West Cliffs Golf Course

Few golf courses anywhere in the world have announced themselves quite like West Cliffs. Designed by Donald Steel and opened in 2016, this Portugal course was immediately recognized as one of Europe's finest modern layouts, earning top-10 rankings in Portugal within years of opening and drawing comparisons to great links-influenced designs despite sitting on the Atlantic coast of the Óbidos region, roughly 80 kilometers north of Lisbon.

The site itself does much of the work. The course tumbles through dramatic clifftop terrain above the Atlantic, with ocean views from nearly every hole and the kind of raw, wind-scoured exposure that rewards patience and shot-making over brute force. Steel — one of the great traditional architects of his generation — shaped holes that use the natural contours rather than fighting them, so the routing feels discovered rather than imposed. Several holes play directly alongside the clifftops, where the wind off the ocean can completely transform the challenge from one round to the next.

The surrounding Silver Coast (Costa de Prata) has developed quietly into a serious golf destination, offering an alternative to the Algarve that feels less packaged and more genuinely Portuguese. West Cliffs sits at the top of that regional conversation.