Roda Golf's 5 Most Scenic Holes: A Summer Course Guide

My playing partner stopped halfway through his backswing last June and just... stood there. I thought he'd spotted a bee. Turns out he was staring at the Mar Menor, glittering silver in the early morning light, stretched out behind the green like a painting someone had hung there overnight. I've played Roda Golf more times than I can count, and it still does that to people.

The course itself is well-designed and genuinely enjoyable to play. But what keeps people coming back, particularly in summer when the light turns everything golden, is the scenery. So here's my honest take on the five holes that stop you mid-round, ranked and compared not just by visual impact, but by the kind of scenic moment they actually deliver. Some are dramatic. Some are quietly beautiful. A couple are better in June than at any other time of year.

Why Summer Changes Everything at Roda Golf

In June, the light here is unlike anything I've experienced on a British course. By eight in the morning, the low sun is already cutting across the fairways at an angle that makes the grass look almost luminous. The Mar Menor sits flat and still most mornings, its shallow waters warming up to that peculiar blue-green colour that makes it so different from the open Mediterranean. The salt flats near Lo Pagan catch the light from the other direction.

Play Roda in winter and it's pleasant enough. Play it in June and the whole course feels like it was built to be photographed at dawn.

For visitors staying in holiday rentals near Roda Golf, the first-light tee times are the move. Out by seven, finished before eleven, pool-side with a cold cerveza before the real heat arrives.

The Five Holes, Compared

Hole 2 vs Hole 7: Two very different kinds of beautiful

These are both strong early candidates for the most visually striking holes on the course, and they compete for entirely different reasons.

Hole 2 gives you your first proper look at the Mar Menor. From the elevated tee, on a clear June morning, you can see across the lagoon toward La Manga, that slender strip of land separating the inner sea from the open Mediterranean. It's broad, sweeping, the kind of view that makes first-time visitors reach for their phones before they've even teed up. The hole plays slightly downhill, which adds to the sense of space.

Hole 7 is something different. Tighter, more enclosed, lined with mature Mediterranean pines that filter the light in a way that feels almost cinematic. Where Hole 2 gives you openness, Hole 7 gives you atmosphere. In summer, when the pines are dry and the air smells of resin in the heat, it has a quality you don't forget quickly.

My preference? Hole 7 for the sensory experience. Hole 2 for the photograph.

Hole 9: The turn that earns it

The ninth hole is worth singling out because of what it does structurally as much as visually. It brings you back toward the clubhouse with the course spread out behind you, and on a clear day in June, the backdrop is the kind of thing you'd see on a brochure and assume had been touched up. The reddish earth of the Murcian terrain mixes with the green of the fairways and that ever-present blue horizon behind it all.

It's also the best hole to catch in the golden hour before the heat really bites. If you're out at first light, you hit Hole 9 with the sun still low enough to throw long shadows across the fairway. That combination of colour and light, on a quiet Tuesday morning in late June, is genuinely special.

Holes 13 and 16: The back nine's scenic pair

Most of the drama on the back nine comes from these two holes, and they're worth comparing directly because they deliver their beauty in very different ways.

Hole 13 has an approach shot that puts a water feature squarely in your line of sight. In summer, with the light shimmering off the surface and the heat already working on your concentration, it tests your nerve as much as your swing. Visually, it's one of the most composed holes on the course. The green sits cleanly against the horizon. It's the kind of beauty that makes your hands sweat slightly, which I mean as a compliment.

Hole 16, by contrast, rewards you simply for getting this far. The view from the back tee looks out over the more open scrubland surrounding the resort, and in late June the colours out there, pale greens, dusty ochres, the faint shimmer of heat off the ground, are very distinctly Murcian. No drama. No water hazard catching the sun. Just the quiet, dry beauty of the Costa Cálida in summer. After seventeen holes in the heat, that peace feels like it's been earned.

The Honest Verdict

If I had to pick one hole that represents Roda Golf at its June best, I'd take Hole 2. The view from that tee on a clear summer morning, Mar Menor spread wide and still, La Manga just visible in the distance, is the one that stops people mid-backswing. Hole 7 is a close second, purely for atmosphere. And if you're the sort of golfer who likes a shot that challenges your nerve as much as your eye, Hole 13 is your candidate.

What the course does well, overall, is use its setting without over-engineering it. The holes near the water let you see the water. The holes in the pines let the pines do the work. There's no hole that feels like it's trying too hard. After twenty-odd rounds here, I find that genuinely refreshing.

You can find more detail on the layout and what to expect over on our Roda Golf course guide, and if you're planning a golfing week in the area, the Mar Menor area guide covers everything from where to stay to how to get around. There's more on golf in the region over in our golf blog too, if you're still in the research phase.

Book your early tee times. Bring factor fifty. And maybe warn your playing partner before Hole 2, or they'll stop mid-backswing and you'll be waiting there all morning.