Quinta do Lago: Escape your winter blues at Portugal’s No.1 golf resort

Quinta do Lago South Course

Three world-class 18-hole golf courses, restaurants for every occasion, a stunning sports performance centre, and now a five-star hotel. Portugal’s globally-renowned gem, Quinta do Lago, is the perfect antidote for a dreary winter’s day. 

This is an advertising feature in association with Quinta do Lago.

There will be 154 days between the clocks going back in the dying days of October and the blissful spring forward again in late March. That’s 154 days of driving home in the dark, scraping ice from the windscreen, and losing white golf balls on frosted fairways. A whole 22 weeks until long evenings make their long-awaited return. I don’t want to alarm anyone, but we’re not even halfway there yet.

Let’s face it, you’ve earned a break. So brush the cobwebs off your clubs and head to the Algarve for a golfing getaway guaranteed to banish those winter blues.  

It seems that every few years an exceptional new venue sprouts up in Portugal, whether that’s along the sunny southern shore or on Lisbon’s Silver Coast. Quinta do Lago is by no means a new venue – it has worn this crown for more than half a century – but it feels every bit as modern and luxurious as any resort built this decade. 

In 2024, 52 years after opening its doors, it retained the title of ‘Europe’s Best Golf Resort’ at the World Golf Awards. No mean feat when you consider the stiff competition – from Ayrshire to Antalya – that it was facing. It’s among the best golf resorts in continental Europe in Golf World’s revered ranking.

There are three 18-hole courses at Quinta do Lago and you’ll want to experience them all so make sure to plan plenty of time at the resort. The first that comes to mind is often the South Course (pictured above), which is understandable given that it has just won ‘Portugal’s Best Golf Course’ for the fourth consecutive year at the aforementioned World Golf Awards and is among our pick of the best courses in Continental Europe.

The South turned 50 last year, but it was during the lockdown months of 2020 that this William Mitchell gem really hit new heights thanks to a €7 million upgrade. An eight-time host of the Portuguese Open – memorably won by 11 strokes by a certain Colin Montgomerie in 1989 – the layout was transformed from first tee to last green and climbed even further up continental rankings as a result.  

The South Course may be considered Quinta do Lago’s flagship course, and among our picks of the best courses in Portugal, but the other two layouts are far more than supporting characters. Like the South, the neighbouring North Course was formed from part of Mitchell’s original 27 holes that opened at the resort in 1974.

However, the modern North Course (below) also owes much to the two men who oversaw its own major overhaul in 2014: American architect Beau Welling (currently senior design consultant for Tiger Woods’ TGR Design) and European Ryder Cup hero Paul McGinley. Together, they laid down the blueprint for how the South Course would be elevated six years later. 

One of the big reasons why Quinta do Lago has commissioned two major course refurbishments over the last decade is the resort’s push towards sustainability, which has become essential for any golf venue serious about the future.

That commitment was underlined last summer when the destination was awarded the coveted GEO Foundation certification, the culmination of a three-year campaign to meet the foundation’s impeccably high standards. Looking around the resort’s setting in the Ria Formosa Natural Park, it’s easy to see why the team there are so eager to protect it.  

The third layout, and the youngest by some distance, sticks out for a few reasons. Instead of being named after its cardinal direction, the third course (below) was christened Laranjal when it opened in 2009, the brainchild of Portuguese architect Jorge Santana da Silva.

The moniker is derived from orange groves the route winds through (‘Laranjal’ means ‘orange grove’ in Portuguese), giving the air a unique fragrance that sets the course apart from any other you’ve played.

Like every course at Quinta do Lago, this one plays to a par of 72 and blends a wide variety of different types of holes in a way that feels effortless. You could easily ask three guests to name their favourite course at the resort and get three different answers, so the only way to choose the pick of the bunch is to play them yourself.  

Golf aside, everything you could ask for from a luxury getaway can be found somewhere in this 2,000-acre estate. More than a dozen bars and restaurants lie waiting to be explored and cater to all tastes, from fresh seafood and steak to tapas and wood-fired pizzas.

Leading names from all over the sporting world have also been drawn to Quinta do Lago in recent years by The Campus, a premium multi-sports facility open to athletes of all ability levels. With tennis and padel courts, a state-of-the-art gym, a swimming pool and cycling centre, it would be easier to name the disciplines you can’t train for here.

The resort also runs specialized fitness sessions for golfers, which are well worth your time whether you’re serious about taking your game to the next level or just fancy dipping your toe into the water.  

Accommodation at the resort has recently taken an exciting leap forward with the acquisition of Conrad Algarve, an opulent five-star hotel comprised of 154 suites, 80 apartments and two villas. 

What do you give a resort that already has everything? Conrad Algarve has answered that question by adding a Michelin-starred restaurant, Gusto by Heinz Beck, and a luxurious spa to boot. Not only do those new suites represent a huge boost to the resort’s house count (joining the existing Magnolia Hotel, a charming boutique with 74 rooms) but the apartments and villas are yet more additions to an already excellent real estate portfolio on offer. 

It’s not hard to see why many people have opted to buy homes here and make a permanent switch – so many people, in fact, that the currently available plots in the North Grove area of the resort are actually the last unused property development spaces on site.  

For more information, visit the Quinta do Lago website.  

About the Author

Alex Perry – News Editor

Alex has been in the golf industry since 2007 and has helped shape a number of publications in that time. He also spent several years at ESPN and joined Today’s Golfer in January 2025 to lead the brand’s news division.

He is a keen golfer playing off 12 and enjoys traveling the world to try new courses. His three favourite, though, are right here in the UK: Royal North Devon, the Old Course at St Andrews, and Royal Portrush – with special mentions for his home clubs, Okehampton and Bude & North Cornwall, where he first fell in love with the game.