El Chaparral Golf Club, Mijas – A Demanding Course That Goes Too Far

Gunnar Kobin
Jan 24
4 min read

Updated: Mar 23

El Chaparral Golf: What Is Considered Overly Challenging?

El Chaparral Golf Club, located between Fuengirola and La Cala de Mijas, is often considered a modern, strategic layout on the Costa del Sol designed by Pepe Gancedo. The goal here is accuracy, and, for my purposes, I think it is unreasonable to expect this of players. I am willing to say this is one of the relatively few courses on the Costa del Sol that I will never play again.

It starts Wrong from Hole One

Right from the first tee, you can tell the design is unwarranted. The first hole of the course plays uphill into a far, extremely narrow, fairway, setting a tone for the course that will never ease.

Fairways throughout the course are unreasonably narrow to the point of feeling artificial. The course design feels like difficulty has been forced rather than earned. Even on the first few holes, the feeling of being boxed in is overwhelming.

And it gets worse from here.

Power lines on a par 3? The second hole, a par 3, is downright odd. The design forces you to play your shot under power lines. Hit the power lines and you will be forced to play again with a net ball, regardless of where the original ball ends up.

This is one of the oddest design choices I have come across on a serious golf course.

Immediate aggressive cutting is a must in the case of a 3rd par 5 hole on the course. If you don't, you make getting a 3 stroke on the hole become close to impossible. There is a lot of strategic thinking in golf, but calling for a cut like that is not a favorable thing.

Then The Inconsistency Shows Up

If you are one of the long hitters, the 5th hole (par 4) is a short drive away from the green.

However, you can also get to the 6th hole (par 5) in 2 shots if the tee shot is good.

Here the absence of consistency in the challenge or the philosophy of the course is evident, especially in comparison to the severity of the rest of the course.

The 8th hole is a sharply declining dogleg, which is narrow. Finally a hole that requires a real plan to get through. Here you need to think your way through instead of just waiting it through.

Punishment golf returns on the 10th hole. Here we have a long, narrow downhill par 3 from an elevated tee like 10. If you are not careful, there big penalties waiting just off the fairway on your golf shots.

The 11th hole is Just wrong

Then the 11th is quite plainly, ridiculous.

You have to play through a snake like hole.

It offers no sense of freedom, and precision is vital because there is no margin for error. Even good shots in the narrow lot feel trapped.

It is not the right sort of scary. It is simply bad and not enjoyable.

Emphasis on the word `demanding` is repeated for every hole as a favorite synopsis for the course. Here demand is paired with a lack of creativity as the water hazard stands before the the player on the approach shot with nothing to clear the hazard but the player’s own creativity. The approach must add at least three strokes to the play. Add at least three to finish the course. Ending on the 18th brings no mental grace as the course ends with another demand that hardly allows creativity. The final hole does not offer a `peach` as the player is confined to an expected final stroke on a narrow design with the `peach` representing a lack of creativity. The trail of mud and a lack of enjoyment is the epitome of El Chaparral's flaws. They become all the more apparent as the icing course coating of demand descends especially when it has not rained and the course has not caked with mud; but when it has rained, demand and a lack of enjoyment is the synonym used for El Chaparral above all things.

Why I Won't Go Back

At El Chaparral, you must be 100% perfect on each shot you take, and this is unreasonable from a golfing perspective. A golf course should give you the opportunity to score well and have fun. El Chaparral takes this opportunity away from you. Instead, you have many forced shots, narrow hallways, and narrow corridors that take away the enjoyment from the round.

There are many other great golfing courses on the Costa Del Sol, El Chaparral is just not one of them. I have played El Chaparral and felt you were just getting punished and not playing a sport as you would in other places.

So, I won't be coming back.