Site for this year's match-play competition is Valderrama Golf Club along Spain's Mediterranean coast, nine miles northeast of the Rock of Gibraltar. It's a spectacular setting, what with Andalucia's Sierra Blanca Mountains looming to the northeast, open sea to the south, and the northern coast of Africa within view on a typically clear day. The weather here on this sun-baked coast is among the warmest and most congenial in all of Western Europe. Not bad for golf, either, except for the winds that come howling in.
Most courses have to accommodate one prevailing wind.
At Valderrama, there are two. Minor regional changes of humidity or air pressure can have dramatic consequences, bringing in a dry, arid Poniente howling in off the frontier one day or a colder, moisture-laden Levante in from the Mediterranean the next. Ironically, this year's home course advantage for the European team is a layout designed by an American. Robert Trent Jones, the grand old master of postwar design, came here in the early 1960s to establish an international presence. His initial effort, just to the west, was The Old Course at Sotogrande, which to this day draws strong reviews.