Panama City · Panama
A Nicklaus course, a capital skyline, one address.
Panama City is among the easiest golf trips in the Americas to reach: Copa's hub at Tocumen connects most of the hemisphere nonstop, and The Santa Maria — a Luxury Collection hotel built over its own Nicklaus Design course, host of the 2024 Latin America Amateur Championship — packages four nights and three rounds with airport transfers and breakfast included.
Because this one puts a championship-pedigree course inside the city limits: Santa María Golf Club is Nicklaus Design's first course in Panama, it hosted the 2024 Latin America Amateur Championship, and the Luxury Collection hotel above it means the first tee sits on the hotel's own grounds, no commute involved.
Most golf trips trade convenience for quality somewhere. This one declines: the course carries real tournament record, the hotel is Marriott's Luxury Collection flag, and the whole arrangement sits — by Marriott's own measure — within nine miles of one of the best-connected airports in the Americas. Add a layover-friendly hub and you get a golf trip that fits where others cannot.
Scope, honestly drawn: the Santa Maria package is live and bookable today; ArriveGolf has not yet hosted a group week in Panama. What this page asserts is the verified record — the architect, the championship, the distances as Marriott states them — plus what the package itself carries.
A Nicklaus Design parkland from 2012 — rippling fairways, ponds waiting on the flats, sculpted white bunkers — played against the towers of downtown Panama City, with four tee sets keeping it honest for every handicap in the group. Troon manages the club, and the 2024 Latin America Amateur Championship is its calling card.
The 2024 Latin America Amateur Championship graded this course in public, and the first tee is part of the hotel grounds. Three rounds on it is the right number — enough to learn where the water actually pinches and to settle whatever the first two rounds started.
The skyline is not a backdrop trick. The course threads the Santa María district east of downtown, and from the right fairways the city's towers stand directly behind the greens — the rare round played under a capital's skyline.
A Luxury Collection hotel whose rooms overlook the fairways — the package books the Deluxe Golf View category — with three restaurants, a spa, an outdoor pool terrace facing the course, and daily breakfast included, so the golf-city trade-off runs in your favor: tee times by day, the capital's dining by night.
The package keeps meals beyond breakfast open on purpose: Panama City is a legitimate food town and the evenings belong to it, with the hotel's own three restaurants as the no-taxi fallback. Round-trip airport transfers are included, so the airport legs are handled before you land.
As easy as it gets in this hemisphere: Tocumen International is Copa Airlines' hub with nonstop links across North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean, and Marriott places The Santa Maria within nine miles of the airport and eight of downtown — the included transfer makes both numbers someone else's problem.
Copa's hub; hemisphere-wide nonstops
within nine miles, per Marriott
Latin America Amateur Championship
Panama's Pacific-side best
The calendar has one carve-out: arrivals from December 20 through January 7 are not offered. Either side of the holidays, the two simple rate seasons make planning easy — and the December-to-April dry months are the ones to circle if weather certainty is the priority.
The golf
The courses we build Panama City trips around, each with its designer and the numbers that matter. Your itinerary confirms your exact rotation. Facts from our verified course library.
The skyline round
Nicklaus Design's first course in Panama runs through the capital's Santa María district: par 72, 7,153 yards of rippling parkland with water waiting on the flats and the downtown towers standing behind the greens. In 2024 it hosted the Latin America Amateur Championship, the strongest amateur field in the region. It is the argument for a capital-city golf trip — the first tee is an elevator ride from your room.
The stay
The resorts we place our groups in, chosen so the golf, the dining, and the beach are all a short step from the room. Your itinerary confirms your group's resort.
Luxury Collection golf resort
The Luxury Collection's Panama City address: a hotel built over the fairways of its own Nicklaus Design course, with a Troon-managed golf club, three restaurants, a spa, and a pool terrace that looks across the greens to the skyline. Marriott puts it within nine miles of Tocumen International and eight miles of downtown — land, check in, and still make an afternoon tee time.
Explore the resort The Santa MariaOn the calendar
The dates we're running now. Every golfer books and pays for their own spot.
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