If you are looking for a charity golf tournament near Barcelona this autumn, the Manel Beltrán tournament is played on 3 and 4 October at La Roca Golf and reaches its 22nd edition. It started in 1993 as a birthday lunch between friends who played golf, and since 2013 it has had a second purpose: everyone who plays brings food and supports a social cause. Across all those years the tournament has collected more than 30,000 kg of basic supplies. It is open to visitors, so you can play it even if this is your first time at the club.
The essentials in 20 seconds
- When: Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 October 2026. Tee times run consecutively on the 3rd; shotgun start at 9.00 am on the 4th.
- Where: La Roca Golf, in La Roca del Vallès, 30 minutes from Barcelona.
- Format: Individual Stableford, men’s and women’s categories.
- Entry: €30 for members, €78 for visitors. You take part by bringing food, which goes to the Menjador Solidari Gregal.
From a birthday lunch to a tournament with its own name
Manel Beltrán has spent his working life in finance, but his other great passion has always been sport. He has been involved in basketball, swimming and golf, sometimes as an athlete and sometimes from the board. He took up golf in the nineties, playing his way around the courses of Catalonia, and in 2006 he arrived at this club, which became La Roca Golf in 2012 after a change of ownership.
The tournament, though, is older than his arrival here: for years it was played on other courses. This photograph is from October 2005, in Taradell, with the banner and the whole group posing after their round.
When Manel settled at La Roca Golf, the tournament came with him and grew into one of the fixed dates of the year, alongside the Barbecue Tournament. If you are planning a golf trip, it also happens to be one of the friendliest weekends to discover the course: our guide to golf in Barcelona covers the rest of the area.
2013, the year the tournament changed its purpose
The event worked, and every year more people came. In 2013, Manel and his wife Manuela realised that, with more than a hundred players gathering anyway, the day could be used to help people who were going through a hard time.
That is how the charity side was born. The mechanics are simple and have not changed: if you play, you bring food and basic supplies. Marquees go up next to the clubhouse, and over the two days they fill with pallets of rice, pulses, oil, milk, tinned food and sugar. When it is over, everything is loaded up and delivered.
By Manel’s own count, the editions since 2013 now add up to more than 30,000 kg. This year the collection goes to the Menjador Solidari Gregal, a community kitchen in Barcelona devoted entirely to feeding older people without resources.
“None of this would have been possible without the generosity and commitment of the players, the sponsors and La Roca Golf.”
Manel Beltrán
The 22nd edition: 3 and 4 October
These are the practical details for this year:
| Dates | Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 October 2026 |
| Times | 3rd: consecutive tee times · 4th: shotgun start at 9.00 am |
| Format | Individual Stableford, men’s and women’s categories |
| Entry | Members €30 · Visitors €78 |
| Included | On-course refreshments, prize draw, prize giving and an aperitif afterwards |
| In aid of | Menjador Solidari Gregal |
Prizes are awarded in four categories:
- 1st and 2nd, men’s higher handicap
- 1st and 2nd, men’s lower handicap
- 1st scratch, open to all
- 1st and 2nd, women’s handicap
If you are coming for the first time, have a look at how to get to La Roca Golf: we are half an hour from Barcelona on the AP-7.
The Thursdays that built a community
There is one more thing Manel started a decade ago that now runs by itself: the Pool La Roca Golf, a Thursday gathering that brings together around sixty players every week.
It is not a league or an elite competition. It is the people who sign up every week, play, and stay afterwards to talk the round over with a beer. That habit, repeated for ten years, is what turns a group of players into a community. Many of the people who enter the tournament met there, on an ordinary Thursday, on an amateur golf outing with no greater ambition than enjoying the game.
“Sport has been and still is a meeting point for me, a place for friendship and solidarity, values I try to pass on every day through my work at the club.”
Manel Beltrán
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to be a La Roca Golf member to play?
No. The tournament is open to members and visitors, at different prices: €30 and €78 respectively.
What food should I bring?
Non-perishable basics: rice, pasta, pulses, tinned food, oil, milk, sugar and hygiene products. That is what has arrived in the largest quantities in previous editions, and what is put to best use.
Can I donate food even if I am not playing?
Yes. The collection point is in the clubhouse area throughout both days of the tournament.
What standard of golf do I need?
It is an amateur tournament played in individual Stableford, the format that lets players of very different handicaps compete in the same event. People come to enjoy it.
Where does the food go?
To the Menjador Solidari Gregal, the charity benefiting from this edition, which is devoted entirely to feeding older people without resources.
See you on 3 and 4 October
A birthday lunch that ends up moving more than 30,000 kg of food is not explained by one person’s goodwill alone. It needs the same people to come back every year, and to bring others with them.
If you would like to be part of the 22nd edition, places are booked through the Clapphouse app. And if you do not know the club yet, this is probably the best possible way to meet it. Discover La Roca Golf and all our ways to play.
