Club de Golf Castillo de Gorraiz
From Ulzama to Golf Castillo de Gorraiz
Thursday. April 6, 2023
The drive from Ulzama to Gorraiz take less than ½ hour. And, as you can see, we are still in the mountains.
Here is a bit of its history:
The Castillo de Gorraiz Golf Club was opened for play in the spring of 1995. Initially, the club’s offices were located on the ground floor of the emblematic Gorraiz Castle. The definitive clubhouse was inaugurated in September of that same year on the occasion of the celebration of an important amateur circuit.
The course was born by the hand of the Urbanization of Gorraiz, a residential area of reference in the Pamplona basin, located just 5 minutes from the center of the capital of Navarre.
The golf course was designed by the prestigious American architect Cabell B. Robinson, who has lived in southern Spain for several decades.
The construction works for the golf course began in the summer of 1993, on an area of 70 hectares.
The concept of this “Club” is more or less the same as for Fontanals.
It is a golf course and a complex consisting of a fitness center, in- and outdoor swimming pools, tennis courts, hotel and playing ground for children and restaurant. This is a business! Not that it makes is a better or worse golf course.
The course is great with good practice facilities. Just that it lacks the atmosphere, ambience, and authenticity (or whatever you will call it) that you find in clubs like Ulzama and Cerdana for example.
If you have followed us on all our Camino Tour de Golf and the courses we have visited, you will know my preference as well as biases from my description of the clubs and courses. So, bear with me!
Let’s go to the golf course.
The golf course
From the pictures – most of them copied from the web page – you will see that (again) the nature is fantastic.
View from the Club house
Well maintained course
It is hillier than you see from the pictures.
And water is in play on many holes
We didn’t take many good photos during our round. So bear with me. The following descriptions are taken from the course guide
Hole 1. Par 4. 302 meters from the yellow tee is a nice but also a challenging hole. Mostly because of a fairly steep uphill second shot to green. Anyway, a good starting hole.
Another interesting hole is number 7.
What you cannot see from the guide picture is that it is downhill. Therefore, many golfers can reach the lake on the right side. So be careful.
Hole 8 is one of my favourite types of a par 3 hole. 185 meters steep downhill.
Maybe because we don’t have any of these kind of holes in any of the Danish courses that I know of.
Let me finish this course description (again) with the last hole.
Hole 18 is a par 4, 357 meters from the yellow tee. Doesn’t look especially difficult. But it is rated as the most difficult hole on the course. The reason why?
It is steep uphill, especially for the second (or last) shot to the green. If you are not on or over the green, the ball will roll back onto the fairway.
The mental part of the game
I think this course is a great golf course for competitions between golfers with lower handicaps.
It is a golf course that quickly will separate the really good from the less good golfers. You do not only need good shot making skills but also good course management skills. And be able to handle yourself mentally under pressure.
I would like to test myself again to see if could make that test.
It was a pleasure playing the course and with my Camino attitude and the relatively high score it didn’t disturb my inner peace.
Next off to Goiburu Golf
