Destination Golf - June 2018 * | Page 47

3rd hole - Rioja Alta GC David gives us more information about the course and speaks with great pride about his association with his great departed friend, Seve Ballesteros. “I grew up in Pedreña, the same village as Seve,” he tells us. “When I was about ten years old, we used to practise together at Real Golf de Pedreña.” Apparently many other players have followed in Seve’s footsteps too, with the little village of Pedreña reputed to have produced more professional golfers per head of population that anywhere else in Spain. Izki Golf A 35 kilometre scenic drive north of Logroño into the mountainous Basque Country province of Álava, and we arrive at the small town of Urturi, home to Izki Golf designed by Seve Ballesteros. Nestled within the Izki Nature Park, the lush fairways of this 1994 layout wind their way through dense woodland, offering excellent panoramas of the surrounding Álava Mountains along the way. The course is especially scenic in autumn, when the leaves of the mainly oak and beech trees that line the