Archive for March 18th, 2009

Padraig Harrington - Homes Overseas

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

HOMES OVERSEAS - SPORTS CAFÉ

WITH RUPERT BATES

This month: Amendoeira, Portugal, with top golfer Padraig Harrington

The Homes Overseas Awards have the ultimate endorsement. Amendoeira, near the ancient Portuguese town of Silves on the Western Algarve, was recently voted Best Golf Development in the world.
And who has just gone and bought on the award-winning resort? Only Irishman Padraig Harrington, winner of two of golf’s Majors last year and, briefly, putting the incomparable Tiger Woods in the shade.
Harrington had a stellar 2008, retaining the Open Championship, golf’s most prestigious title, for a second successive year and then heading over to the United States to lift the US PGA Championship at Oakland Hills, Michigan.
Going into the US Masters at Augusta in April, Harrington is looking to complete the third leg of what has been dubbed the ‘Paddy Slam’, seeking to hold all four of golf’s major championships.
When Harrington won his first Open at Carnoustie, one of his two young boys Paddy famously ran up to the claret jug trophy and, with millions of television viewers listening, asked daddy if he could put ladybirds in it. Paddy you can also put the keys to a Portuguese villa in it. Harrington has bought a five-bedroom golf front home at Amendoeira, complete with private swimming pool, home cinema and gym.
The vast rewards for success on golf’s global stage make the purchase of a second home in the sun a little easier for Harrington than most, but the Dubliner has an affection and eye for property. “I would love to have more of a look around on my travels travels, but the golf does tend to dominate,” said Harrington.
He started visiting Portugal in the 1980s as part of the Irish golf team. When one of the world’s best golfers, with the globe to pick from and tournament winnings to invest, picks the Algarve, then the Portuguese coast truly has cemented its reputation as Europe’s number one golf destination.
“Apart from the weather of course, I find the Algarve a little like Ireland, with the people very friendly and relaxed and a great place for the kids.”
It is also a little like Ireland because it is full of Irish, who have colonised the Algarve and especially the golf tees.
“Portugal has some great courses and good land for golf. They have also not gone overboard like Spain. Crucially for buyers the property is generally well positioned in terms of the course, rather than pushing the houses onto poorer parts of the site.”
Harrington has a close connection with Oceanico, developers of Amendoeira and founded by Irishman Gerry Fagan and Englishman Simon Burgess.
Oceanico owns seven championship golf courses on the Algarve, including five in Vilamoura, and has a property portfolio worth over two billion euros.
Amendoeira won gold in the Best Golf Development category of the 2008 Homes Overseas Awards. “Of the two new beautifully executed courses at Amendoeira one is rocky, high maintenance and takes no prisoners, while the other is wide, open, smooth and welcoming. No prizes for guessing which was designed by Nick Faldo and which by Irishman Christy O’Connor Jnr,” wrote awards judge Peter Swain.
Around the courses are Moorish style villas and apartments on 640 acres of what were wheat and beetroot fields in the shadow of the Monchique mountains and scattered with olive, almond and carob trees.
Harrington was obviously listening to our judges, for he has decided, with a wealth of golfing property on the Algarve to choose from, to invest in Amendoeira. It might not have been just the judges he was listening to. Other leading golfers Lee Westwood, Darren Clarke, Paul McGinley and David Howell have also bought on the resort. Imagine as a nervous new member stumbling onto the first tee to find you are making up a four ball with three of that group.
The engaging Harrington would immediately have you at your ease. Ask most sportsmen to talk about life outside their profession and the conversation grinds to a halt. Harrington, by contrast, is delighted not to talk about golf and even says what a great job it must be writing about property around the world. I’ll trade it for your golf swing Padraig.
“I am a professional golfer, not a property mogul or a stockbroker genius, but I enjoy the security of property. Yes it has its ups and downs and is going through a fair old correction now. But it is a great long-term investment and with a young family and kids accumulating toys, a nice holiday home, rather than another hotel, is an obvious attraction and a nice familiarity.”
Amendoeira is not his only holiday home investment. Harrington, who has played in five Ryder Cups for Europe, is putting the finishing touches to a property at White Oak, North Carolina in the United States. White Oak is both a golf and equestrian community, with Captain Mark Phillips behind the equine facilities and Arnold Palmer the golf course designer. The development, backed by an Irish consortium, is set in 1100 acres in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains between Charlotte and Atlanta and, yes, has ‘an authentic Irish pub’.
Harrington is a trained accountant, so when it comes to assessing risk and weighing up capital appreciation, he does the figures. He is not into the idle property speculation that is currently burning so many fingers.
Harrington’s Portuguese and American homes are so green and with familiar accents all around, he cannot get too homesick, but the main home is in Dublin and his dream two and a half acre property. “It has got greens and tee boxes to practice, a gym and a golf room and one of those games rooms you dream of building as a kid,” said Harrington.
Talent, immense hard work and a mental strength means he is living out his dreams both on golf courses and in international real estate. Harrington says he has enough property for now, but should he beat Tiger Woods and company to win the US Masters who knows? An Irishman in a green jacket.