Costa Navarino is the rare destination resort that earns its scale.
Built into the southwestern coast of the Peloponnese, an area of the Greek mainland that most groups underestimate, the resort holds four golf courses across the coast and four distinct hotels at different points on the luxury scale. It is one of the only destinations in Europe where a foursome can play a different course every day of a four-night trip, sleep in a different style of room every night if they choose, and never leave the property.
The four courses.
You won’t play through a Costa Navarino week without forming opinions on which course you’d come back to first. They’ve been deliberately built to feel different. Notes on each, in the order most groups want to play them.
The headline. Bernhard Langer’s design with European Golf Design, opened with the resort in 2010, sits along the Bay of Navarino with the Mediterranean visible from many of the back nine tees. Walkable. Strategic. The course that turns up in the photographs your group will send round on the way home.
The seaside companion to the Dunes. Robert Trent Jones Jr. laid this one closer to the water, with the medieval town of Pylos and Sphacteria Island in view across the bay from the upper holes. Slightly shorter, slightly more dramatic on the eye, the round most groups close the week with.
The newest, opened in 2022 and designed by José María Olazábal. Set inland from the coast, rolling through olive groves and oak with views of the mountains rather than the sea. The change of pace round, and increasingly the one experienced golfers rate highest after a full week’s play.
The toughest of the four and the resort’s flagship. Built for serious golfers: more is asked of the tee shot than any of the other three, and strategy wins out over big hitting. The round the resort would point to first, and the one your group’s lowest handicap will want to play twice.
The four hotels.
Four hotels on one resort is the other thing Costa Navarino does that almost nowhere else does. They sit on the same property, share golf access and most facilities, but each occupies a distinct lane. Pick based on the group.
A Leading Hotels of the World member, set in olive groves with views over the bay. Large suites, considered service, and the most established of the four resort hotels. The pick when the group wants polish and quiet, with the depth of facilities the resort built its name on.
Sister hotel to the Romanos. Larger pool complex, direct beach access, slightly more contemporary in feel. Strong for golfers travelling with non-golfing partners who want a more beach-resort experience.
The adults-only hotel on the coast, opened in 2022. Architectural, contemporary, and quieter for it. Suits couples without kids or all-golfer groups who want a more design-led week without families around.
The newest hotel on the resort. All-villa, ultra-luxury, with private pools and the kind of service Mandarin Oriental built its name on. The top-tier choice for groups who want to spend more for the experience to match.
Build your week at Costa Navarino. Send us the brief, we’ll come back inside two working days.
EnquireThe Peloponnese, the bit your group will remember.
Most resort-only weeks struggle to give the group anything to talk about after the rounds. Costa Navarino is one of the few that sits in a region with enough off-course to fill the rest days. Pylos itself, the seafront town twenty minutes from the resort, is one of the most under-visited working harbours in Greece. Methoni Castle, a Venetian fortress on the southern tip, is a half-day worth taking. Olympia, the original Olympic site, is two hours up the coast.
The food angle is real too. The Peloponnese is olive oil country, sourcing region for the rest of Greek and southern European cuisine. Resort restaurants do this well, and there are working tavernas in the villages around Pylos that hold their own with anywhere on the Mediterranean.
The practical stuff.
Getting in. Kalamata Airport, 45 minutes from the resort, takes seasonal direct flights from across Europe (BA, Lufthansa, Swiss, Ryanair, easyJet and the major flag carriers). Off-season groups fly via Athens (3 hours by car, 5 by train, or a short connecting flight). Most groups land on a Friday or Saturday and depart Tuesday or Wednesday.
Tee times. The four courses book up about a year ahead in peak season, and longer still on European tour or Greek Open weekends. Off-peak is more flexible. We book the rounds in the right order across the four courses to make sure the group plays the strongest variety.
The trip shape. Four nights, three rounds is the lean Costa Navarino visit. Six nights, four rounds is the most-booked shape and the one we’d recommend, one round per course. Seven nights, five rounds suits groups who want to play a favourite twice or add a day trip to Olympia.
When to go.
Peak season is April to November. June and September are the perfect golf months: warm but not punishing, fewer crowds than July and August, the resort at its most considered. April is the local spring, beautiful but slightly cooler. October and early November close the season with the softest light of the year on the coast.
How we’d build the trip.
Send us the shape of the week: how many in the group, the dates that work, whether you’re after the Romanos, the Westin, the adults-only W or the villa-only Mandarin Oriental, which courses you want to lock in, anything specific the group has asked for. We’d come back inside two working days with a fully costed itinerary, the tee times in the right order, transfers, dinners booked, and a real person at GTP who runs the trip from first call to final farewell.
