Tenerife, renowned for its natural beauty and diverse attractions, captivates visitors with its blend of tourism, culture, and gastronomy. This captivating island offers an array of leisure and cultural options, making it a must-visit destination. From the majestic Mount Teide to exhilarating cetacean sightings, from historic wineries to enchanting towns like La Laguna, Tenerife promises a sensory delight for every traveller.
Tenerife boasts two exceptional courses, Golf Costa Adeje and Abama Golf, which will host the esteemed World Corporate Golf Challenge (WCGC) World Final and Sports Legends Cup. Let us explore the unique features of these courses and gain insights from Carlos Beautell– a former golf professional who is head of Tenerife Golf– on how to navigate their challenges.
Tenerife is known for its natural beauty and its many tourist, cultural and gastronomic attractions. What highlights would you recommend participants and guests visit during their stay on the island?
Tenerife is a destination that offers many leisure and cultural options to the travellers we receive. For me, there are certainly must-sees when you come to Tenerife.
The first is to visit Mount Teide, and if possible, climb the peak in the cable car that leaves you just 200 meters from the top. From there you can see at least 5 islands on a normal day; La Palma, El Hierro, La Gomera, Gran Canaria and Tenerife from above. It is a unique experience with a unique landscape.
The second would be to make a sighting of cetaceans. Between the island of Tenerife and La Gomera, there is one of the only 3 cetacean sanctuaries in the world. where whales live and can be spotted throughout the year. You can also see a great diversity of dolphins during this experience that takes place in the west of the island, near the most tourist area.
The third is to visit one of the many wineries on the island where wine is part of history and where it is estimated that the first strain was planted in the year 1,497. The vast majority of wineries offer wine tastings to visitors that can be accompanied by goat cheeses typical of the island or a dinner with local products such as wrinkled potatoes and Canarian mojo.
Finally, I recommend a cultural visit to historic cities or towns such as La Laguna (Unesco heritage), La Orotava, or the town of Garachico, one of the most beautiful villages in Spain. Strolling through its streets is a real pleasure for the senses.
For the more adventurous, the island also offers many alternatives for active and risky sports such as paragliding, diving, cycling or surfing, windsurfing and kitesurfing.
Are there specific golf-related activities that can be enjoyed off the courses?
Directly related to golf, you can do activities such as buying golf equipment at cheaper prices due to the low taxes applied in the Canary Islands or arranging golf lessons in some of the golf schools offered by several of the island’s courses.
WCGC, a high-profile golf event for Tenerife
What is the impact that an international corporate golf event like WCGC can have on Tenerife in terms of tourism, promotion of the island and economic development?
One of our promotional strategies is to hold large events on the island that have an impact abroad, as they generate a triple impact. On the one hand a good number of visitors experience and enjoy the island in situ during the event, and there is also a promotion through media that reaches a large number of people abroad. To this, we must add the third benefit, the direct economic impact for many tourism providers on the island during the event. In the case of WCGC, the impact is triple and we can reach hundreds of thousands of people worldwide.
How is the WCGC World Final expected to benefit the local community and foster the growth of golf on an island like Tenerife?
As I mentioned before, there are several local suppliers such as hotels, golf courses, logistics companies, catering, etc., that benefit directly from being part of the organization of the event. This is very important to us.
The rest of the suppliers, especially the golf courses, benefit indirectly through the promotion as a destination. There will be hundreds of thousands of people who see Tenerife on their screens and will come to the island to enjoy the entire destination and all its golf courses.
To this, we must add the strategy that we started a few years ago to diversify markets and reach new markets that today are not very relevant on the island. An event like the WCGC helps us reach new strategic golf markets for Tenerife.
Golf Costa Adeje and Abama, two world-class courses
Could you describe the main features of the golf courses in Tenerife that will be used during the World Final and Sports Legends Cup, Golf Costa Adeje and Abama Golf?
Without a doubt, both are extraordinary and world-class courses to host an event like the WCGC and the Sports Legends.
Golf Costa Adeje is a technical course with firm and small greens of Bermuda grass that requires great precision, ball and distance domination. It is not an excessively long course, but the rough paspalum grass can make more than one player have a hard time playing the ball from the high grass. At the landscape level, it is a spectacular course, overlooking the ocean and the island of La Gomera and with thousands of palm trees that make the environment unbeatable for golf. Hole 4 is the emblematic hole where all the players take “the picture”.
Abama golf is another of the jewels of Tenerife. A course longer than Golf Costa Adeje and with agrostis greens that demand a clear strategy in each stroke and each hole. The streets are generally wide, quite undulating and grassy in Bermuda. There are holes in the first round overlooking the ocean and the island of La Gomera that impress. The 10th hole is perhaps the emblematic hole of this course overlooking the Hotel, the ocean and the impressive island of La Gomera.
Golf Costa Adeje also celebrates its 25th anniversary and has hosted the European Tour, what makes this course so special and how has it been prepared to welcome players?
Golf Costa Adeje is undoubtedly a benchmark of golf on the island since it was designed by Pepe Gancedo in 1998. During these 25 years, it has hosted numerous world-class events, including several men’s and women’s European Tour events. The last occasion was in 2021, the year in which it hosted the Tenerife Open and the Canary Islands Open of the Men’s European Tour.
The field is designed to integrate the old banana terraces that were on the original farm, which makes it a very peculiar and different field. The level of play stands out for having 6 par 3s, 6 par 4s and 6 par 5s in its 18-hole course the Championship Course. It is a technical field that demands precision in the exits, especially in the shots to green to greens always in perfect condition, firm, small and fast. It’s a big challenge for any level of player.
As a former golf professional, what advice would you give to competitors to face a course of your characteristics?
It is certainly important to always be on the fairway, even sacrificing distance if necessary, since the course is not too long, and the paspalum rough can be quite complicated to manage if the player is not used to it. In addition, as I said before, the greens are small and firm, so being on the fairway helps the player better control the distance and generate a greater effect on the ball.
