There has been plenty written over the last week or so about the possibility of the DP World Tour Championship moving from Dubai to Spain, should the situation in the Middle East make a change of plans necessary.
And, quite rightly, much of that attention has centred on the Real Club de Golf Sotogrande. The historic Robert Trent Jones-designed layout is an obvious candidate, having already hosted the Andalucía Masters and staged DP World Tour golf as recently as 2024. It has the pedigree, the experience and, importantly, the infrastructure to step in if required.
But having spent some time in Sotogrande myself, I couldn’t help thinking about another possibility.
If the DP World Tour does eventually need to move its season-ending championship to Sotogrande, why couldn’t La Reserva Club also be part of the conversation?
I’m not suggesting one should replace the other, far from it. Both would make superb venues, and Real Club de Golf Sotogrande is an entirely logical choice given its history of hosting the DP World Tour.
But La Reserva is a course that can sometimes be overlooked when the conversation turns to Sotogrande’s great golf courses.
And, for an event of this magnitude, I’m not sure it should be.
A course built for the modern game
When I wrote about Sotogrande for Golf Today in 2024, La Reserva stood out to me as one of the area’s most impressive modern layouts.
Designed by Cabell B. Robinson and opened in 2003, it is a very different proposition from the older courses that have helped establish Sotogrande’s reputation, but that is arguably part of its appeal.
The course is big.
The fairways are wide and sweeping, the greens are large, and there is plenty of room to create different angles of attack. But that doesn’t mean it is easy. Robinson has used the rolling terrain, bunkering and water features to create a layout where the better line is not always immediately obvious.
It is the sort of golf course that can be made to play in a number of different ways. And that matters when you’re talking about professional golf.
A championship venue doesn’t necessarily need to be brutally narrow from the tee or have small greens surrounded by trouble. It needs to provide options, ask the right questions and give the tournament organisers the ability to influence how the course plays.
La Reserva has that flexibility.
From the back tees it is a substantial golf course, while its elevated position provides views across Sotogrande and towards the Mediterranean. There is also a pleasing variety to the holes, with the course moving through the natural contours of the land rather than simply sitting on top of it.
Having played it, what struck me most was the scale of the place. It feels like there is room. And if you are trying to accommodate a major professional tournament, room is a rather useful commodity.
It already has tournament pedigree
The other obvious question is whether La Reserva has the tournament experience to make the jump.
It does.
The club has already hosted significant professional events, including the Aramco Team Series, so this isn’t a case of taking a purely residential or resort golf course and asking it to suddenly become a professional tournament venue.
It’s been there before, and that experience matters.
La Reserva has already demonstrated that its course and facilities can accommodate professional tournament golf, and there is nothing about the layout that makes it difficult to imagine it being presented for a higher-level event.
In fact, the scale of the course could be one of its biggest advantages.
A tournament such as the DP World Tour Championship brings far more than just 72 holes of golf. There are television compounds, hospitality areas, spectator facilities, player and caddie requirements, practice areas and all the other infrastructure that has to operate around the competition itself.
La Reserva has the space and the setting to make that possible.
And this is perhaps where the course deserves a little more consideration than it has received so far.
It doesn’t feel like a golf course that would need to be radically transformed to accommodate a tournament of this size. It feels like a venue that could be adapted for one.
The setting works, too
There is also something about the setting of La Reserva that would make it particularly attractive for an event of this stature.
Its elevated position provides expansive views across Sotogrande and towards the Mediterranean, while the golf course itself has enough visual variety to give a television audience something to look at.
The broad fairways, large greens, water features and changes in elevation create plenty of opportunities for interesting holes and different camera angles.
And because the course is so spacious, there would be scope to create the sort of championship set-up you would expect for a DP World Tour event without losing the character of the original design.
You wouldn’t want to turn La Reserva into something it isn’t. Its appeal is partly in its scale and the way Robinson used the natural landscape.
Instead, the challenge would be to use those characteristics to make the course work for the best players in Europe. And I think it could.
Real Club de Golf Sotogrande makes perfect sense, but so does La Reserva
The reports which have emerged over the past couple of weeks have understandably focused on Real Club de Golf Sotogrande.
If the DP World Tour needed a Spanish contingency venue, it would be a very logical place to go.
The course has hosted the Andalucía Masters, has recent DP World Tour experience and already understands the demands of staging professional tournament golf.
But I think the conversation can be slightly wider than that.
Sotogrande doesn’t have just one championship-quality golf course. It has several. And while Real Club de Golf Sotogrande might be the name currently being discussed, La Reserva Club has many of the characteristics you would want from a venue capable of hosting an event of this size.
It has the championship layout, the scale, the setting; it has already hosted professional golf, and it has the space to accommodate the infrastructure that comes with a major tournament.
Of course, there would be logistical considerations. There always are when moving a tournament of this size, particularly one as important as the DP World Tour Championship, which is the season-ending event of the Race to Dubai and carries 12,000 Race to Dubai ranking points in the current schedule.
But that is precisely why La Reserva interests me.
This isn’t a course that would need to be imagined as a tournament venue. It already feels like one. And if the DP World Tour ever does need a Plan B for its season finale, Sotogrande would have two very credible options on its doorstep.
One is a proven host that has already been the subject of the recent reporting. The other, perhaps a little less obvious, is La Reserva.
Having seen the course and the wider development, I think it would be fascinating to see what the DP World Tour could do with it.
Related: Sotogrande’s celebrated trio remain firmly among Spain’s elite in new Top100GolfCourses ranking
Jack Lumb
Jack is the Editor of Golf Today and a member of both the Association of Golf Writers (AGW) and the Sports Journalists’ Association (SJA). He brings a wealth of experience from his decade-long journey as a competitive amateur golfer, including five years competing at the county level. His deep knowledge of the game seamlessly translates into his work in golf journalism, where he covers everything from tour events to in-depth course reviews and the latest updates in golfing news.