This year there has been no shortage of news and announcements surrounding Ernie Els Design’s ever-growing portfolio of golf courses, with work ongoing at a number of exciting and diverse new projects around the world. Among the many highlights…
Where desert meets ocean, Oleada Golf Links is taking shape in the shifting sands of the beautiful Baja Peninsula in Mexico, just 15 minutes from downtown Cabo San Lucas. Ernie’s most recent site visit was in March of this year, where he observed: “This is one of the most spectacular projects on our books. We’ve got a great team here, the boys are doing an incredible job. As a golf course designer, whenever we can work in sand, it’s heaven! This one is going to be very special and we’re so excited for the grand opening next year.”
Greg Letsche, the firm’s longtime senior design associate, made no effort to contain his enthusiasm for the course. “The ‘man upstairs’ gave us this incredible site and we’re now focused on the best way to fit our strategy and our hole routings into that,” he said. “Ernie and I are so excited about the opportunity we have here to create a golf course that will not only be at the top in Mexico, but also in the rest of the world.”
When it opens in 2026, the golf course will be a star feature of a spectacular oceanfront resort community at Oleada Los Cabos. With the Pacific Ocean as a backdrop for this breathtaking desert landscape, the resort community will offer a unique untamed luxury experience that melds an unparalleled collection of resort and residential options. Every amenity will be created through a hospitality and wellness centered mindset aimed to provide opportunities to enjoy life at its fullest. For more information, visit the website: oleadaloscabos.com.
Elsewhere in the world, construction is now underway at Bridgesong in Blanchard, Oklahoma. And there’s exciting news at the Mountain Pines project at Cagaya De Oro in the Philippines, with the addition of another of the firm’s class-leading Els Performance Golf Academy [EPGA] facilities. There will also be an EPGA at the Ernie Els Design project Mount Royal, Malmesbury, in the Western Cape province of South Africa approximately 65km north of Cape Town.
Meanwhile, the most recent addition to the growing portfolio of courses now open for play is the Els Club Vilamoura on Portugal’s Algarve. “It has been exciting for us to bring our design philosophy to Portugal, our firm’s first ever golf course in continental Europe,” commented Ernie. “It looks incredible. Whenever we design a golf course, we always have an eye on what makes it a championship golf course, so it’s gratifying for everyone involved that we’ll be bringing a Champions Tour event here next summer, the Portugal Invitational. We’re proud of that. But above all this is a golf course for its members and we’ve done everything possible to make sure it’s an incredible experience for them. This place has everything – the location is unbelievable, the people are great, very friendly, the food is great, the weather is great. We love it here and it’s a firm favourite with my whole family, too.”
It would seem that the Els Club Vilamoura members agree, as they have been universally effusive in their praise for the golf course and for the facilities at the club, which set a new benchmark for golf on the Algarve. For more information, visit the website: https://www.elsclubvilamoura.com/.
