Atalaya Golf & Country Club: the course and homes for sale nearby

The two courses share a clubhouse but little else. The Old Course is the lower and more traditional of the pair: wide fairways rise and fall gently between mature trees and flowering shrubs, and many greens sit above the fairway, so approaches are hard to judge. Lakes and streams on the lower ground are home to water birds, including two resident pairs of swans.

The New Course climbs into the hills above. It rewards accuracy rather than length, with sloping fairways, raised greens and a wood of cork oak, olive and carob in the middle; a lake sits on the 4th, and the setting, away from main roads, is quiet. The Old Course has bentgrass greens, the New Course Bermuda greens, which play firmer and turn brownish while dormant from November to April.

The Old Course suits most handicaps and is ideal for walking; reviewers regularly say a buggy is unnecessary. The New Course is the sterner test for a wayward driver – balls tend to run off its tilted fairways into trouble – and most reviewers take a buggy, as the club advises in summer. There is little to eat out on the course, so stop first at the café under the Old Course's 10th tee.

Players often praise the friendly staff and the value. Recurring complaints are slow rounds on busy days, with few marshals about, and condition that varies with the season: worn greens after heavy autumn play, wet fairways after winter rain. Practice is a strength: the PG Golf & Sports Academy has a 52-bay range, 44 bays with TrackMan, putting and chipping greens and a full-length practice hole. The restaurant has a panoramic terrace, and reviewers generally like the food. Spring and autumn are busiest; in summer, tee off early on the New Course.

Atalaya lies between Marbella and Estepona, a few hundred metres inland from the A-7 at the Benahavís turn-off, on the Estepona side of San Pedro de Alcántara. It was founded as a golf club rather than a property scheme, so there is little housing on the courses themselves; the homes are in the neighbouring areas of Atalaya, Bel Air, Cancelada and Benamara.

Most homes for sale are apartments in residential complexes, with a good number of townhouses, fewer detached villas and the odd country property. We act for the buyer alone and check, before you view, how near the course a home really is.