Palmilla Golf Club Runs Through One Nine This Winter While Its Next Layout Gets Built

"A significant investment in the complete transformation of the golf experience at Palmilla." That is how Lloyd Walton, director of golf at One&Only Palmilla Golf Club, described the current work to Mexico News Daily in its October 5 golf guide. This high season, every member and resort-guest round at the club runs through the Arroyo nine.

Golf here has always had more than one route. Jack Nicklaus's Mountain and Arroyo nines opened in 1993 as the first 18-hole course in Los Cabos. The Ocean nine followed in 1999 and brought the total to 27 holes. This winter, the club's members and resort guests all share a single nine. The club that comes back over the next two years will also be laid out differently. Short-course golf will be split between the One&Only club and a separate private course at Palmilla Reserve, and each is run for a different membership on its own timeline.

The whole club, on the Arroyo loop

The club's own site describes the 2026 season as "the start of exciting transformations." It also says that in the current first phase, "the Arroyo course remains open, and can be played as 9 or as an 18-hole loop." A temporary facility handles long-range and short-range practice in the meantime. The One&Only Palmilla golf page says the same for resort guests: the Arroyo course is playable, and temporary practice facilities are open.

Access is limited to two groups. According to Palmilla Golf Club, the Arroyo course is exclusive to club members and One&Only Palmilla guests. So every member round and every resort-guest round this season goes onto the same nine holes. That is the baseline for planning a winter of golf at home.

The sources don't publish a few things. Neither the club nor the resort gives a tee-time allocation between members and guests or a winter booking window. The club's clubhouse page lists the Palmilla Social Club with its café and all-day dining but gives no hours. The club's shop and practice page says golf shop hours are seasonal and asks visitors to call. Calling the golf shop is the only published way to check on a specific morning.

Why the work runs into 2028

The timeline looks long because the job goes all the way down to the infrastructure. Walton told Mexico News Daily that the club is working with Fry/Straka Global Golf Course Design. Their brief is to respect Nicklaus's original design "while comprehensively modernizing the courses, infrastructure and overall golf experience."

According to Walton in that same report, the scope covers:

• New Tahoma 31 Bermuda turfgrass
• Greens rebuilt to modern USGA specifications
• New bunkers and tees, with the playing corridors reshaped
• New cart paths and landscaping
• Full replacement of the irrigation and drainage systems

That last item explains the calendar. Walton said much of the existing infrastructure, the irrigation system included, dates back more than 30 years to the course's original development. Replacing what sits underneath a fairway means the fairway has to come out first. That is why the work goes in phases rather than closing everything for one short season.

The phases, as Mexico News Daily laid them out:

1. Now: the Mountain and Ocean courses are closed, and the Arroyo nine stays open for 9-hole or doubled 18-hole rounds.
2. By the end of 2027: work on the Mountain and Ocean nines and the rebuilt practice facility is scheduled to be finished. The new practice area adds target greens and dedicated short-game areas.
3. By the end of 2028: the Arroyo course is scheduled to be completed.

The two descriptions of the project don't match exactly. Mexico News Daily says the Ocean course is being "completely reimagined" as a new nine-hole par-3 plus an eight-hole short course. The club's homepage describes the club's "unique 18-hole design" as the Mountain and Arroyo courses. It lists the work as a full renovation of those two, a rebuilt practice facility, and "an entirely new Par 3 experience, chipping course and putting course." Both sources agree that Arroyo is open now. The finished club will center on an 18-hole Mountain and Arroyo course, with short-format golf where the old Ocean nine was.

A second short course, for a different membership

The same Mexico News Daily guide covers a different project elsewhere inside Palmilla, and it is easy to confuse with the club's new par-3. El Once is an 11-hole par-3 course at the western end of Palmilla Reserve. It was designed by Agustín Pizá and is being built by Landscapes Unlimited. Mexico News Daily calls it the second par-3 short course in Los Cabos, after Diamante's 12-hole Tiger Woods Oasis Short Course, which opened in 2017.

The details give it its own character. The course covers 1,017 yards on 17 acres, running through a valley between the Valley Estates homesites and the ridge where The Summit's homes sit on Palmilla's highest point. Every green has two flags. According to the Landscapes Unlimited release on The Golf Wire, that makes it the first course in Los Cabos built this way. The Reserve Club clubhouse sits at the edge of the course, near The Commons, the park and trail system that links Palmilla Park to the rest of the community.

Membership is what separates El Once from everything else in this post. The release calls it a private course for members of The Reserve Club at Palmilla Reserve. Nothing in it mentions access for One&Only guests or the public.

Its timeline also runs separately from the club's. The September 9 release said six of the 11 holes would open "later this year," with no specific date. At that point shaping was finished, the lake, pump station and drainage work was still underway, and grassing was "to soon follow," according to Marvin Cruz, who directs Landscapes Unlimited operations in Mexico and the Caribbean. Golf Course Architecture covered the course's approach to completion the same day. Mexico News Daily expects the full course to be finished by the end of 2027.

Palmilla households will feel this season differently depending on their club. A Reserve Club member may have new short-course holes in play before the end of 2026. A One&Only Palmilla Golf Club member has the Arroyo loop and a temporary range.

Where the full rounds can go this winter

For golfers who want a different 18 than Arroyo twice, the nearest options are public courses in San José del Cabo run by Questro. None of the sources ties them to the Palmilla renovation, and the sources show no reciprocal-play arrangement between Palmilla and any other course.

Puerto Los Cabos and Club Campestre both list online booking and full practice facilities on Questro's pages. Questro also sells a Questro Golf Pass that includes one round at each course. Rates are on those live pages and can change, so the operator is the place to check before booking.

For One&Only Palmilla Golf Club members, the published options this winter are the Arroyo loop, the temporary range, and public tee times at Puerto Los Cabos or Club Campestre. That holds until the Mountain nine and the new practice facility come back, which is scheduled for the end of 2027.

If you're weighing a Palmilla home, or just want to understand how the club's phases and the Reserve Club's timeline affect a particular address, Goldsmith Group can go through the details with you, from which golf a property can access to when each course is scheduled to reopen. Schedule Your Private Los Cabos Consultation.