Details of our Golf Smarter adventure to Portugal with Tara Fox and Alan Tullis.
This is Golf Smarter together. They are travel made impressive t MII Golf and
been doing this for a number of years. And this is to talk about
the next Golf Smarter adventure and that is to Portugal. That's right, Alan,
if you done this trip already, yes, tell me about this trip.
This is based you know that we're based around Lisbon, and then move
on to Villa Mura, which is the golf capital of Portugal. Golf courses
are stunning. Most of them are very very mature Portuguese golf courses with umbrella
pines. Villemura is a golf destination is really not that well known because it's
not that old, right, No, I would think probably the Seventh Ace,
was it? The golf started to grow in the seven Ace in Portugal.
People from the UK trap when they built a lot of the courses.
Is that right? Yeah, And so let's talk about the golf courses we're
going to play. Now. There's five golf courses in Villemora. Yeah,
we've got scheduled for three of them. But if somebody wants to play all
five that can be worked out right, Oh, absolutely absolutely. Within the
area there is probably a lot more golf courses than just five outside Villa Mura.
If somebody wants to play that that can be arranged for them at play
something like that. Well, let's talk about how we're going to break this
up, because this is a couple's trip. We're inviting golfers to bring their
partners with them, whether they play golf or not, which I'm doing.
I'm going to be bringing my wife who doesn't play golf. What are the
activities that they get to do while we're playing golf? First, and we're
in Lisbon. When you guys arrive, we have a walking tour of Lisbon.
Lisbon's a very historical city, as most people know, and you know,
you can do a ton of things. Once we go down to Villemura.
When the golfers are on the course, I think your wife is going
to be taking the non golfers possibly as everything's optional. But we have a
boat trip arranged to see the Bengali caves and the coast of the al Ghar.
Alan can tell you more about the beauty of the Ylghar of the coastline
there. But you also have the option, depends on how busy your wife
wants to be, but they do have wine tasting, they do have walking
tours as well there, so if you're a non golfer, there's a ton
to do. Also, I'll let him talk about the port. You know,
Villamora itself is quite interesting, lovely lunch spots, very Portuguese. But
there's also beautiful beaches there, right, gorgeous. I mean you just go
hang out at the beach. We are going to be there in September where
the weather should be great. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, beaches are beautiful.
Most beaches have got beach bars on beach restaurants, so you can be
relaxed on the beach and move up to the bar for launch, have some
wine, some tapis. It's all there for you. Fish a lot of
fish, fresh fish. The food there, the Mediterranean food diet, I
mean, it's unbelievable. Everything is so fresh. You feel your body feels
better when you're over there. It's amazing. And it's the southern part of
the Atlantic part for Portugal, it's not far from the Mediterranean. No.
So the trip again is going to be September fifth through the thirteenth, twenty
twenty four. We're going to have a total of twelve people, so it's
me and my wife Joanne and five other couples who are going to be doing
this. Alan. Let's talk about each of the three golf courses that we
will we will be playing, so let's talk about those three. First,
Pinhall Pinhall. It was originally called Ville Mura number two when it was first
built. The courses were called Villa Mura one, two and three when they
first built the three courses, and this was Villa Mutter two. It's a
very tight kind of Portuguese courst with umbrella pines up and down each side of
the fairway, and there's a belief that there's ninety percent and air through these
trees, but I don't believe that because I've tried it a few times.
Doesn't work. It's like a screen door ninety but good luck. It's always
in very good condition. It's got beautiful barome terraces overlooking the driving range.
First tea and tenth t are not far away, so you can either start
back nine or front nine. And the greens are tight, gabrid small greens,
usually very fast. They're grainy, which means that like you know,
the greens will be running fast one way, slow the other way, So
people do find this a huge challengees golf course. Oh boy, do we
have a handicap qualification here? Do you have to have a certain handicap to
sign up for this trip? No, they as long as you've got a
handicap, they're normally quite comfortable letting you on. They don't ask for handicap
very often. Now, good, good to know. Yeah, all right,
so what about our second course? Second course would be Millennium Millennium which
was originally Villa Mura number three, which was split into two courses, one
called Laguna and one called Millennium, which was one course there is now it's
now two courses, which the Millennium comes from the year two thousand, so
of course is not super old millennium. But again nine nine holes are in
the Umbrella Pines which around a beautiful estate houses on the golf course. They're
not close to the course but you can actually see them through the trees and
it's again a very nice, nice set up. These courses are not super
long, they're like mainly go on the keep the ball in a fairway.
Of course course management you know, keep the ball in a fairly enjoy your
golf. It's a nice, nice area to play golf. We call that
golf smarter. And our third course that we're playing. Third course is classified
now is that was wille Murham one and it's now classified as the Old course.
It is a real challenges golf course. It's got a great reputation in
Portugal as well as the rest of the world of being a great golf course.
They've all they've held quite a few things there, like the Portuguese Opens,
been out there a few years back. To me, it's one of
the best golf courses to play, very very similar to the setup and maybe
you know, like maybe like a Walderama with the umbrella pines dog legs to
the left. You know, you've got to think of you know where you're
gonna hit your t shirt too. You love that course. Yeah, yeah,
We've played a lot of time and it beats you up every time.
Do we need to bring extra balls? Is that we're taking Definitely most of
the holes. That's hard to lose the ball because it doesn't go far.
Once you hit these trees, it brings you down to earth again, like
you know, your three hundred yard drives are gone. Have you ever had
other than those three rounds of golf. There's other activities we're going to be
doing in Villamora. Is like a boat ride, well, it's about right.
They have these incredible cave called the Bengali Caves. It's something that people
do there all the time. So they see the coast of Alghar, which
is gorgeous, just the pretty cliffs and cliffs and beaches that go on forever
all the way along that Algave coast. You know, there's just a lot
of walking and you know that we could do walking trips in that as well
around Algarth, just to see these places. Yeah, make sure you bring
your walking shoes because that's you know, the Europeans and especially the Portuguese are
You really don't drive anywhere, right, They have great lunch spots. You'll
be walking everywhere. It's just the lifestyle. The culture there is so fascinating
phenomenal Villemora is not a traditional Portuguese area, but there are activities, there
are things around there that are traditional Portuguese correct, Yes, yeah, back
off the marina. You have a lot of proper Portuguese essions. Even on
the Marina. There is some really good Portuguese ressions still which give you a
lot of choice on Portuguese food. They eat basically a lot of fish and
they do quite a bit of steak as well. Okay, all the food's
good that people eat there. You know. I had to trip down there
in September and they we're all great there here. Everybody enjoyed their time and
it's not overpriced. That's one thing about Portugal is not overpriced. You go
there, Villa Mura is probably the most expensive place in Portugal. It's nothing
compared to what prices were charged in America. Wow. Oh, that's really
good to know. So we're going to set a deadline here of July fifteenth
for people to sign up because again the trip is September fifth through the thirteenth.
Arrive on the fourth and the trip will start on the fifth, and
we'll do a couple days in Lisbon. We do an overnight in Lisbon,
so you'll do the walking tour when you arrive on the fifth, and then
the next day we're there for most of the day and then we head down
to Villamora. And tell me about how how we get to Villamora and how
long it takes, well, we have a bus for your trip, and
then how long does it take? On? Two hours and thirty minutes down.
And then the good thing is that on the way back we'll come back
to Lisbon via the bus, but we'll be staying at an hotel at the
airport, so that you can either get a late night flight or a first
thing in the morning flight and you don't have to really worry about hassling that
exactly. That was a great plan. Thank you for doing that. Everybody
likes to fly their different airlines and different points, and everybody leaves at different
times, so it's a lot easier just to be close to the airport so
you can pop on your plate. So this is going to be a lot
of fun. I really encourage every Golf Smart listener to check their calendar,
check their spouse, check a buddy if you know, like if you don't
have a spouse, you don't have a partner, but you want to invite
somebody, invite them and we'll all have friends at the end of the trip.
But bring your friends along as well. So one more time. It
is going to be September fifth through the thirteenth, twenty twenty four, we're
limiting the size of the group small group, and you need to sign up
by July fifteenth, twenty twenty four to get your space in. There's always
people who cancel at the last minute, so don't worry about thinking that you
didn't make it in. Just go ahead and sign up. And nobody is
confirmed until we get the full group size, so please sign up and we
can discuss more of it later. To get all the information, to download
the PDF to find out the pricing, and to make sure that you're going
to be part of this golf Smarter adventure, please go to tmi goolf dot
com slash golf Smarter. That's tmi goolf dot com slash golf Smarter and let's
play golf together in Orchugal,