Meet Portugal’s golf club management expert: Nuno Sepulveda

Nuno Sepulveda, co-chief executive for Details – Hospitality, Sports, Leisure, which oversees Portugal’s largest portfolio of golf courses, discusses the rebranding of one of the country’s best-known golf resorts and the ambition for another to be one of the premium destinations in the world.

Can you take us through your career to the present day?

I’m an agronomic engineer by trade but I decided to go to the UK to study landscape architecture. I couldn’t speak English back then so I decided to enrol in university. After three months, I realised I was on the wrong course and with some help and some translations, I realised I was on a turf science and golf management course, but I was persuaded to stay on the course and not to change to landscape architecture. So I started in golf because I enrolled on the wrong course and I couldn’t speak English. I’ve worked in roles and sectors since then, from building golf courses and support infrastructures and doing a lot of agronomy and consultancy to working in golf management and hospitality for different luxury brands. Most recently, I was at Costa Navarino in Greece before heading back to Portugal to work for Arrow Global last summer.

You spent six years heading up the golf operation at Costa Navarino, which included opening two new courses at Navarino Hills. What was it that attracted you to Greece in particular, and how hard was it to leave to return to Portugal?

I had no idea where I was going back in 2017. Costa Navarino was unknown at the time but, as a family with my wife and kids, we wanted to have an international experience abroad for a couple of years. I actually had two offers. I went to see Costa Navarino, which I didn’t know anything about, and when I saw the place I was just blown away by it. I couldn’t believe such a place existed in Europe. It was a great opportunity and I realised there was a chance to put an amazing product that was in the middle of nowhere on the global golf map. It was a great chance to combine a lot of things together and I never looked back. The other offer I had was in Georgia but I never went to see the place. We loved the six years that we spent at Costa Navarino and my family and I miss it every day. It was a great experience.

You’ve spent time in the golf industry working across Europe. How did you come to take up your current role with Details?

Working at Costa Navarino worked very well for me. People were raving about it and it took all the top rankings and all the awards. The investors in Portugal had the strategy of bringing in someone with international experience, ideally with a Portuguese nationality, so that they would have the best of both worlds. They wanted someone that understands how things are done in Portugal as well as having international exposure, international brands, international clientele, different price points and luxury products. To be honest, I was so happy at Costa Navarino that I didn’t see myself leaving any time soon, but when they explained the project, I realised what they were doing and the great opportunity ahead.

You’re back in Portugal now and facing an altogether new set of challenges. How are you enjoying things and your new role?

It has been great. We’ve had to settle into a new place but, after a year, we’re almost there. The project is just amazing and huge, and the vision behind it is really interesting. That’s why I moved – not because of Portugal or the people but because of the project. Portugal was a plus but if this project was somewhere else like Italy, probably I would have taken the job. I’m based in Vilamoura and I spend my time between the Algarve and Lisbon, where we have our head offices.

It’s obviously an exciting time for the Details group. What plans have you got for Aroeira and Palmares?

The opportunity for both is huge. Aroeira is just 20 minutes outside of Lisbon and very easy to access. You can be in any hotel in the city centre and the golf courses are just a short drive away. Aroeira is a former Portuguese Open venue which has two beautiful golf courses. It’s been nicknamed ‘The Wentworth of Lisbon’ while it has the look of Pinehurst. It’s just a magical place and we have huge plans. We have just started revamping Aroeira Pines Classic (formerly Aroeira I) – installing new irrigation, new grasses, new tees, new bunkers, new greens – and there’s a big investment taking place over the next four months. At the end of the year, we should also start building a new hotel, and next year we will do the same course maintenance work to Aroeira Challenge (formerly Aroeira II). There’s a lot of ambition and a lot to be done rebranding it, but it’s something that we’re so excited about and we believe we will do special things there.
I think Palmares can be one of the best golf resorts in Europe in the years to come. Its location is magical, situated on the seaside, and the views from the Meia Praia beach are just amazing. The golf course is very well designed by Robert Trent Jones Jnr, there is a nice boutique hotel already there and we are going to start construction on another hotel at the end of the year. We want to position the resort as one of the premium destinations in the world. I know it’s a big statement because there are a lot of great places already out there, but if people check what Palmares looks like, with its amazing location and some of the golf holes, it’s a special place. Unlike places like Vilamoura and Albufeira, the pace of life is slower there and it’s still very Portuguese. Things run at a different speed, and so you have the chance to relax and unwind at the clubhouse including at the Michelin star restaurant Al Sud. We’re very proud of everything, all the houses being built are super sustainable and we have big ambitions for Palmares.

You mentioned sustainability. With the emphasis that is placed on protecting the environment, I would imagine the subject is more important than ever before for golf courses and resorts?

Having a sustainable approach and delivering a sustainable product is one of our main priorities for many reasons – for the environment and also for the investors. They want to know more and more that they are investing in sustainable products, and ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance) is central to our investment, our approach and how we do things. We have an ESG strategy for all our assets and we want to lead the 2030 European agenda for ESG as a group. I was lucky enough to come from Costa Navarino, which was already using sustainable methods way before it was a trend and way before Covid, so I have seen with my own eyes the impact on a business that such an approach can have.

How do you manage the issue of water at the Arrow golf resorts and courses as this is a key topic of discussion in Portugal?

Golf courses need water, of course, but what I would say is that golf courses manage water better than any other industry and have done for many, many years. Golf courses are irrigating to the millimetre, not to the day or by the hour. Courses have made a huge effort over the last couple of years to be ready to connect with water treatment stations, which are managed by the Portuguese government and governments need to make this water available, because it is sewage water that has been treated instead of being released to the ocean. Golf courses are ready to use the water but the governments need to make it available. We are ready to use this water at any time because we understand that we need to adjust our operation and investments in order to use this kind of water which is sometimes not as good but, for golf, it is more than enough.

So how do you go about telling people who don’t work in the golf industry about the steps that you are taking to minimise water consumption?

The golf industry has been very poor on eco-marketing in general, and we need to do better. We are very good at managing water usage but not very good at communicating this to the world outside of golf. Even to this day, we paint grass so that we don’t have to irrigate it, but it gives people the impression that we have been watering it. We have gone the extra mile on water management but we don’t communicate that well enough.

And what about increasing the number of people that play golf in Portugal, because you have some wonderful golf courses but this is not always reflected in the number of people that play?

It’s a difficult subject and there’s no easy solution. The numbers are still very small – I believe we have 15,000 golfers that belong to the Portugal Golf Federation – and that is very low compared to other countries. It represents a very small part of our business, but golf is actually now cheaper than going to the gym. It is far cheaper than it used to be and it’s up to us to get the message across.

Across the Details group, we are also doing what we can to increase the number of juniors playing. Together with the Portugal Golf Federation, we work very closely with all the programmes and run big junior academies, including two of the biggest in the country at Aroeira and Vilamoura, so we are doing our part to try to create a positive future for the next golf generations in Portugal, but it’s not easy when you are competing against like football, padel and computer games. Especially when they’re so much easier to play than golf!