LET'S SWING! Why Crete Golf Club is one of the coolest places to stay in Greece
You don't have to love golf to like this place (but it helps). The location is also key.
Golf in Crete: who knew?
People typically come to Greece’s biggest island for the history and beaches, and increasingly for the unique gastronomy and culture as well, but as a golfing destination some other islands in the Mediterranean like Cyprus and Mallorca have a longer history with the sport, as well as more golf courses.
What drew me to the Crete Golf Club, initially at least, was a sort of poster or banner for it that I spotted at my favorite hotel in Heraklion — Crete’s largest city and island capital — the Galaxy Hotel. Because this hotel is so consistently excellent, I knew that anything they advertised would be worth checking out. Also, my itinerary would call for extensive driving around the world renowned Lasithi Plateau, with its rich agricultural traditions and deep historical connections to Crete’s ancient Minoan civilization. I wanted a place to stay for a night before venturing further into the Lasithi region, and also one that was not in a busy or built-up resort area. Enter the Crete Golf Club.
The 18-hole golf course and on-site hotel are located near Hersonissos, along Crete’s northern coast and not far from where the island’s new airport is being built— and only about a 20 minute drive from the current, very busy airport in Heraklion. It’s an 18-hole course with gorgeous mountain views from the back nine and mountain and sea views from the front nine. It was designed in 2003 by golf course architect Bob Hunt, and reopened in 2015 after extensive upgrades.
While I am possibly the world’s worst golfer (though not this bad), I thought it would be interesting to see the property, not just as a convenient crossroads between different parts of the island on a long driving itinerary but also as a counterpart to the cliché Mediterranean island resort model. I grew up around golf courses; would Crete’s only course stack up? In a word, yes.
Resort Manager Spyros Fragoulakis let me hop onto a golf cart and drove me around the course in the late afternoon. The first thing I noticed was the beauty of the setting: mountains behind, sea out in front. Nature! A pair of partridges glanced up at us from one hole unperturbed, while a rather large rabbit hopped across another. The course wasn’t busy at all, but as I explained to Spyros, by Southern California or Florida standards, the Cretan heat really isn’t so bad. Much breezier than Palm Beach, actually.
I did notice more golfers out playing the following morning, as I was doing laps in the stunner of an outdoor pool that’s about 82 feet long. And those views!
That was following my overnight at the hotel itself, which consists of 25 suites, all with extra-long beds plus sofa bed and large balconies, each with mountain and sea views. I loved the fact that the airy balconies are screened — all the fresh country air without any of the mosquitos. There are large marble bathrooms (194 square feet!) and extra-long beds plus a work station with a nice touch: the desk “legs” are made from repurposed golf clubs!
Common areas of the hotel include a fitness center with the latest Technogym equipment and a clubhouse-style restaurant that offers an à la carte and buffet breakfast as well as menus for lunch and dinner.
My dinner at the clubhouse restaurant included an excellent handmade ravioli with a vibrant Cretan tomato sauce. Sitting on the wide terrace that opens right onto the green couldn’t have been more relaxing.
Was one night really enough?🤔
