As I’ve mentioned in previous threads, I’ve been lucky enough to spend the last four months living in Argentina, hanging out with my wife’s family (she was born here). I’ve played and/or will play several of Argentina’s top courses on this trip and previous ones, and hope to do some subsequent photo tours, but this post is about the place where I’ve played most of my golf.
The course/club is the Golf Club Estudiantes de La Plata, which has three nines – Blanca (White, about 3100 yards), Amarilla (Yellow, about 3000 yards), and Colorada (Red, about 3300). It’s part of the larger Club de Estudiantes de La Plata, which is a club affiliated with one of the better soccer teams in Argentina; like a lot of teams down here, Estudiantes has an entire sporting facility/club associated with it. The course is only six minutes from my house, and I can easily get in 18 holes while my older kids are in school in the afternoon (a lot of elementary schools have 2 separate schedules, one in the morning, one in the afternoon), so I end up playing here 2-3 times/week. It’s also a great bargain: it costs me just 30 Argentine pesos (less than 9 dollars) to play! And although they keep maintenance to a bare minimum, the greens are usually good (and sometimes really good, though see below) and the rest of the course is perfectly acceptable – though they certainly haven’t captured the right maintenance meld (they have very hard fairways that get soft near the greens, which themselves are pretty soft). The weather has also been amazingly nice.
As for the architecture, unfortunately none of the nines is very good. The site (like most of this part of Argentina) is *very* flat, though it does have 2 streams running through it that, IMHO, they could have done a lot more with. Worse, the facility is schizophrenic. The original 18 holes have flat, tree-lined fairways together with very flat round/oval greens that aren’t particularly raised (and that are bermuda or something like bermuda). In contrast, the more recently constructed 9 holes – which got mixed into the preexisting nines -- have fairways lined with mounds and raised greens with significant contours (and are bent or something like it). Whoever designed the new holes certainly didn’t care about being consistent, and it can be pretty jarring to transition from one style to the other. The newer holes also are all pretty squeezed in, with a number of internal OB spots; one hole in the middle of the course actually has OB stakes on both sides, dividing it from the two holes on either side of it.
So if the architecture isn’t good, why the post and the pics? Primarily, I thought people would enjoy seeing a course that they’ll likely never play – indeed, I think there’s a good chance that no one else on GCA has ever played here. A few of the holes are also pretty well done, and the designer also did a good job of framing greens with trees located behind the green, which hopefully some of the pics will show.
Enjoy!
The White Nine (all distances approx. from tips; description precedes pictures)
1 (385): Dogleg right off the tee, can bounce it on the green from the left; one of my favorite holes out here.
2 (425): Straight par 4
3 (175) Flat green very similar to 2
4 (510) Straight par 5 with newer green complex
5 (270) Dogleg right par 4 with newer green complex; decent risk-reward if you can carry it 260 and work the ball
6 (320) Too much risk (pond right) to hit driver
7 (400)
8 (195) Green complex similar to 2, 3, 7
9 (520) Dogleg right; good risk/reward if you want to try to reach green in 2
Halfway House (traditional Argentine construction)
Red Nine:
1 (570) dogleg left, can be reachable b/c of firm fairways
Just out of bounds
2 (145) Plain vanilla par 3
3 (385) completely new hole
4 (175) completely new
5 (310) pond right makes aggressive play risky
6 (355) I really like the staggered bunkers from 60 yards in; this picture doesn’t really capture them
7 (450) Easy downwind; a bear into the wind
8 (365)
9 (570) dogleg right par 5
Yellow Nine
1 (355) very similar tee shot to #1 White; pretty interesting green
2 (470, par 5) double dogleg par 5 that crosses stream and has internal OB right and long off tee.
3 (380) dogleg left; internal OB left
4 (340) internal OB left
5 (140)
6 (550) dogleg right. Cool green site. Internal OB right
7 (340) dogleg left. Internal OB left and right
8 (150)
9 (320) Not designed to be reached, but can be reached downwind
