Chapelco Golf Club

Overview: Chapelco Golf Club is set in the Andean landscape outside San Martín de los Andes, with native vegetation, conifers, streams and two ponds woven into a parkland layout. Jack Nicklaus and Jack Nicklaus II used the natural variations of the valley instead of flattening the site, so the course moves through a changing sequence of wooded corridors and open mountain views. Deep greens and the surrounding trees give the holes a distinctive Patagonia scale, while the water features add definition without becoming the whole story of the design.

History: Chapelco was officially inaugurated on 18 February 2006 as a Nicklaus Design project and became the first course in South America designed by the Nicklaus company. The course formed part of a larger golf and resort development near San Martín de los Andes, helping establish Patagonia as a destination for international golf. Nicklaus Design describes the site as an 18-hole, par-72 course created to make the most of the natural terrain and its dramatic Andean setting.

Did You Know? The wider Chapelco story is connected with the Taylor family, whose roots in the region reach back to settlers from Ohio. The golf project was conceived within that long-running Patagonian land and tourism history, so the course is not an isolated insertion into the valley. Its design brief was deliberately restrained: change as little of the native environment as possible and make the finished course appear to belong there.