Mallorca

Mallorca has twenty-four courses and twenty-one of them take visitors, on an island you can cross in ninety minutes. Three of them sit together in the hills above Palma — Son Muntaner, Son Vida and Son Quint — which means a different course each morning and a proper city by evening.

The variety is the reason to come. Alcanada, up at Port d'Alcúdia, is the only course on the island actually on the coast: a Robert Trent Jones layout looking across the bay to the Tramuntana mountains, with a lighthouse on its own small island in the middle of the view. Son Gual, east of the airport, is the championship test and the one low handicappers ask for by name. Inland and in the east the courses climb into the hills and the golf changes character completely.

This is the Spanish destination that works when the group is not all golfers. Palma has a cathedral, a harbour and places to eat that are not a hotel buffet, and the courses sit close enough that a morning round does not cost the rest of the day. It is also the one that suits a long weekend rather than a full week — the flights are frequent, and three rounds in four days is a real trip here in a way it is not on the mainland.

It plays all year, at its best from March to May and September to November, and stays mild through the winter at 15–18 °C. The honest part is price: green fees on Mallorca sit above the Costa Blanca and roughly level with the better Costa del Sol courses, and July and August are both hot and busy. If the budget is the first constraint, the mainland gives you more rounds for the money. If the trip has to work for more than the golfers, this is the one.