Isla Canela has its own golf course which is set at the edge of the salt marshes where the salt marsh lakes add to the beauty and precision required to play the course. It is an 18-hole Par 72 Golf course of 6,248 metres with beautiful scenery of olive, orange, pomegranate, palm and eucalyptus trees.

This course and many others in the surrounding area have costs considerably lower than you would pay on the Algarve or Costa del Sol. The area is endowed with some of Europe’s best golf courses and blessed with practically year round sunshine.

From the island, Portugal’s eastern Algarve is easily accessible offering top quality golf courses from the golden triangle with its 5-star resorts of Quinta do Lago, Vale do Lobo and Villamoura (which are less than an hour away) through to the Castro Marim Golf and Country Club on the Portuguese/Spanish border.

Also accessible are two courses in the Algarve which the respected magazine Golf Digest list as amongst the best golf courses in the world, San Lorenzo (in 38th position) and the Vilamoura Old Course (ranked 84th). Also in the area is the newer Victoria Club at Vilamoura which is presently renowned as the best rated course in Portugal. All three of the courses can be reached within the hour from the island.

A new elite course in the eastern Portuguese Algarve is Monte-Rei Golf and Country Club with its Jack Nicklaus signature golf course, a challenging par 72 course of over 7,200 yards. The developers are resolute in their desire to turn this newly opened course into the best golf course in the Algarve. Jack Nicklaus has taken an immense personal interest in this course, his first in Portugal. Nicklaus only accepted an invitation to create such a course when he was certain that he could put something into the ground that will act as a legacy after he is gone. The course is run by the world-renowned Troon Golf organisation. Monte-Rei can be reached in less than half an hour from Isla Canela.

We have a list of some seventeen great courses to sample between Valle de Lobo and the Spanish border including the excellent Quinta de Cima and Quinta da Riacourses in the Tavira area.