Although in no way as polished conditioning wise as EL Cardonal and certainly nowhere as close as being a finished product,what a wonderful golf course.
Having gone through the usual process of multiple owners the course has taken a long time to open.
A Fazio design that for seventeen holes does not really resemble that usual FAzio feel.
The subtle and interesting green complexes without the usual gross over bunkering and constant flashes of bunker sand in your eyes from start to finish.
Bunker shapes and vegetation surrounds are beautiful even at this stage of incompleteness.
There is marvelous use of the natural terrain to provide a golf course that in my opinion is equally as playable as El Cardonal for the average player but with a way more interesting array of holes, more pleasing to the eye and cahhlenging to the better player.
CHILENO may have an advantage in terrain over Tigers design in order to provide a more interesting and greater variety of holes but in my opinion most of the "better" features are the result of superior routing and design in general.
Superb green complexes,great shot values with marvelous vistas created by imaginative tee box locations, and great esthetics for tee shot landing areas maximizing the terrain the architects had to work with.
The greens resemble the eb and flow of an ocean tide rather than the usual chaotic heaving quad ranted greens normally associated with Fazio greens, and as such leaving more subtle and vario ofpin placements.
Greg and I thought that perhaps there is too much similarity in hole lengths but that can be easily adjusted by jumping around tee boxes which is exactly what we did, resulting in an array of approach shots using just about every club in the bag.
Failure to jump around the boxes leaves too many par threes of the same length and shots into many of the par fours being the same yardage wise.
That been said there is a marvelous selection of short par fours all distinctly different in their respective modes of play and a memorable set of par fives including the awesome cape 6th with its dazzling tee shot heading towards the Ocean.
I have deliberately not posted pictures out of fairness to the project developers who know that this is not the finished product.
Some bunkers still lack sand, some of the bunker surrounds still awaiting their vegetation finishing and as such not fair to show at his point in time.
The turf condition needs work still, but all of that is just time, what remains is a superb layout that is certainly in Cabos top three.
As a member of Daimante, I can only hope that the third course at " home" resembles this fine piece of work.
Then comes number 18 and we are Fazioed, diabolical green complex with a totally wasteful and useless front third, a green complex that is so far removed from the rest of the course that leaves you scratching your head thinking couldn't somebody see how poor this was as a fit for this course?
Just one of those what were you thinking moments, which is such a shame, but again easily taken care of....just blow it up, in fact start the entire hole again, Messrs Wharton- Palmer and Tallman being the great architects we are are , are readily available to provide you with a finishing hole. that this course deserves😉