Golf

Los Cabos has become the golf capital of Mexico, and though most courses are along the Corridor, people look to Cabo San Lucas for information about this sport in Baja Sur. The master plan for Los Cabos golf calls for a future total of 207 holes. Fees listed below are for 18 holes, including golf cart, water, club service, and tax. Summer rates are about 25% lower, and many hotels offer golf packages.

Several specialty tour operators offer golf packages to Los Cabos, which include accommodations, greens fees, and other amenities. These include Golf Adventures (tel. 800/841-6570 from the U.S.; www.golfadventures.com) and Sportours (tel. 888/465-3639 from the U.S.; www.sportours.com).

The 27-hole course at the Palmilla Golf Club (tel. 800/386-2465 in the U.S., or 624/144-5250; www.oneandonlyresorts.com; daily 7am-7pm) was the first Jack Nicklaus Signature layout in Mexico, on 360 hectares (900 acres) of dramatic oceanfront desert. The course offers your choice of two back-9 options, with high-season greens fees of $255 (lower after 1pm), and low-season greens fees running between $190 and $210. Guests at some hotels pay discounted rates.

Just a few kilometers away is another Jack Nicklaus Signature course, the 18-hole Ocean Course at Cabo del Sol, the posh resort development in the Corridor (tel. 866/231-4677 in the U.S:, or 624/145-8200; www.cabodelsol.com). The 7,100-yard Ocean Course is known for its challenging 3 finishing holes and greens fees start at $250 in the low season and range to $350 for the high season. Tom Weiskopf designed the new 18-hole Desert Course, for which greens fees are $220 in the high season, $185 in the low season. Desert Course twilight play ranges from $140 to $165 in low and high seasons, respectively.

The 18-hole, 6,945-yard course at Cabo Real, by the Meliá Cabo Real Hotel in the Corridor (tel. 877/795-8727 in the U.S., or 624/173-9400; www.caboreal.com; daily 6:30am-6pm), was designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr., and features holes that sit high on mesas overlooking the Sea of Cortez. Fees run $260 for 18 holes. After 3pm, rates drop to $132 in the low season and $480 in the high season. Kids 16 and under play for $92 year round.

An 18-hole course designed by Roy Dye is at the Raven Club, formerly the Cabo San Lucas Country Club (tel. 888/328-8501 in the U.S., or 624/143-4653; fax 624/143-5809). The entire Dye-designed course overlooks the juncture of the Pacific Ocean and Sea of Cortez, including the famous rocks of Land's End. It includes a 607-yard, par-5 7th hole. High-season greens fees are $186 for 18 holes, $149 for the noon rate, and $105 after 2:30pm. In the summer months, greens fees drop to $109 for 18 holes and to $79 after 10:30am.

The lowest greens fees in the area are at the public 9-hole Mayan Palace Golf Los Cabos (tel. 624/142-0900 or 624/142-0901) in San José del Cabo (see earlier in this chapter). Early-morning greens fees are just $69 for 9 holes, and $99 for 18 holes with equipment, from 6am to 2pm; rates drop to $80 for 18 holes after 3pm. All greens fees include use of cart.

The consensus among avid golfers is that two of the area's best courses are the Fazio-designed Querencia and the soon-to-be reopened El Dorado, a Jack Nicklaus design. However, both courses are private and open only to Querencia and El Dorado members and homeowners. As Los Cabos becomes increasingly exclusive, and as more luxury travelers look to own a piece of it, expect to see more private members-only golf clubs within opulent master-planned residential communities. In fact, the trend already is well under way within the new communities of Chileno Bay, Puerto Los Cabos, Cabo Pacífica, and El Dorado.

The Lowdown on Golf in Cabo -- Los Cabos, one of the world's finest golf destinations, offers an ample and intriguing variety of courses to challenge golfers of all levels.

The reason so many choose to play here is not just the selection, quality, and beauty of the courses, but the reliable weather. The courses highlighted below compare to the great ones in Palm Springs and Scottsdale, with the added beauty of ocean views and a wider variety of desert cacti and flowering plants.

Course fees are high in Cabo -- generally more than $200 per round. But these are world-class courses, worth the world-class price. Courses generally offer 20% to 30% off rates if you play after 2 or 2:30pm. This can be a great time because play is generally faster.

The golf offerings in Los Cabos will only continue to expand; an untold number of courses are in various phases of construction. At Puerto Los Cabos, a new mega-development northeast of San José del Cabo, construction has started on two 18-hole courses, the public course designed by Jack Nicklaus and a private course by Greg Norman. The East Cape's Hotel Palmas de Cortez opened a 9-hole par-3 course last year. Club Campestre, in the heart of San José, will have an 18-hole Jack Nicklaus course. The Chileno Bay Project, in the center of the Corridor, has set aside 2 1/2 miles of coastline for luxury-home sites and two championship courses by Tom Fazio. At the other end of the peninsula, near Cabo San Lucas on the Pacific side, the Cabo Pacifica development will soon be launching two more championship courses.

The area's premier open-to-the-public courses are listed below in order of location, from north to south.

Palmilla Golf Club -- The original Cabo course is now a 27-hole layout. The original 18 holes are known as the Arroyo; the new holes are the Ocean 9. It's a bit of a misnomer -- although the newer holes lie closer to the water, only one has a true ocean view, with spectacular play directly down to the beach. You must play the Arroyo for your first 9 holes and then choose between Mountain and Ocean for your back 9. If you play this course only once, choose the Mountain, which offers better ocean views. The signature hole is the Mountain 5; you hit over a canyon, and then down to the green below over a forced carry. The 14th hole here is considered one of the world's most beautiful golf holes, a forced carry from the hillside tee boxes to an island. From there, players line up on a green set on the side of a steep arroyo. The hole opens up to spectacular vistas and seems a lot longer than it plays. This is target golf, on a Jack Nicklaus course that was constructed with strategy in mind. A mountaintop clubhouse provides spectacular views. Although it is currently a semiprivate club, most Corridor hotels have membership benefits.

Cabo Del Sol -- The Ocean Course at Cabo de Sol was the second Jack Nicklaus course constructed in Los Cabos. It is much more difficult than the Palmilla course, with less room for error.

Don't be fooled by the wide, welcoming 1st hole. This is challenging target golf, with numerous forced carries -- even from the red tees. Seven holes are along the water. At the par-3 signature 17th hole, the golfer is faced with a 178-yard shot over sandy beach and rocky outcroppings to a tiny green framed by bunkers on one side and a drop to the ocean on the other. The finishing hole, guarded by desert and cactus on the right and rock cliffs leading to the sea on the left, is modeled after the 18th at Pebble Beach.

Cabo del Sol offers another option, the Desert Course, which is Tom Weiskopf's first course design in Mexico. It is spread out over 56 hectares (140 acres) of gently rolling desert terrain and provides sweeping ocean views.

Cabo Real -- This Robert Trent Jones, Jr., design is known for its holes along the Sea of Cortez; exceptional among these is the frequently photographed 12th hole, which sits high on a mesa facing the sea. Jones designed the course to test low handicappers, but multiple tees make it enjoyable for average players as well. While the first 6 holes are in mountainous terrain, others skirt the shore. Rolling greens and strategically placed bunkers on narrow terrain work their way up to the 6th tee, 138m (460 ft.) above sea level. The most celebrated hole, the 15th, sits right on the beach between the Meliá Cabo Real Golf & Beach Resort and Las Ventanas al Paraíso.