El Paraiso

The grass may be green and as well-manicured as any I've seen this year, but it certainly doesn’t grow under the feet of the management at El Paraiso.

This is a club that's on the move, and don’t be surprised to see it enhance its position in Spain’s top 100.

More than three million euros have been spent on transforming the conditioning of the Gary Player-designed course.

Now the radical decision is being made to swap the outward and inward nine holes.

It has met with pushback from some of those who prefer the traditional layout but just one round convinced me that it is correct and exciting.

Players will now have one of the most visually pleasing final stretches in a region home to 70 clubs.

Mrs W and I were among the last to play the original routing and the truth was the second nine, although not bad by any means, had a sense of after the Lord Mayor’s show.

That is because the front nine was so good that she was asking why it wasn’t higher in the ratings.

The devil is in the detail at El Paraiso, emphasised by the flowers around the gorgeous fountain in front of the chaparral-style entrance to the pro shop, offices and locker room.

The first hole sets a pretty picture with a smart bridge over a creek which drives must clear from the tee.

Having avoided a fairway bunker off the tee, I lobbed a wedge over the trap in front of the green to ten feet from the pin.

El Paraiso is an easy walking course with only the steep hills of the second and 15th a test for old legs.

The former is a par-four which needs at least one extra club for an approach up a sharp false front to a green that has arguably the most pronounced borrows on the course.

The best run of holes is from the fifth to the ninth, which will be the 14th to the 18th on the revamped lay-out.

It begins with a par-three beyond a tree over a substantial bunker to a green that falls from left to right. I was mighty pleased to find the putting surface.

Careful course management combined with straight hitting had yielded opportunities during my first half but my putter was ice cold.

One missed chance came on the par-five dogleg sixth, El Paraiso’s signature hole that turns inside a lake to the right and a line of trees to the left before rising to a perched target.

This Amen Corner of holes continues with a gorgeous par-three with the water now on the right of a two-tier target that has a pronounced slope from the left. I was thrilled with a three.

The ninth will be a brilliant 18th in El Paraiso’s new set up. This stellar par-four has a forest on the left-hand side with trees and bunker on the right.

But the big shot is the approach to a green behind a reed-strewn stream that runs at a 45-degree angle in front and to the right of the green.

I nailed two shots that should have resulted in a very pleasing par but again my putting let me down.

The former tenth hole and new opener is on the opposite side of the clubhouse and is an uphill par-four, which demands a drive down the right to avoid the ball careering into the fence on the left of the fairway.

Fabulous properties line the next few holes, and the La Concha Mountain provides the backdrop from the tees.

The former 12th is a cracking par four whose fall from left to right is so pronounced that the drive of one of our hosts looked as though it might be hooking out of bounds into properties down the left.

Surprisingly, his ball took a bank down onto the fairway, he clipped his second shot into the green that has water to its right and knocked in a putt for birdie.

When we were driving to the club, we ascended the road adjacent to the 15th (new sixth) and remarked on the steepness of its fairway.

It transpires it is a par five with trees to the left and right with big bunkers also down the left and protecting the perched undulating green. I was very chuffed, if a tad breathless, after my par.

What goes up must come down, so the the 16th (seventh) goes the opposite direction and looks a relatively benign par five.

However, out-of-bounds on the left separates it from the handsome driving range and the fairway falls towards pesky trees on the right.

I avoided both but, in trying to reach the green in two, saw my ball fall into a well-placed bunker 70 yards short of the green and then hit out too cleanly into a trap at the rear of the target.

The final hole we played is the new ninth and has plenty going on with a lake and trees to the right off the tee and a creek before a heavily sloping green protected by bunkers.

It completed a cracking round in the superb company of two Brits who have been longstanding members.

We saw and heard enough to endorse the notion that El Paraiso is destined to rise up the rankings.