Tenerife in winter: when golf feels like golf again

There comes a point in a British winter when playing golf begins to feel less like a sport and more like a test of character.

Waterproofs. Temporary greens. Mud on the trolley wheels. A drive that plugs rather than runs.

I enjoy golf in this country enormously, but by February I think most golfers can understand the appeal of stepping off an aircraft, feeling some warmth on your face and remembering that golf can actually be played in a polo shirt.

That is one of the reasons Tenerife makes so much sense as a golf destination.

Winter is where Tenerife really earns its reputation

Tenerife is not simply a summer holiday island that happens to have golf courses.

Golf is a serious part of its tourism offer.

The island's official tourism organisation gives an average annual temperature of around 23°C and almost 300 days of sunshine each year. It specifically identifies the south of the island as particularly well suited to winter golf because rainfall is lower and temperatures remain mild.

For a British golfer, that matters.

February at home can mean wondering whether the course will be open.

February in Tenerife can mean wondering whether you have put enough sun cream on.

I know which question I would rather answer.

The landscape makes the golf different

What interests me about Tenerife is not simply the weather.

It is the contrast.

The Atlantic is on one side of you, volcanic terrain is beneath your feet and Mount Teide seems to appear in the background whenever it feels like reminding you where you are.

That gives the golf a very distinct sense of place.

Tenerife's courses include designs associated with names such as Severiano Ballesteros, Donald Steel and Dave Thomas, and several make deliberate use of the island's unusual volcanic landscape. Black-sand bunkers, ravines, ocean views and native vegetation make the experience quite different from the parkland golf most of us play at home.

At Amarilla Golf, for example, Donald Steel created a course beside the Atlantic where the fifth hole famously asks you to play across the water, with views towards Teide. Golf Costa Adeje, designed by Pepe Gancedo, was laid out around the old agricultural terraces that descend towards the sea.

Even if those particular courses are not on your itinerary, they tell you something about golf on the island.

It is difficult for it to feel ordinary.

Sunshine does not automatically make golf easy

This is where a coaching trip becomes interesting.

Put a golfer somewhere warm and beautiful and there is a temptation to assume everything will suddenly work.

Unfortunately, the golf ball has not read the brochure.

Different grasses, unfamiliar greens, changes in elevation, wind from the Atlantic and courses you have never seen before all create new decisions.

And I actually like that.

A new golf course reveals things about your game that your home course sometimes hides.

Perhaps you automatically reach for driver on every par four at home because you have played the hole 200 times.

Put yourself on an unfamiliar tee with a ravine, a bunker and a crosswind in front of you and suddenly you have to think.

Where is the safest side?

What club leaves the best next shot?

Is the flag actually relevant from here?

Should we be trying to make par or simply making sure double bogey never enters the conversation?

That is golf coaching in the real world.

You can improve without spending the holiday on the range

I am always conscious of the word "coaching" when describing these trips.

Some golfers hear it and imagine lessons from breakfast until dinner.

That is not what I want.

A hosted golf holiday should still feel like a holiday.

If I notice something that can help you, we will look at it.

If your short game is costing you shots, we can work on it.

If your swing is perfectly functional but your decisions are making life unnecessarily difficult, I would much rather help you with that than dismantle a movement that already works.

Quite often the most valuable conversation happens walking from one shot to the next.

You have just made a six from a position where five was available.

Why?

That is the interesting bit.

The other 18 hours of the day matter too

Another reason Tenerife works is that the destination does not stop being enjoyable when the clubs go back into the bag.

The island has an established selection of four and five-star hotels and a tourism infrastructure that has been built around visitors who want considerably more than a round of golf.

That matters when I think about a hosted trip.

You might spend four or five hours on the course, but there are still plenty of hours left in the day.

A good golf holiday needs somewhere you are happy to return to afterwards.

Somewhere to sit outside.

Somewhere to have dinner.

Somewhere to discuss why your playing partner's ball somehow stayed out of the ravine while yours found the only impossible lie on the island.

Those conversations are part of the holiday too.

Why February appeals to me

There is also something psychologically pleasing about getting away to play golf when winter at home still has a firm grip.

You return with some golf behind you, perhaps with one or two things working better than before, and with the new season beginning to appear on the horizon.

That seems a much better way of approaching spring than spending February staring through the clubhouse window at horizontal rain.

Our 2027 programme takes us to Tenerife in February.

The objective will be exactly what I want from all these trips.

Good golf.

Useful coaching.

Warm weather.

A relaxed group of people.

And the chance to enjoy playing the game somewhere completely different.

Sometimes the best way to rediscover your golf is simply to take it somewhere the sun is shining.

Interested in Tenerife 2027?

Register your interest in Simon's hosted Tenerife golf trip and we will send you the full details as they become available.