David McLay-Kidd knew he had the chance to be involved in something very special when he first set eyes on the landscape at Terras da Comporta and was asked to design a golf course one hour south of Lisbon on the north-western coast of the Alentejo.

Surveying the scene and the plot of land occupying 84 hectares of natural, sandy terrain in a secluded coastal setting on the edge of the Sado Estuary Nature Reserve, McLay-Kidd immediately saw the possibility to build a links course in Portugal that could match some of the best in the world.

That was back in 2008. The Dunas project has had to survive more than a few setbacks and bumps in the road along the way including a worldwide recession, the original owners going bankrupt and the small matter of a global pandemic.

But with the backing of Vanguard Properties – the largest real estate developer in Portugal – McLay-Kidd’s first course in mainland Europe is now a glorious reality and is attracting global headlines for all the right reasons. Having undergone a soft launch and opened for play for the first time in June, The Dunas Course will be officially inaugurated in early October.

Such have been the initial reviews that industry experts are already tipping the par-71 layout to not only become Portugal’s number one course but one of the new stars of European golf. Its architect, whose famous designs include Bandon Dunes, Queenwood, Beaverbrook, Machrihanish Dunes and the Castle Course at St. Andrews, certainly believes that there’s nothing else to compare anywhere in southern Europe and is as excited as anyone at the project finally coming to fruition.

“I think after 15 years of effort, we are actually there. There’s now no pandemic and no worldwide recession,” said McLay-Kidd.

“I first came here in 2008 and it’s absolutely stunning. If you look at any top 100 list, it is peppered by golf courses that are through pine, barren sand dunes – from the courses in Melbourne, Australia, to the courses in Long Island in the US and the stuff around the British and Irish coastline, they are generally through sand and through vegetation, and so here we are in southern Europe in Portugal with exactly that type of terrain.

“I’ve been asked how I would characterise the course and I would say it’s easy to categorise, it’s a links course. It’s not links-style, it’s not links-like, it’s a links course.

“You’re playing as close to the beach as you can get in Portugal, you’re in pure sand, you’re playing on fescue grass with a golf course that wants you to read the ground, bounce the ball and run it around, using the contours to your advantage, so I don’t know if there’s anything out there that wouldn’t tick the box as a links course as a definition that a Scotsman would give you.”

One of two 18-hole courses being built at Terras da Comporta – the second, The Torre, is being designed by Sergio Garcia and is set to open in 2025 – The Dunas Course is the first of an array of sports and lifestyle facilities which are poised to be unveiled in the coming years, with others including horse riding, wellness and sailing as well as a wide range of plots for hotels, tourist and residential condominiums also on offer.

The original routing of The Dunas Course was actually not laid out by but by Donald Steel back in 2004, and the Scot had to embrace the original land plan and the corridors that the course was going through when he set out his plans for the site.

He also had to politely decline a request from the original owners to include a lake complex at the heart of the back nine, and the final finished version, with a liberal scattering of bunkers and waste sand areas in equal measure, is all the better for it.

As with so many of McLay-Kidd’s more recent creations – he admits that he had a rethink about his design philosophy in 2009 after realising that his first courses were too hard for the average golfer – strategy and playability is the key, especially from the tee.

Lower handicappers may well prefer to take on the tiger lines which, executed properly, will leave the best chance for birdie but the architect has also been at pains to offer plenty of room on the fairways so that higher-handicap players can gain just as much pleasure and satisfaction from their course experience.

He explained: “Back in 2009 to 2010, I kind of had a change of heart for architecture and asked myself ‘How can I build a golf course that the average player can get through but is still a challenge to everyone?’

“The answer that I came up with was that you have to give people room to miss, so that they can find their ball and have some chance of recovery, and when they’re having those recovery shots, they’re probably trying to recover back to bogeys and double bogeys with the same ball.

“What we intended was to build a golf course that was wide and forgiving to the average golfer but ask for good golfers to pick tight lines and to make aggressive play,” he admits.

“I’m a firm believer that by giving players some forgiveness for wayward errors I will encourage you to be more aggressive off the tee, and when you play aggressively you generally make a better stroke which ends up being a better result.”

McLay-Kidd is reluctant to pick out any particular holes as his favourites although, when pushed, he selects the 13th hole, a short par-four played from an elevated tee, and the 18th, a wonderful picture-postcard par four that plays uphill to a cleverly designed putting surface that slopes from back to front.

One thing he has no doubts about, though, is the potential The Dunas Course possesses to become one of the game’s modern-day great designs and to be a showcase venue for links golf in southern Europe that can be enjoyed by all players.

“The thing that is really great for me is that this is open to the public,” said McLay-Kidd.

“I get to build courses but, more often than not, they are very, very private and no one gets to see them, so being able to build something like this that’s so unique, so natural and is so willing to be open to any and all at a somewhat reasonable price – the price right now is less than courses in the Algarve – I’m hoping that this will fill with golfers quickly and be a showcase for links golf in southern Europe.

“Golfers will love coming here and the leap of faith that Vanguard Properties especially has made will pay off. Where others couldn’t see the potential, they obviously did and I’m hoping that will come to pass over the next two or three years, when the course will have had time to mature and it will be in racing condition where it plays firm and fast.”