THE MEDITERRANEAN MAGNIFICENCE OF COSTA NAVARINO

Greece, with its storied history and mythology conjures up various images of gods and demons, but golf? Costa Navarino makes a change in a time when the country needs one most.

- BENNY TEO

It was on the second green of the Bay course at Costa Navarino that I lost my heart entirely to this magical golf resort and to Greece in general. The country had never been on the radar of golfers as it had very few golf courses and none of any significance. But Costa Navarino changed all that. Opened to international acclaim in more recent times, this heavenly resort has two great courses the Bernhard Langer designed Dunes layout and the said Bay course designed by Robert Trent Jones II.

Standing on the green of the par 5 2nd at the Bay course, I gazed out across the huge expanse of beautiful, tranquil, turquoise blue water that is Navarino Bay. The Bay is almost completely encircled by land, the mainland where we were playing golf and several islands on the far side. At the point where the waters of the Bay flowed into the Ionian Sea, there were a few large rocks jutting out maybe 50 yards from the last island where some classy person had moored a proper yacht i.e. one with a large sail, not the kind of motorised giants beloved by Russian oligarchs and American technology tycoons.