A Great Escape

Bill Elliott travels to Tenerife to enjoy the island’s finest course

For all of us, the deep winter months of January and February – probably most of March as well – are, at best, challenging. For we golfers, however, this time of year is a form of purgatory, a bleak, cold, wet landscape that is entered into only by the hardiest of souls or those who, at least, have dependable rain gear as well as an overly optimistic outlook on life.

The northern European winter is, of course, the reason other warmer, sunnier, gentler places to play golf exist. It’s why fishing villages now have more resorts than fish, why we turn our pale faces south and why so many of us are already planning next winter’s escape to somewhere we may enjoy playing the old game without risking frostbite or trench foot.

For me, last winter, this escape meant revisiting a place I first played and stayed some 13 years ago. My, how time flies when you’re having fun. So off I trundled to Gatwick and a BA flight to Tenerife, an island that sits rather majestically off the west coast of Africa.

The flight takes around four hours, which is almost perfect as it allows time to eat something, read a lot and grab a decent nap. My destination was the Ritz- Carlton Abama, which is placed in the richly sub-tropical area of Guia de Isora some 35 minutes from the island’s South Airport. As it’s a Ritz-Carlton joint, it’s a genuinely five-star establishment with, it has to be said, prices to match.