We have been prone, at times, to questioning the input of celebrity golfers when it comes to signature design. It’s not just because of our knowledge of the industry, the fact is that generally speaking signature design involves an associate doing the work on the ground and reporting back to the main celebrity golf ‘designer’. Even more commonly, the celebrity golfer only turns up for a photo shoot at the start of the project and again at completion, and has very little to do with the creation of the course.

On some of Nick Faldo’s earlier courses his involvement in the design process was minimal, and until reading up on the Amendoeira Golf Resort project we had assumed that to be the case again here. The Faldo Course at Amendoeira is a brute, and so strangely designed as to seem unlikely to have been of Sir Nick’s intention. There are some very extreme areas, and a routing that you simply couldn’t walk without Olympic levels of fitness. Throw in expansive sandy waste areas that seem at odds with the remnant cacti, olive trees, shrubs and wild herbs that line the holes and provide a visual contrast. The course was well maintained when we visited, but miss the fairways and your ball could end in a pristine bunker or a lush rough or, alternatively, any combination of a dusty dessert wash, rocky ravine or unplayable grove of dense trees.

Faldo was known as a precise shot-maker during his playing career, and perhaps that explains the steep green sites here, as well as the severe internal target zones, frontal bunkers and heaving undulations where even the slightest miss is punished to the maximum.

While there are pleasant areas on the front nine, and some nice views on the back, the severity of the uphill climbs and long transitions between holes on the inward side destroy any credibility this course might have otherwise attracted. The stretch of the 11th, 12th and 13th doesn’t help either. Each hole is poor and the 11th, played over a pond to an over-shaped, steep and penal green complex, is followed by a long drive up a hill to get to a short par four whose extreme green is fronted by a sharp false front and only reachable after negotiating a staggered fairway cut into a hillside.

Completing an unforgettable stretch of golf is a super-human par five which heads across a ravine to a fairway that bends sharply to the right, splits and tumbles toward a distant target. Even if par is unlikely, the view and the memory of trying to hit three perfect shots will live with the golfer long after the round.

Better are holes like the push-up par three 2nd, the double dogleg 4th and attractively bunkered mid-length 8th and 9th holes. The rest is fairly tough and likely to frustrate those who believe in variety, playability and the skill of routing an intimate loop of holes. Good players may love The Faldo Course at Amendoeira but many green-fee paying visitors are likely to prefer the more gentle and charming Algarve courses closer to the coast.

As for Faldo, we were prepared to give him a pass as a ‘celebrity’ consultant here, rather than the actual designer, but the comments attributed to him by the resort suggest he was more heavily involved than that. With more than a decade of design experience under his belt since the course opened, it would be interested to see how he viewed Amendoeira today and which elements, if any, he would alter.

Said Sir Nick Faldo of the Faldo Course at Amendoeira; "This was a very exciting project, which gave me a great opportunity to exploit my passion for design the same way I exploited my passion for playing. You have incredible views, beautiful undulating land and any time you have natural terrain like this, it is great fun to work with."

"The real skill is that when you stand on the tee, the golf hole tells you what to do and if you do what it tells you there is reward but if you don't you're penalised. The back nine is quite hilly, which is fantastic because we've got some great views to complement the course."

"I like my courses to be challenging to whoever plays them. There might be easy holes in some places, but they are a challenge because you have to think about them, and that is what I am after. The best compliment you can get in the design business is when players come off the course and say 'wow, that was a challenge,' and that's just what I planned at Amendoeira Golf Resort."