La Finca Golf

Overview: The La Finca Golf layout covers 18 holes and plays to par 72 in Pozuelo de Alarcón, about 15 minutes from central Madrid. Stirling & Martin Golf Course Architects designed a modern parkland course with broad fairways, strategic greens, water features and preserved arroyo corridors. The Spanish Golf Federation lists 6,480 metres from the longest tees, approximately 7,087 yards, with several shorter tee options. The open geometry keeps the line into the greens visible, but the landing areas are framed by bunkers, trees and water. The par-three 15th, with its island green, is one of the clearest examples of the course's modern visual language.

History: The design story reaches back to 1999, when Marco Martin and Blake Stirling began exploring the site and eventually developed 84 possible routings. From 2016 they worked with Susana García-Cereceda on an 18-hole course within the larger La Finca development. Construction retained 96 percent of the existing trees and incorporated the Meaques stream into the plan. The course opened in 2023 as a technology-focused Madrid club, with TrackMan equipment on the practice ground and a design intended to balance a premium setting with efficient water use.

Did You Know? The architects' account says the team considered 84 different routings before settling on the final plan. It also records that 96 percent of the trees already on the site were preserved. That makes the mature planting part of the design brief rather than a later decorative layer. The result is a new course whose strongest sense of place comes from working with the existing landscape around the fairways.