The Best Golf Courses in Western Algarve

The Western Algarve is where Portuguese golf began to earn its reputation — a stretch of umbrella pines, fig and olive groves and quiet Atlantic light, where the fairways feel woven into the land rather than laid over it. This is the older, gentler face of the Algarve: harbour towns like Lagos and Carvoeiro, the working elegance of Portimão, and courses with real lineage rather than gloss.

For the discerning golfer it offers something increasingly rare — mature, considered design in an unhurried setting. The names here carry weight, none more so than Penina, the course Sir Henry Cotton shaped from a flat rice field into one of the Iberian Peninsula’s enduring classics. Here is how we would frame the standout courses into a trip made entirely around you.

No guide to Western Algarve golf can begin anywhere but the Penina Golf Course at Penina Hotel & Golf Resort, just outside Portimão. Designed by the three-time Open Champion Sir Henry Cotton, it was the first true championship course in the Algarve, and it remains the region’s grand old gentleman — broad, tree-lined fairways framed by thousands of mature trees Cotton planted himself, with water in play and greens that ask for thought rather than brute force.

This is a course that rewards the strategist: position over power, shape over swagger. Golfers who love a layout with history in its bones — somewhere that has tested professionals for decades yet welcomes the club player — will feel immediately at home. Staying at the Penina Hotel & Golf Resort means the first tee is a short stroll from your room, which makes it the natural centrepiece of any Western Algarve itinerary we craft.

For contrast, Morgado Golf & Country Club, also set in the hinterland above Portimão, offers a more contemporary test — open, generous off the tee but demanding on approach, with subtle movement that suits golfers who like to see the whole hole in front of them. It pairs beautifully with Penina across a few days, giving a stay genuine range: the classic and the modern within a single base.

A little further along, Amendoeira Golf Resort at Alcantarilha brings yet another character to the table, ideal for guests who want choice and a resort rhythm to their golf. Built into a single tailor-made trip, these courses let us vary the test day by day — the historic, the strategic and the open — so the golf never repeats itself and the week builds rather than blurs.

The right base shapes the whole trip. For golfers who want to live on the course, the Penina Hotel & Golf Resort is unmatched in the west — a grand resort with the fairways at the door. If you prefer the romance of the coast, Tivoli Carvoeiro sits above one of the Algarve’s prettiest clifftop towns, while Palmares Beach House Hotel near Lagos and The Magnolia Hotel offer a more boutique, design-led feel with the golf a comfortable transfer away.

Many of our guests like to drift eastward across a longer stay, and the Western Algarve sits naturally alongside the golf-rich Vilamoura and Vale do Lobo corridor — the Hyatt Regency Vilamoura Algarve, Dom Pedro Marina Boutique Hotel & Golf, Crowne Plaza Vilamoura, Vila Gale Ampalius, Dona Filipa Hotel and Amendoeira Golf Resort among them. We mix and match these so the geography of your week makes sense, not just the golf.

Everything here is assembled around you — tee times paced to your rhythm, transfers arranged so no morning starts in a rush, and a base chosen to match whether you want resort comfort at Penina or the harbour-town character of Carvoeiro and Lagos. A typical week threads Penina’s history with Morgado’s openness and the variety of Amendoeira, with a rest day for the coast or the old town between rounds.

Trips start from £239pp, but the value lies in the curation: the right courses in the right order, the right hotel for the way you travel, and a specialist who knows the Western Algarve well enough to make it feel effortless. Tell us how you like to play, and we will build the rest.