One of the things that makes Cortijo Grande that little bit extra special is it’s golf course. Allegedly the first ever pukka course in the whole of Andalucia, it was created as yet one more feature to help sell the dream of Cortijo Grande.
It used to sit, central in our valley with the verdant fairways watered from an extensive system of natural underground reservoirs, sat beneath the mountains that surround us. In the blistering summer heat, the sprinkler systems would work overtime, ensuring that the greens ran like velvet, and the fairways could lend the travel to get that pesky ball just a few feet further.
For those that enjoy golf, Cortijo Grande had everything, a tricky course, set in an absolutely stunning location. And for us in the valley, the course provided a beautiful central focus, a huge, tended back garden, sheltered between the mountains, rich and green in the arid summer months, a vibrant oasis thriving as all else around withered in the unremitting heat.
But that was back then, before the low times when the golf course owners ran out of money and opted to let the course revert to weed and wasteland. The crash in 2008 was a bad time for many, particularly the developers, and Cortijo Grande, a paradise “in development” probably suffered worse than most.
When the cash ran out, the summer watering couldn’t be funded, the infrastructure was allowed to crumble and little by little, the course became less and less playable. The greens turned to browns. The fairways reverted to weed and the whole course gradually became another opportunity for a few building plots that would never get the opportunity to see any construction.
Last week I got to hear about an initiative by some of the course enthusiasts to try and tidy the place up a bit. They’d managed to source a cutter for the fairways and were set to do the full haircut. The greens are beyond help but do now make for a good picnic spot if you can be arsed to pack a hamper.
No work was planned there other than a rough trim. It is really just a case of making it look neat, preserving it perhaps a little, just in case someone at some stage buys the course with a view to doing the things our failed developer might have had in mind.
I find it all a bit cheering to know that there are people here who really do care about the whole of the valley, including the golf course, sitting as it does, at the heart.
The work though, requires the use of a borrowed mower, that drinks diesel apace as it traverses the fairways, and to keep the work running throughout the winter months, it soon became clear that money would be needed.
A diesel fund was proposed and one of the more senior members of our community, a diminuitive lady, currently tracking at a feisty eighty-five, insisted on venturing out, to circumnavigate the course, with a view to perhaps getting a few donations from those in the villas and apartments, overlooking the fairways, that might benefit from the neatened view.
Subsequent reports showed that her efforts proved more than a little fruitful. With little more than the vaguest suggestion of a small hint of disapproval, should a generous response to her entreaties not be immediately and effusively given, she managed to empty the wallets of most of those she found on her travels and raised enough cash for the fund, to immediately require the appointment of a treasurer.
The lady most definitely has style.
Cortijo Grande Musings 