Spotlight on Isla Del Mar

Puerto Peñasco is a golfer’s paradise at sea. We have three outstanding golf courses all serving up outstanding weather, blue skies and amazing views of the water. If you love to golf or want to learn how to golf and enjoy a beautiful day outside on a course, then we got you covered.

Puerto Peñasco offers three golf courses for the golf enthusiast in our seaside village.

  1. A Nicklaus Legacy course (which means Jack Nicklaus and Jack Nicklaus II co-designed the course) located at Mayan Place and Grand Mayan built on a gorgeous two-mile peninsula and entirely surrounded by water.
  2. Las Palomas Links course located in the heart of Sandy Beach, directly beside Las Palomas Resort.
  3. Isla Del Mar another Jack Nicklaus Signature course winding around the estuary and right dab in the middle of a living sanctuary.

All three courses offer magnificent views and are open to the public and guests of the resorts.

All three courses are working together to help promote our town and create a golf destination. In the spirit of educating our visitors on golf, this is Part One of a three-part series on Golf in Puerto Peñasco.

This article shines a spotlight on Isla Del Mar and golf pro, Luis Alán Arévalo Michel. I caught up with the Golf Manager, and Director of Golf, Luis at Islas Del Mar and interviewed him on achieving his PGA Mexico Golf Professional status.

Luis who has lived in Puerto Peñasco for six years, is originally from Toluca, the capital of the state of Mexico. He just received his PGA card in January of this year, 4 days before his 29th birthday. He stated he was able to achieve this by the support of Isla Del Mar and his family.

Luis started playing golf at age 8, and obviously fell in love with the game. He stated, “Now I can’t wait to get my wife and my 3-year-old son in the game”. Move over Tiger.

As Luis and I were talking by the lagoon, with the gorgeous greens of the golf course in the background, the corvina were jumping out of crystal blue waters and the white heron’s were gingerly taking a walk on the shoreline.

I asked Luis what his favorite hole at Islas Del Mar was and he stated Hole 11, because that’s where he hit his first hole-in-one. Luis states his favorite golf course that he has ever played is Club de Golf San Carlos in Toluca, which he stated is a challenging course surrounded by pine trees, and it’s where he first played a round of golf with his Dad.

His favorite golf story also includes his Dad, who was playing in the annual tournament in Club de Golf San Carlos in Toluca. Luis states, “He was having a good day on the course and when he got to the last par 3 that had a brand-new Cadillac as the hole in one prize, he hit an amazing shot straight at the flag, the ball hit the green about 1 foot in front of the hole, it went into the hole and bounced out. No one could believe it and my dad almost cried.

Luis also wanted to tell everyone, “Golf in Puerto Peñasco is growing and getting better, the number of local players and people that come play at Puerto Peñasco keeps growing every year. This is accomplished by the hard and relentless work we do at Islas del Mar, by the hard work Luis Torres and his amazing team does at Las Palomas and by Alaciel Aguilar and her incredible team at Vidanta Golf. We are all focused on the same goal and that is to make Puerto Peñasco a great golf destination.

Isla Del Mar is a beautiful sanctuary and if you haven’t had the opportunity to go play a round of golf, I suggest you do. Right now, the golf course is open every day except Monday first tee time at 7:30 and last at 3:30 pm. And, with only the first 9 holes finished, you play twice to complete the 18.

The golf clubhouse is open and the restaurant The Crane, is also open 8-4 which serves delicious food lagoonside.