156 - Dom Pedro (Victoria)

Location: Vilamoura, Portugal

Rating: 7.8

The Victoria course was our first stop of a 3 day stretch of playing all the Dom Pedro courses. My first impressions were very good! The entrance to the course is a lovely walkway between the restaurant and pro shop and we had a spectacular view as the sun rose over the dew covered grass.

The course itself I felt could offer more in terms of the design. Many of the holes on the front 9 blurred into one with relatively straight par 4’s/5’s without any really defining features and almost no water from memory. You could pretty much get up on the tee box and hit a driver without too much consideration of where you’re aiming.

The back 9 offers a little more with the introduction of water hazards and some cool features. 14 was a pretty memorable hole. You have two choices on your drive, go for broke over water on the right and have a short chip on the green or drive up left and leave yourself an approach over water. I went left and lost two balls coming back over the water.

It is quite a long course at over 6,000 meters off the yellow tees so despite the front 9 not being too challenging width wise you still have to hit good pretty good, long shots to score well.

The condition of the fairways, greens and bunkers was very good! They definitely put a lot of attention into that. The run off areas however were quite badly maintained, you’d expect the things like the rough and waste areas to be looked after if you’re paying €200+ for a round.

As with all the Dom Pedro courses, the practice facilities are very good. Lovely driving ranges with areas to hit off the grass and good chipping/putting greens.

Overall it is a nice course, I wasn’t amazed by it and I certainly wouldn’t pay that price but things might be changing!