![La Finca golf course](https://www.alicantetravel.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/La-Finca-5th-Hole-300x200.jpg)
Golfers have returned to the Costa Blanca fairways following the regional government’s decision to lift restrictions on sporting and other activities. The measures had been introduced in January in response to a post festive season “third wave” of COVID infections. In recent weeks, however, the number of cases has been reduced significantly throughout Spain – including the Valencia region, which covers Alicante and Costa Blanca.
Welcoming the move, the International Association of Golf Tour Operators said, “After a period of several days ‘training at home’, it is the moment to return to the greens. And we come back stronger, with new dreams and loads of positive energy, with the buggies’ batteries charged to the top, the greens smooth as silk and ready to paint a smile on the faces of the golf lovers.”
Those smiles will be spread around a total of 30 courses in the region’s three provinces: 20 in Alicante, seven in Valencia (province) and three in Castellón – the birthplace (Borriol) of 2017 US Masters champion Sergio García.
During the enforced break, golf courses took the opportunity of upgrading their maintenance and course improvement programs.
They also joined the Valencia Golf Federation, Royal Spanish Golf Federation and Spanish Association of Golf Courses in stressing that golf is a sport which is “completely safe, played in natural spaces and the open air, with no physical contact, no spectators, in groups of four players, and with enormous social distancing… It is cardio-healthy and extremely beneficial both physically and psychologically, especially for more vulnerable groups such as the elderly.”
This view was reinforced, they said, by the fact that golf courses had remained open in the rest of Spain, including the bordering regions of Murcia and Cataluña, during the Valencia lockdown.
In February this year the Spanish national parliament officially declared golf to be an “essential activity”, highlighting its health benefits in the context of COVID-19. Last October, the parliament also declared the sport to be of “general interest”.
La Finca is one of the Costa Blanca’s top golf resorts.