Allegria

Developed by SODIC, Egypt’s leading real estate company, The Allegria is Greg Norman’s first North African golf course design, opening to rave reviews when it was first unveiled in 2010 on the outskirts of Cairo.

King Golf International – who recently built the Nicklaus Design courses at Monte Rei in Portugal and Samanah in Morocco – constructed the 18-hole layout and they laid out the playing corridors within a substantial residential development.

Plenty of sand was shifted to create the contours on a largely level site but the results are simply stunning as lush, rolling fairways – many of them characterised by large waste areas or beach bunkers next to water hazards – flow around the property.

The short 7th is a real feature hole on the front nine and a pin placement to the right of the green here forces a carry across water. It’s followed by a terrific par four which plays to an enormous double green that’s shared with the 13th.

A contender for signature hole must surely be the short par four 14th, which is a great risk/reward hole with a creek running along the right side of a fairway leading to a heavily protected green.

Currently managed by Troon Golf, The Allegria stands head and shoulders above all the other golf developments that have opened for business in Egypt since the late 1990s and it sets a very high benchmark for world-class golf in the region.