Campo Alto Is About to Open at Querencia. How Will It Play Next to Campo Bajo?

Campo Bajo is one of the most groomed rounds in Los Cabos. Bougainvillea lines the edges, and palms frame the greens like a set. Golf Digest ranked it No. 73 on its World's 100 Greatest Golf Courses list for 2022–2023. The magazine described holes that "jump across or sidle up to the edges of rocky canyons and arroyos, with rippling, humpbacked fairways."

Up the ridge, Tom Fazio's second Querencia course is close to opening. Mexico News Daily reported that Querencia had planned a grand-opening event for members on Nov. 6, which is a Friday. If you have played Campo Bajo for years, expect Campo Alto to test you in a different way.

Fazio built the counterweight to Campo Bajo

Chris Sands toured the construction site this spring for Mexico News Daily. He wrote that a sequel "was never the plan." Campo Bajo is heavily landscaped. Campo Alto will show more of the natural sweep of Baja California Sur terrain, with big elevation changes as it winds through ridges, valleys and canyons.

The same article covers grass, green design and the shot each course is built around, and the two courses differ on every one.

On Querencia's Campo Alto page, Fazio says the property's "dramatic land features and elevation changes over ridges and through canyons" are being used "to create movement and framing for each hole." Campo Bajo gives you a manicured frame. On Campo Alto, the land itself does the framing.

The strokes move from the green to the approach

"Second-shot course" says a lot about how your scorecard may change. On Campo Bajo, much of the difficulty sits on and around the greens. Campo Alto's greens are smaller and flatter, according to Fazio's description in Mexico News Daily, so more of the test shifts to the approach. The Querencia page puts it the same way. Its "desert-meets-sea" design "will place an emphasis on second shots."

Put that next to the terrain. Small targets, approached across ridges and canyons with real elevation change, put more weight on distance control and club selection than on lag putting. A golfer whose strength is reading Campo Bajo's contours will have a different kind of day on Campo Alto. So will a golfer who strikes irons well and putts less well. Two members with the same handicap may find they prefer different courses.

The routing adds more variety. Essential Golf reported that the course wraps around a lake and moves players among par 3s, 4s and 5s, so the hole types mix rather than repeat in long runs. Querencia publishes the full course routing map for anyone who wants to trace the holes before their first tee time.

Eighteen holes in one direction

Most of what Querencia has published about the round itself fits in three details, and each one shapes the day.

• Non-returning routing. The front nine does not loop back to a central point, and the course runs out across 400 acres. Once you head out, you are committed to the full 18 rather than two loops.
• 12-minute tee times. The club calls them "generously spaced" and links them to "a comfortable pace of play as players learn our new golf course." Querencia uses the same 12-minute spacing on Campo Bajo, so the spacing will feel familiar while the holes do not.
• Comfort stations on the course. Querencia says they "will be thoughtfully placed along the course to accent the landscape and provide welcome moments to recharge mid game." On a routing that never passes the clubhouse at the turn, those stops replace the usual halfway break.

Access stays the same. Campo Alto, like Campo Bajo, is for resident members and their guests. Querencia has not published yardage, rotation rules between the two courses, or changes to how tee times are booked. Members will get those details from the club.

How the course reached the ridge

The build has moved in visible stages. Some of them are confirmed, and the last one is still a planned date.

1. Early 2025. Essential Golf reported that Fazio was returning to design a second course at Querencia.
2. April 2026. On his visit for Mexico News Daily, Sands found about 80 workers on site. The first 13 holes were grassed and "look almost ready to play," while the "five dramatic finishing holes" were still a work in progress.
3. Late July 2026. In Episode 18 of Querencia's "Creating Campo Alto" video series, uploaded July 31, the club said all 18 holes had been grassed.
4. Oct. 5, 2026. Mexico News Daily said Campo Alto "will open soon," with a members' grand-opening event planned for Nov. 6.
5. Mid-October 2026. Querencia's own course page still says "currently underway" and gives a "planned debut in 2026," with no specific date.

The roughly four months between those grassing reports matter for how the course will play in its first season. When the five finishing holes were grassed later than the first 13, the course had uneven grow-in time. That gap gives the club one more reason to space tee times widely while everyone learns the holes.

When your guests can't play Campo Alto

The opening gives Querencia members a second private round. It does not add a course for houseguests who are visiting without a member. For those weeks, the bigger news this season is on the Pacific side.

Mexico News Daily reports that the Ernie Els-designed Oleada Golf Links, at the 860-acre Oleada development between Diamante and Rancho San Lucas, began preview play this summer. It is scheduled to open formally for limited public play in November. Later it becomes a private members' course, with access kept for guests of on-site resorts such as Grand Hyatt Los Cabos Golf and Spa and Conrad Los Cabos. The same report describes links-style golf exposed to Pacific wind, which is a different test again from either Querencia course.

Closer to home, the same article says the first six holes of El Once, an 11-hole par-3 course by Agustín Pizá at Palmilla Reserve, are due to open later this year. It is planned as an amenity for Reserve Club members, with the full course finished by the end of 2027. Short-course golf is getting a foothold along the corridor, much as Querencia's two big courses are drawing further apart in character.

If you are deciding how much Campo Alto, Campo Bajo or a Querencia membership will be part of your season, Goldsmith Group can walk you through how the two courses fit into ownership at Querencia. Schedule Your Private Los Cabos Consultation.