professionals and elite squads to focus on the technical aspects of the game with the necessary privacy.
There are also five large practice greens immediately adjacent to the golf range with space for chipping, pitching and bunker shots. Putting is available on all of the greens: those putting are encouraged to aim at the shorter flagsticks whilst those chipping and pitching aim for the taller flagsticks. This is a clever way of separating the two forms of practice. There is another large putting green closer to the hotel by the 10th tee of the South course. After your round, refreshments are available at Bar 37, which is positioned upstairs in the clubhouse, and has a large terrace which allows fantastic views over the circular practice ground, whilst allowing golfers to relax after their rounds with a welcome glass of wine and tasty lunch.
The complex also houses the principal buggy storage area and great care has been taken in recent months to reroute the passage of golfers through a new and elegant entrance, which neatly sidesteps the more practical maintenance side of running a large fleet of golf buggies. The new entrance will shortly include a relocated, larger pro shop and golf reception.
From its inception, La Manga boasted two courses, the South and the North. The South is slightly longer with a par of 73, and was most recently used to host the Farm Foods Senior Open, which is part of the Legends Tour.
The North course has a par of 71, and sits physically higher in the foothills of the resort. Both of these courses are in good condition and play very well throughout the year, and will be used to host the Ladies European Tour Qualifying School in December.
The West course, which was built by Dave Thomas, was fully opened in 1996. The West course is often referred to as the “Wild West” by local golfers: it is a much tighter layout with trees, undulations, stony outcrops and the dreaded barrancas – the Spanish word for ravine. The West course requires far more strategy and patience than the more open layouts of the North and South, but it is an exceptional course, offering some of the most spectacular views in Spain.
Most importantly, the West course gave the complex a full 54 holes of high quality golf.
The Tennis Centre at La Manga has recently undergone a major renovation, which included the 
introduction of paddle tennis, newly laid courts – both clay and hard courts – a well-appointed gym, new restaurant, bar, shop and reception. Several million euros have been invested and not surprisingly the Tennis Centre is once again attracting large numbers of visitors throughout the year.
Over the years, the Football Academy has developed substantially at La Manga. The pandemic forced a lockdown of all of the facilities, which was completely devastating to the Football Centre and could no longer host major events for visiting teens. More recently, Cartagena FC has signed a multi-year agreement to use the Football Academy to develop their own players as their training base. Cartagena are enjoying a great season in La Liga and their presence at La Manga has been very positive within the local community.
La Manga has been owned most recently by the hotel group Hesperia They decided during lockdown to close the loss making spa and shut down the Las Lomas village, which was being operated by them as serviced apartments and villas. A brand new spa is part of the planning of the new Grand Hyatt hotel, work on which will start in the next couple of months. The Grand Hyatt will be a significant step up in prestige for La Manga.
There are several opportunities for timeshare across the resort. Timeshare earned itself a rather grubby reputation over the last few decades with onerous fees and a lifetime of financial obligations. The laws regarding timeshare have been dramatically improved in recent years, so once again timeshare can be considered as a viable option for those wishing to invest in the resort.
There are dozens of urbanisations at La Manga, and prices for a two bedroom dwelling start at around £100,000 with some of the more elegant and spacious villas selling for many millions. The properties have been carefully laid out to give stunning views across the facility and onto the Mar Menor – Europe’s largest saltwater lagoon. Access for the various communities is easy and harmonious with the added protection of security, which provides reassurance and extremely low crime rates.
Colin Jenkins has been visiting the La Manga complex since 1982, when it hosted the European tour qualifying school and now spends many months each year at the complex. Over the last 40 years, the resort has developed and evolved in quite a remarkable way and now has over 2000 individual dwellings, shops, restaurants, medical centres, a petrol station, and a multitude of other different sports and social activities. It is the number one golf resort in Europe if you are looking for an integrated and developed infrastructure to enjoy, as well as just a pure golf facility. Golf buggies are everywhere – it is quite normal to see couples driving out in their golf buggy for dinner, lunch or any other social visit.
For your correspondent, La Manga has become home and for many other thousands who reside or visit this remarkable golf complex. The first 50 years has been memorable – let’s hope the next 50 years will be even better.
For more details: www.lamangaclub.com