Troia, Portugal
Located on the Troia Peninsula, about an hour’s drive and a short ferry cruise from Lisbon, one of Portugal’s toughest courses lies along a long flat and sandy stretch of land which separates the Setubal lagoon from the Atlantic Ocean. Robert Trent Jones, Snr designed the course in this scenic location at the tip of the peninsula and left his signature in its design. Greens are small and generally narrow and the bunkers are plentiful and punishing. White sand appears everywhere on this course, making the rough with its indigenous plant life even tougher to escape from. The pine forest, sand dunes and seascapes add to make the entire course a stunning spectacle, but don’t doubt the difficulty of the course for a moment. There is no easy hole in the entire layout and a player is infrequently offered a conservative alternate in shot selection. The front nine has a beautiful run of sea holes and Trent Jones chose the par four 3rd in his selection of best holes for its view of the coast and the Atlantic. It is followed directly by the tough par three 4th. A small green is protected by a cavernous bunker, right on the line where the Atlantic breeze would finish a shot struck at the heart of the green. Don’t take a high score too personally here as few get through this course unscathed.
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