Quivira Los Cabos Celebrates 10th Birthday

Quivira Golf Club, a US$40-million Jack Nicklaus signature design on Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, is celebrating its 10th anniversary. Get ready for clifftop ocean views and a heart-thumping 1.2-kilometre thrill ride up the side of a mountain.

A decade filled with accolades has made time fly by for Quivira Golf Club, a wildly dramatic Jack Nicklaus design that grabbed the attention of golfers from the moment it opened on Mexico’s Baja Peninsula in 2014.

Canadian Golf Traveller attended the 10th anniversary celebration of a clifftop oceanside course that is surely one of the most gorgeously situated in the world. The sixth course built in booming Los Cabos by the Golden Bear is defined by panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean, towering granite cliffs, and rolling desert foothills. No surprise that Quivira placed an impressive third in Golf Digest’s 2024 ranking of Mexico’s best courses. 

Nicklaus’s layout is the centrepiece of Quivira Los Cabos, a master-planned luxury development at the Baja Peninsula’s southern tip that includes resorts Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Resort & Spa, The Towers at Pacifica, Pueblo Bonito Sunset Beach Resort, and three real estate communities. Tee times at Quivira Golf Club are available only to guests of Pueblo Bonito Golf & Spa Resorts and residents of the communities within Quivira Los Cabos.

“Our team has worked with the canvas Mother Nature provided to create what we hope is one of the most spectacular courses in the world,” Nicklaus said when Quivira opened. “This property afforded us a rare opportunity because of its topographic diversity and natural environment.”

Most holes at 7,085-yard Quivira Golf Club feature vistas of the ocean and, during the winter months, thrilling glimpses of breaching whales. More than eight years in the making, Nicklaus’s US$40-million layout climbs more than 107 metres. The heart-thumping 1.2-kilometre thrill ride between the fifth and sixth holes crosses arroyo-spanning bridges and traces a switchback route up the side of a mountain.

The real fun begins on the short sixth hole, a slanting dogleg par four chiselled into the side of a substantial cliff. At the dogleg, the hole suddenly plunges more than 100 feet to an oceanside green evilly designed to deflect badly struck balls into the pounding surf below.

Golfers have barely caught their breath before they arrive at the par three seventh, where Nicklaus carved his green into the base of a massive dune. Those brave enough to play the hole from the tips are faced with a wind-buffeted 180-yard shot over jagged boulders and the crashing ocean.

By now golfers are awestruck by how Nicklaus and his team somehow built this challenging yet always fair and fun golf course through such demanding terrain. Two more signature holes await on the back nine. The twisting par five 12th, shaped like a reverse ’S’, is a 635-yard monster that demands three long and precise shots to reach a green that turns two putts into three should you find yourself on the wrong side of the tier that runs through its middle.

And then there’s the 13th, a 138-yard par three that plays over an intimidating seaside chasm. Nicklaus takes pity on high-handicappers here by providing a generous bail-out area to the left that often kicks balls onto the putting surface.

A round at Quivira is a lot to take in, requiring time for reflection. Built into the experience—and included in the green fee—are four comfort stations serving-up tacos, burritos and other Mexican specialties, as well as alcoholic beverages.

Like every living thing, Quivira has evolved since its birth. In 2022, the debut of The Beach Club, an amenity for Quivira Los Cabos residents, required the elimination of the beachfront golf cart path that led to the former first tee. The old par-four 18^th hole, a links-style par four that plays to an infinity edge green, now serves as the first hole. And the original first hole, a left-to-right dogleg with a sandy arroyo crossing the fairway 100 yards short of the green, is now No. 2.

A happy benefit of the reordering of Quivira’s holes is that the par-four ninth hole (previously the eighth), which plays uphill to a bi-level green tucked in a cleft between the dunes, leads directly to Oasis, the club’s main comfort station and now a true marker of the midpoint of the round.

Still more changes. The corridor of the par four 17^th hole was appropriated for the construction of the Alvar residential community. With the par four 16^th hole becoming the 17^th during the reconfiguration, a new 18^th hole was built in 2022. This short par four swings to the right around a massive waste area to a slim, three-tiered green nestled in the dunes. 

Canadian Golf Traveller is thrilled to report that we concluded our final round at Quivira with a birdie on the new 18th, a hole of which we thoroughly approve.

More good news is that a second Nicklaus course is under construction at Quivira. Carved through rolling desert scrubland slightly further inland and expected to open in 2026, this one is designed to play at least a little more gently than its older sister. However, it still hasn’t been decided if the new course will be open to resort guests or remain the exclusive preserve of Quivira property owners.

No matter. Quivira Golf Club, one of Mexico’s best, is enough course for anyone.