About Golf Pedreña

I’m a guest at Golf Real de Pedrena, where it all began for Severiano Ballesteros. Not that he was allowed to play there as a youngster. The course was reserved for the elite. Boys like Seve were allowed to caddy for a few meager pesetas.
This is a very posh club, which begins when the gates open and you drive down the driveway to the clubhouse. A course dating back to 1929. It was at the instigation of Jacobo Fitz-James Stuart, Duke of Alba, and King Alfonso XIII, who was spending his summers in Santander at the time, that the course was built. Jacobo Fitz-James Stuart, one of the most important aristocrats of his time, resided in the highest circles of European nobility. He was an avid polo player, winning silver with the Spanish polo team at the Antwerp Olympics. More stories in the book ‘Adventures of a Golfnomad’