The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Why Quinta do Lago is ahead of the game
Triangle, near Faro. Padel may not have broken through over here, but from its birthplace in Mexico it has won many aficionados in the Hispanic world and even has its own pro tour, started in 2005. Moriarty has high hopes for it in his ambitious plan to reposition Quinta do Lago as more than a golf resort.
Half a century will soon have passed since a Brazilian property developer bought the 550-hectare estate and made a Shangri-La for the rich, with rolling fairways, lakes, aspirational garden villas and a footbridge to golden dunes and the ocean blue. “In the beginning this was the ideal place for wealthy people who loved golf to retire to,” says Moriarty. “Now their children and grandchildren want more things to do.”
What he likes about padel is how accessible it is. “An overweight and underskilled guy like me can take on athletic tennis players and beat them by being a bit canny,” he says. Padel is a doubles game that requires neither advanced fitness nor mastery of the great stumbling block in tennis, the overarm serve.
Spread across a hillside overlooking the sea, Quinta do Lago is a place of many roundabouts and no obvious centre. As a social hub, Koko Lane Café at the golf club’s practice ground now faces competition from The Campus, a multi-sports activity centre in the making, with padel and tennis courts – clay and acrylic – a restaurant, a cycling station and, at a cost of €1 million (£895,860), a training pitch designed to attract top football teams to Quinta do Lago during the summer mer preseason and Europe’s midwinter break. With a junior racquet academy, a football school and a gym m equipped with everything ng the elite athlete needs for warm weather training ng and rehabilitation from injury, ry, Quinta do Lago will have it all.
It comes as no surprise e to learn that Quinta wants a piece of the cycling boom. “The Algarve is perfect erfect for cycling,” says paracyclist t Mark Rohan, a double Paralympic gold d medallist in 2012 who moved to the area to be a fruit farmer, but now finds nds himself in charge of The Bike Shed, d, as the two-wheeled component nt of The Campus is known.
Procurement is his first st task. Once the fleet of mountain bikes, kes, e-bikes and racer-ready road bikes kes is in place, he will turn his attention tention to mapping trails and building ding a team of guides for group rides s and personal training.
The Volta ao Algarve road race brings Froome and all the he top professional teams to the e area in February. There is serious us hill climbing to be done in the he Monchique range, as well as gentler discovery tours of Algarve villages and nature rambles along the Ria Formosa, a tidal inlet that lies between Quinta do Lago and the beach. The logic of diversification is easy enough to understand. But does it imply a move away from golf? Will Quinta do Lago’s fairways be torn up and sold off at €1,000 per square foot for the construction of more villas and bike trails for enthusiasts in Lycra? Is padel – dumbed-down tennis, if you like – an example golf should follow? On a warm, autumn morning, the scene at the golf club seems familiar enough: golfers hunched over their putts on the practice green and shaving the grass with furious practice swings; buggies stacked up behind the first tee. The South Course is as popular as ever, with its risk and reward lake holes on the back nine. The North is playing nicely now, after an expensive redesign to make it more forgiving off the tee, more interesting around the greens, and fairer. At Quinta do Lago’s third course, Laranjal, which lies offproperty among undeveloped farmland, a stableford competition is oversubscribed. “We’ve done well because of problems in other places,” says Brian Evans, director of golf. Turkey and Egypt are not so tempting, and this hurricane season hasn’t been the best promotion for trips to the Caribbean. In the quest to match us up to the right set of clubs, the Paul McGinley teaching academy has every analytical tool going; and a secluded short-game practice area that can be reserved for VIPs. Rory McIlroy chose Quinta do Lago during his lay-off before the US PGA, and Matt Fitzpatrick dropped in for a few days’ practice after his win in Switzerland in September. The academy’s director Jose Ferreira is worried about the spate of career-threatening injuries, but not about golf itself. “Golf is difficult, but that’s why we love it,” he says. “I don’t believe in changing the game to make it easier. We just need to make it more fun, with a more relaxed ambience. We must be creative, but respecting golf ’s traditions.”
One project is to make a pitch and putt course where the old tennis courts used to be. “Juniors who aren’t ready for the full-length game don’t want to spend all their time on the practice ground,” he says; they want to compete and score.
“Six at Six” is another idea on Ferreira’s agenda. “After the beach and before going out for the evening, play the best six holes at Quinta – 10, 11 and 15 to 18 on the South course – in an hour. The course is empty then, so why not?”
With so much going on, it’s easy to overlook the natural beauty of Quinta do Lago’s setting on the Ria Formosa.
After a padel lesson, a round of golf and a swim in the Atlantic, I borrow one of Rohan’s bikes and a pair of binoculars and set off along the rough track that follows the muddy inlet, not dawdling as it takes me alongside the fairways of a neighbouring golf course, in the firing line of a sliced drive.
Once that danger is past, the track follows embankments between reed beds, salt pans, mudflats and shallow pools full of fish: a wetland paradise that stretches all the way to Faro airport.
There is so much wildlife to watch, I soon cease to notice the roar of low-flying jets. Flamingoes, storks and kingfishers I can identify. But when it comes to the army of assorted stints and sandpipers I am out of my depth. What I need is binoculars with connectivity and a visual recognition app that tells me what I’m looking at. If sunglasses can receive emails, surely this isn’t too much to ask?