The high-profile Real Club Valderrama in Spain has a new owner — the club’s members.
And it’s about time. The members of the club, located in Sotogrande on the Mediterranean coast, had leased the property for nearly 30 years, and had long wanted to own it, even starting litigation over the land nearly two years ago.
Members recently finalized a sale to purchase the company that bought Valderrama in 2016. The deal to buy the property from Valderrama SA, an arm of Zagaleta International UK, was for €28 million.
The sale includes the 18-hole Robert Trent Jones course, as well as the 9-hole par 3 course, practice facility, clubhouse and trademarks and use of the Valderrama name. The club recently completed a five-year plan, which included €5 million in improvements, such as upgrading bunkers and the short game area.
Valderrama, one of the best-known clubs in Europe, hosted the Ryder Cup in 1997, the first time the event was held in continental Europe. The course was first constructed in 1974, and known as Sotogrande New. When industrialist Jaime Ortiz-Patiño acquired the property in 1984, he brought in Jones to redesign and expand the course, and changed the name to Valderrama Golf Club.
But Ortiz-Patiño died in 2013, leaving the club in limbo.
About two years ago, the Zagaleta group purchased the course’s holding company, the Valderrama Group, for €40 million. Zagaleta is best known as the developer of a golf and luxury housing project in Marbella, Spain
At the time, the sale didn’t affect Real Club Valderrama, which planned to lease the property through 2050. The sale ends arbitration that began last March.
Zagaleta plans to go forward with the previously planned Valderrama II, now known as the Castellar de Frontera golf, hotel and residential project. The project is expected to be a €200 million investment.