For almost seventy years, Royal Marrakech was the only golf course in town but that all changed in the 1990s with the appearance of first the Robert Trent Jones Snr-designed Palmeraie complex, followed shortly after by Cabell Robinson’s Amelkis golf facility.
Twenty years on, golf provision in Marrakech has expanded again with the introduction of three more 18-hole courses: Al Maaden (a Kyle Phillips layout which debuted in 2010), Samanah (a Nicklaus Design track that opened in 2011) and Assoufid (laid out by Niall Cameron and unveiled in 2012).
There’s also a 9-hole layout at Atlas Golf Club and European Golf Design completed the Montgomerie Marrakech course in 2015, so these are exciting times for golf developers in the Red City.
The Al Maaden course is, like all these new golfing projects, the centrepiece of a residential development that surrounds the perimeter of the course. It’s laid out on a rather flat landscape with fairways routed rather uniquely around a couple of geometric water features – one on either nine at holes 5, 6, 12 and 18 – that are intended to give golfers the feeling of playing through a Moroccan garden.
A little more earth appears to have been moved on the easternmost part of the property and this section of the course (between the 13th and 17th holes) offers subtle, aesthetically pleasing elevation changes, with several raised greens adding to the interest. And look out at the 18th fairway for Al Maaden’s beautifully manicured half sized version of the famous Oakmont Church Pews bunker.
