Roda Golf Resort's Junior Golf Academy Opens July 2026

My neighbour's son is eight years old and already obsessed with golf. He's been pestering his parents to take him out on the Roda Golf course for the past two summers, and this July he'll finally get his chance properly. Roda Golf Resort's new Junior Golf Academy launches this month, and for families with golf-mad kids (or kids who might become golf-mad), it's worth knowing exactly what's on offer and how it compares to what else is available in the Costa Cálida.

La Manga Club has run junior golf programmes for years, and it's the name most people reach for when thinking about junior golf in the Murcia region. Roda Golf is now entering that space, and it's doing so with some genuine advantages that the bigger resort can't quite match. Here's how they actually compare.

What Roda Golf's Junior Academy Offers

The academy runs through July and August, with sessions timed sensibly for a Murcia summer. Morning slots start at 8am, well before the heat becomes unworkable. By 10.30am most days you wouldn't want kids swinging clubs on an exposed fairway anyway, so the scheduling shows some actual local awareness rather than a programme designed by someone who's never stood on a Spanish golf course in July.

Three age groups: 6 to 9 year olds, 10 to 13 year olds, and 14 to 17 year olds, each with a different curriculum. The youngest kids work with foam balls and short irons, getting comfortable with grip, stance, and movement before anything else. The middle group starts on the course itself from week two, playing shortened holes to build confidence. The older teenagers get video analysis, course management sessions, and driving range access outside of group lesson time. Coaching is PGA-qualified and capped at six kids per coach, which is decent for a group setting. Parents can watch from the clubhouse terrace, which has good views down the fairway.

La Manga Club's Junior Programme: The Established Option

La Manga Club has three 18-hole courses and decades of experience running structured golf tuition. Their junior programme is more developed in terms of competitive play, with internal tournaments and links to the Real Federación Española de Golf. If your teenager is seriously pursuing competitive golf, La Manga Club's infrastructure is hard to beat. They also have a dedicated short game academy area that Roda Golf's new programme doesn't yet match.

The downsides are real, though. La Manga Club is about 25 minutes east of Los Alcazares along the spine of the La Manga strip. Getting there in summer means traffic, and the resort itself is large enough that navigating it with children in 35-degree heat isn't always straightforward. Costs are also higher. A week's junior tuition at La Manga Club sits noticeably above what Roda Golf is charging for the equivalent, and accommodation at La Manga Club carries a premium that families renting in Santiago de la Ribera, San Javier, or around the Roda Golf development simply aren't paying.

La Manga Club is excellent. But it's excellent in a way that suits serious junior golfers or families who are staying there specifically. For the broader market of families spending a summer week near the Mar Menor, it's a bit much.

How They Actually Stack Up

Location and daily convenience

Roda Golf wins this easily. If you're staying in holiday rentals near Roda Golf, you're looking at a five-minute drive or a short walk to the first tee. For families with young children, that matters more than almost any coaching credential. La Manga Club requires a committed journey each morning, which quickly becomes a grind when you're also trying to fit in a beach afternoon and a paseo along the promenade.

Quality of instruction

Both programmes use PGA-qualified coaches. La Manga Club has more institutional depth and longer relationships with Spanish golf federation structures. For a child who wants to play competitive amateur golf in Spain, that network matters. For a child who wants to learn the game and enjoy their summer holiday, Roda Golf's programme is entirely fit for purpose.

The course itself

This is where things get interesting. Roda Golf is a Robert Trent Jones II design with genuine challenge and some lovely holes along the Mar Menor shoreline. Kids who learn here get a proper golf education from a course that demands course management, not just ball striking. The views across the water towards La Manga are also, frankly, wonderful, and that doesn't hurt when you're trying to keep a 10-year-old engaged on a warm morning.

La Manga Club's three courses offer more variety, but for a beginner or intermediate junior, playing the same course repeatedly through a week-long academy is actually better pedagogy. You learn the layout, you adapt, you improve on specific holes. The repetition is the point.

Cost

Roda Golf's academy is priced for the family holiday market. La Manga Club's programme is priced for the serious junior or the family with a larger golf budget. If cost is any consideration at all, this one isn't close.

The Honest Verdict

If you're visiting the Roda Golf area this summer and your kids are curious about golf, or already enjoy the game casually, book them into Roda Golf's Junior Academy without much deliberation. The convenience, the course quality, the sensible scheduling around Murcia's summer heat, and the pricing all point the same way.

If you have a teenager already playing to a single-figure handicap who wants structured competitive development, La Manga Club's more established programme might justify the extra effort and cost. That's a specific scenario, though. Most families reading this aren't in it.

The academy fills up quickly once Spanish school holidays start properly in late June, so July bookings are worth sorting now. For context on the course your kids will be playing, the Roda Golf course guide covers the layout, key holes, and what to expect. And if you're still sorting out where to stay, the holiday rentals near Roda Golf give you the proximity that makes the morning academy drop-off genuinely painless. The area guide for Los Alcazares and San Javier is also worth a read if you're combining a golf week with beach time and day trips around the Mar Menor, which, given you're 10 minutes from the water, you absolutely should be.