Cornelia (Prince) - Turkey

A really fun course to play from the black tees - lots of challenging holes with a good mix of water, trees and shaping fairways. Definitely worth a visit if you are in Belek

Cornelia was the last of nine courses that I visited on my recent golfing tour of the Belek region and it was the one that (pleasantly) surprised me most of all with the general naturalness of the layout, apart from one or two water-laden holes on the second nine of the Prince’s 18-hole layout.

I knew it was ranked as one of the Top 100 courses in Continental Europe, it had co-hosted the Eisenhower Trophy world amateur team championships for men in 2012, and it was a Nick Faldo design, so I really should have expected to find a top track when I entered the front gates.

What I wasn’t ready for was the maturity of a course that’s not quite a decade old yet. I also didn’t think I’d see such heavily contoured terrain used to great effect, with greens perched on top of little ridges and fairways bleeding seamlessly into the surrounding vegetation.

With umbrella pines flanking most holes, it can get a little tight in places – which is no bad thing because it keeps big hitters on the teebox in their place, perhaps even getting one or two people to think about using a club other than driver on some of the holes.

The two par threes on holes 1-9 are wonderful short holes, requiring forced carries across small gullies to raised greens, but the best holes for me were the par fours at the 4th and 7th, where the first doglegs right and up to a semi-blind green and the second narrows off the tee before veering right and down to the green.

I thought holes 10-18 formed the better back nine, with the short par three 12th – pictured – an exceptional short hole (despite the unsightly floodlights of Gloria’s sports stadium behind the hole) and the uphill par four 15th beautifully framed by majestic pine trees.

For me, holes 19-27 rely too much on water to dictate the strategic test on the inward half, and this nine culminates rather disappointingly in a home hole that sports a massive water fountain in the centre of a lake flanking the left side of the fairway.

Still, if you arrive early enough, there’s nothing to stop you playing all three loops in whatever order you like then making your own mind up about which two combine best as an 18-hole layout. We might not agree about which two nines are best but we’ll surely be similarly minded about the overall quality of a very stylish golf complex.

Jim McCann

This course could be amazing if they were efficient in the clubhouse and the fairways and greens were cut properly. The design is great but the finish is very poor. For 125 euros it is a great deal for the owner who pays his employees in a depreciating Turkish lira, but a rip off for anybody with a handicap below 20.

A fantastic challenging golf course. I would rank this course even higher up the top 100 list. A group of us played this course twice and the Carya twice in September 2013. What a great golfing experience! Having had golfing holidays in Portugal, Spain , and Tunisia, this was one of the best yet. The Cornelia course is beautiful, and designed to challenge all levels of golfer. If you only get pleasure from booming your driver and playing to your handicap then this is not the course for you. The course requires good course management and less use of the driver than usual. Many of the fairways are tight and have extreme slopes that kick your ball into trouble, so you need to keep the ball near the centre of fairway. I played well over my handicap both times I played the course, but I still thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Some of the group preferred the Carya which is more forgiving, but this was my favourite. I look forward to playing it again. A great golfing experience and I would highly recommend you play this course.

I played here last year with a group of friends and hated it then but thought I would give it another go as a few of them wanted to play there again. Well after this year, everyone disliked it. How it is so highly rated is beyond me. I notice a few comments from other reviewers that rang very true to us. If you hit the ball a long way, leave the driver at home as you will constantly run out of fairway. All the fairways slope off to the sides so anything other than dead straight will end up in the rubbish. Shame really as it is beautiful but unplayable in my opinion (and the other 7 that played)

This is a very good golf course but I fail to see how it rates so highly against Carya and Sultan. These two courses are in another league above. As a low handicap and long hitting player, the fairways are crowned and shots that seem to be straight down the middle seem to roll off into waste sand catchment areas and and you feel unfairly punished.

I played Cornelia in March 2011 with my team-mates on a trip to Belek. The piece of land is awesome, really beautiful pine trees give the course a much more mature look than it actually is (opened in 2006). Designwise Faldo did a very good job, the course is demanding and the architecture fits well to the land. Especially the Par 3's are strikingly beautiful. Unfortunately the greens were a disappointment. They do not look bad, but as a previous review states: "concrete hard but tee box slow.." I couldn't have said it more suitable, very strange and of course this tempered our delight. (the Sultan course for example had perfect greens the same week) Usually I like to walk a golf course, but in Cornelia a buggy might be a good idea. However be careful with the staff, we only rented trolleys for the day, which some staff guys pushed rudely in front of our feet, while they were apparently swearing at us, impudent behaviour for no comprehensible reason, I just didn't understand that. Having said that, the course is too good to look back in anger. With better greens it should get 6 balls.

Being a part of the golf travel industry gives me the chance of playing some great venues as part of my work and this is one of those times, as I did a site visit for the Argentine Golf Association preparing some info for 2012 Word Amateur. I played the course last week with 3 swedish colleagues (one of them ex European Tour Player who scored 4 under 68) and I was impressed by the design, really challenging and creative, I really liked it. As I didn´t carry my own set, played it without driver and I believe this made me not being able to test it with my best abilities, but all the same it was a very fun round. Many doglegs, some blind shots, a lot of hazards and very ondulated greens together with high temperatures and humidity will really test world´s top amateurs next year. A great Faldo creation, really worth the visit.

I played this course 3 times in October, 2011. I failed to understand why this course is rated that good. Design is average, fairways'quality is good, but the greens were terrible (way worse than at Carya, National or Montgomerie): they were very slow (don't think they were rolling any faster than 4-5 on stimpmeter), speed of the greens was very different on front 9 and back 9.

I played 7 golf courses in Turkey during the summer of 2010. Cornelia had the highest expectations given the number 1 rating in Turkey and high European rating. And I can see why. No expense spared, fantastic clubhouse etc. I have played two modern Faldo designs (this and Algarve) and, well, he likes to trick them up! I was well over my handicap, this is one tough course. It is certainly no resort course for feel good factor. A word of warning: buggies cost extra, and the layout of the design really does not allow for walking (we did). A buggy is a must. I rank it course number 3 in the region behind The Sultan and Lykia Links.