Son Muntaner Golf Course

After we played Son Muntaner, a couple of months went by before this review was written, but the course and its related facilities made such a positive impression that the memories were still very clear. Once you’ve run the gauntlet of the construction lorries around the entrance area, it just gets better as you drive in glancing at the views of the first few holes, park amongst beautifully kept gardens, and stroll into the spacious and airy Mediterranean style clubhouse where arrangements are quickly and efficiently made by the helpful and friendly staff in the well-stocked pro shop. Because one of us had a foot problem, we wanted a buggy, but they were all out – a plan was made in short order and we were soon strapping bags onto a very new buggy equipped with state of the art GPS.

We’d not made a reservation, so spent the short wait for our tee time at the practice facility, which is by far the best we’ve seen on Mallorca to date. It’s fully equipped for practice with all clubs and can accommodate a large number of folk, hacking away! We also had a quick look around the club house which has a restaurant and several conference rooms which can offer meeting, banqueting and dancing areas for up to 220 people.

Almost all golf courses are beautiful, but Son Muntaner is among the best and has been carefully crafted to make the best of the natural surroundings of fairly dense Mediterranean trees and rolling hills. At the same time, each hole is so individual, and so cleverly put together that you have to admire the feel and artistry of architect Kurt Rossknecht, as well as the current maintenance and management of the course. We seem to remember that some redesigning was done a couple of years back by Jose Maria Olazabal, in which case, hats off to him as well!

We reckon this is a thinking player’s course, but one which is fair to all levels of handicap. Looking ahead to your next shot and playing to that is the challenge because there’s a fair bit of water, many well-placed bunkers, and fairways with the odd cunningly placed kink or group of trees, not to mention out of bounds. The large, but well-shaped greens make a wide range of pin positions possible – we thought that some of these were diabolically clever! It’s a bit surprising that the 4th is rated the most difficult on the course but the rest of the ratings seemed about right, especially the 15th (rated 2) which is very, very long when nearing the end of a round on a hot day! Incidentally, the course was in perfect condition. Ok, it was early in the year, but there was a fair bit of traffic and we had no complaints in this respect. Course maintenance in Mallorca is not easy and the sensitivity surrounding water supplies on the island makes it even more tricky.

We feel the need to say that no-one at Son Muntaner had any idea that we would be writing it up, nor have they had any influence on our comments. These are our honest views of what we think is a fabulous golf course, and one that should not be missed if you are planning to play golf in Mallorca. Our group absolutely loved it, despite the perfectly good Titleist in the water at the 3rd!