We took lessons at the Fuerteventura Golf Club across the street from the Sheraton, but don’t let the location fool you. It looks like it’s across the street but you have to drive about 2 miles of winding residential road to actually get there. The golf club is an 18 hole golf course and the location of where the Spain Open tournament was held in 2004. Blended right into the golf course is a 5 star resort, an Elba hotel (a large chain of Spanish hotels).
The courses at the golf club were quite nice and held to smaller groups. There is a max of 4 people per group with 1 instructor, giving the instructor ample time to help individual students. To get the best rate, we convinced just about the entire family to take lessons. On day 1 we started by learning the basics from the different types of clubs to practice with hitting the golf balls with a 7 iron and a sand wedge, which I am convinced the instructor referred to as a "sandwich". The day 1 results were pretty disappointing. Every whack at the golf ball that I took ended up rolling just a few feet away from me. A few flew a couple feet at best. After 3 hours of being indefinitely judged by the instructor and sore from using the same muscles repeatedly, we were good for the day. It was time for pina coladas by the pool all day!
Take note of our sporty and totally appropriate golf attire!
Day 2 was better as we all started to figure out how to hit a golf ball and make it fly across the lawn. The instructor decided to make it a little more challenging and taught us how to use a putter. He took us over to the putting green and had us practice. Then he threw the golf balls over to the longer blades of grass and had us try to use the sand wedge to get the ball back to the putting green. My first attempt was glorious. I missed the ball and dug up a huge lump of their grass with my club. Oops. Shall we say, my bad? The instructor laughed. Later attempts were better and I was able to get one golf ball into a hole. The overall experience was tiring but great and our instructor was amazing. He was constantly looking at our technique and stance to make sure we were swinging the clubs properly. He also threw in plenty of jokes to keep us entertained. The golf academy at the Fuerteventura Golf Club is a great deal for those who want to learn how to play golf but not dish out half a grand. We were given a rate of 120 euros/person for 6 hours of instruction. It’s definitely much more reasonable than in the states. More info on their classes can be found here.
P.S. I think this is how the Germans swing their golf clubs ;)