Tazegzout Golf (Vert & Rouge)

Our first Top 10 chart for Morocco was published in 2010, then we doubled the number of courses featured in 2016. Those rankings have only been updated once since then in 2020 so it’s high time that situation was remedied, especially as we’ve made several trips to the country in the last few years and visited quite a few of the contenders. The 18-hole layout at Golf du Palais Royal d’Agadir became our national #1 ten years ago, following our participation in the pro-am for the Hassan II Golf Trophy in 2012, when the professional tournament was staged in Agadir. Since the event moved back to Rabat in 2016, the gates to the course have remained firmly shut – indeed, a tight security cordon around the palace keeps golfers well away, as we found out a few months ago after inadvertently taking a wrong turn on the way to another nearby golf facility. With that in mind, we’ve decided to pay more attention to the other chart candidates, allowing the esteemed Robert Trent Jones Senior design in Agadir to fall naturally in the new rankings due to a lack of support from a local panel of industry experts who we’ve consulted. Essentially, they’ve told us you can’t vote for what you can’t gain access to! Has there been changes made to the layout in the last eight years? Does the course still enjoy the same high standard of maintenance? Questions like these remain unanswered so, for now, we’ll have to largely overlook the former Hassan II Golf Trophy venue and concentrate on the many other top-class courses in the Kingdom which are accessible to ordinary golfers. Royal Golf Dar Es Salam And so, the Red course at Royal Golf Dar Es Salam (another RTJ design from the late 1960s) returns to the top spot in our Moroccan listings. It’s the premier 18-hole layout at a fabulous 45-hole complex outside Rabat and the layout has profited from a recent bunker renovation by architect James Duncan that really needs to be seen to be believed. Al Houara Crashing straight into our listings at #2 is the Hilton Tangier Al Houara Resort & Spa course which was officially opened late last year by Graham Marsh and Vijay Singh. Playing surfaces are carpeted throughout in paspalum grass, affording a very links-like playing experience close to the Atlantic coast, with extensive practice areas and a 9-hole floodlit short course complementing the main layout. Tazegzout The Vert and Rouge nines at Tazegzout Golf (up one place to #6) lie atop the escarpment overlooking Taghazout Bay, half an hour’s drive north of Agadir, and they’ve now been joined by an entertaining 9-hole short course (the Bleu) on the lower level, close to the beach. Designed by Kyle Phillips and unveiled ten years ago, the main course builds to an exciting climax over the last three holes. Fairmont Royal Palm Marrakech The 18-hole layout at Fairmont Royal Palm Marrakech edges one place up the new standings to #9. Opened for play ten years ago, it’s a Cabell Robinson production that underwent an extensive bunker renovation last year, involving the rebuilding of all the sand hazards, which resulted in some of the traps being reduced in size while others were totally filled in to improve the overall playability. Royal El Jadida Also moving up one spot in our new table to #10, the 18-hole layout at Royal El Jadida is (like Tazegzout) operated by Madaëf Golfs, the first golf network in Morocco with a total of nine courses in its portfolio. James Duncan has also been busy here of late, carrying out a large-scale upgrade which entailed the redesign of tee boxes, renovation of bunkers and relocation of several greens. Golf du Soleil The Championship course at the 36-hole Golf du Soleil complex is our biggest chart climber, rising three places to #13. Completely renovated in 2019 with a change of playing surfaces, reconstruction of greens, refurbishment of lakes and installation of a new irrigation system, the layout is complemented by the shorter Tikada course, making this place the ideal venue for a full day of golf in Agadir. Al Maaden Golf Resort Advancing two rungs on the ladder to #18, the course at the Al Maaden Golf Resort is possibly the most unique golfing layout you will ever play. Holes were laid out by Kyle Phillips around a geometrical “Moroccan water garden” from Spanish landscape designer Fernando Caruncho in the middle of the property – you’ll absolutely love it or hate it but you’ll never forget it! Akenza We understand the new 18-hole Akenza course (yet another design from Kyle Phillips) between Noria and PalmGolf Ourika in Marrakech, is due to open in September. That means we’ll definitely be back to the Red City this winter to check out the likelihood of this layout featuring in the next edition of our Moroccan listings. To view the entire detailed list of our latest Top 25 Golf Courses of Morocco click the link. View list here. If you have any comment to make on the above article then please use the “WRITE A RESPONSE” link at the bottom of this page. Jim McCann Editor Top 100 Golf Courses

Top 100 Golf Courses revisits Morocco to appraise more Top 20 chart contenders We strive to keep on top of golfing developments in the Western Kingdom Six months ago, our Morocco Top 20 review concluded with an indication that we’d like to take a closer look this year at courses outwith the Marrakech area. Well, we’ve done just that, visiting Agadir on the Atlantic coast in January then returning last month to have a look at more than a dozen courses in Casablanca, Fes, Tangier and Rabat. It now means we’ve played or visited 32 of the 36 golf facilities currently in operation around the Western Kingdom so we think we’re now uniquely qualified to report on the very best that Morocco has to offer the visiting golfer from abroad. We’ve not yet seen the 9-hole courses at Royal Golf Anfa, Settat University or Bousnika Bay. Neither have we visited the 18-hole layout at Palmeral Golf Saïdia, close to the Algerian border in the northeast. Apart from those four, we’ve been to all the others. Our short visit to Agadir in January began with a look at Tazegzout, the new Kyle Phillips course located a short twenty minute drive north of the busy coastal holiday resort. The sporting centrepiece of an enormous residential project that’s still under construction, the course quietly builds to a crescendo on the back nine, concluding with three holes laid out along the edge of the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. We also had a look around the charming 9-holer at Royal Agadir, where the course and the clubhouse seem happily lodged in a 1950s time warp, around the time the club was first established. It’s a lovely little golfing oasis which very few tourists venture to see, which is a real pity as there’s lots of good golf to be played here amongst really passionate local golfers at this old club. The 27-hole layout at Golf les Dunes is a modern Cabell Robinson design of some distinction, with the tree-lined Oued nine by far the best of its three 9-hole circuits. Next door, Golf du Soleil offers two fine 18-hole layouts, though the Championship course is definitely the one to play for those who only have time for one round. Four months later, and we were back in May to have a look around facilities in the north of the country, starting in Bouskoura, just outside Casablanca, where three new courses are situated in close proximity to each other. The first of these, Casa Green, is a Jeremy Pern layout that’s set in a surprisingly undulating landscape, featuring paspalum greens and an enormous, crescent-shaped practice putting green in front of the clubhouse. The Tony Jacklin Casablanca course is a Blake Stirling and Marco Martin design, with a signature par three hole playing to an island green at the 6th hole, and it’s laid out within a rather strange U-shaped property, with the opening and closing holes on the front nine set next to a forest. The PalmGolf Casablanca course is an expansive Stéphane Talbot design – complete with a scaled down version of the Oakmont pew bunkers on the 17th hole – where generously wide fairways are grassed with paspalum and the greens with penncross bentgrass. PalmGolf is the pick of these three facilities, on a par with its well-regarded stablemate PalmGolf Ourika, near Marrakech. Half an hour’s drive northwest, the old Royal Mohammedia course on the coast is another throwback in time, where it feels like nothing much has changed around the clubhouse in a very long time. Nobody’s exactly sure when the club was formed or who the original course architect was but that only seems to add to the mystique of a magical old place to play golf. The new course at Oed Fes Golf is a Jonathan Gaunt design that lies on a fairly flat property close to the city centre. Water comes into play at several holes, most notably at the right doglegged 8th and left doglegged 17th, and the Director of Golf, Alijandro Avila, is doing a fabulous hands-on job fine tuning the original design, paying particular attention to extending a number of greens. South of the city, Royal Fes started out as a 9-hole course in 1994 then Cabell Robinson returned a decade later to add another nine. Such is the skill with which the new holes were constructed, it’s impossible to tell which holes belong to the original layout and which were added to a course that displays maturity way beyond its years. The course at Royal Golf Meknes lies within the walls of the royal palace, in the heart of the city. It’s not generally open to the public but – after some negotiation with the three lines of security outside – we managed to arrange a quick look around the deserted 9-hole course, where the fairways are laid out around the palace gardens. The dead flat holes are not much to shout about in terms of their architecture, but their small raised greens with large protecting bunkers are absolutely exquisite and they alone were worth the effort to gain admission to the palace grounds. Further north, the course at Royal Country Club de Tangier is the oldest in Morocco, with the club celebrating its centenary in 2014. It’s not known who originally laid out the fairways, though Gustave Golias, an assistant to Arnaud Massy at La Boulie in Paris, is said to have had a hand in early design work. Frustratingly, as at Royal Mohammedia, nobody at the club was able to shine a light on the provenance of what is a wonderful old course which is sadly in much need of a maintenance budget. Our tour ended with a visit to Royal Dar Es Salam, outside Rabat, where the Red and Blue courses were hosting simultaneous European Tour and LPGA events. There’s not many clubs capable of holding two tournaments of that magnitude at the same time but it really does help to have the resources of the state at your disposal when organizing such competitions! No expense is spared when hosting the Trophée Hassan II and Lala Merryem Cup competitions as the government and the royal family use them as a means of promoting Morocco to the rest of the world. At the moment, there are a handful of golf projects currently under development in the country. We visited the newly completed Jacklin course in Marrakech last December (it’s due to open in October) and we received an escorted tour around the new Al Houara project when we were in Tangier, but that’s still a work in progress. A second Gary Player course at Mogador is well under way (13 holes are already constructed), work has recently started on what’s supposed to be a fabulous new Jack Nicklaus mountain course at Ifrane, and the first nine of Robin Hiseman’s new design at Plage des nations, north of Rabat, is currently growing in. As you can see, there’s little let up in Morocco’s national golf development program so expect to read more first-hand reports from the northwest of Africa in the months ahead as these and other exciting golf projects come to fruition. Expect also to see several newcomers when the next Moroccan Top 20 is re-ranked. And don’t be surprised if one of the Fes courses and (at least) one of the new Bouskoura layouts make an appearance. Remember where you read it first… Jim McCann Editor Top 100 Golf Courses

Seach for “Morocco” on this website and you’ll be presented with a whole series of articles, dating back to April 2012 when we published Morocco, the Kingdom of Golf, is waiting to welcome you… Since then, we’ve made several excursions to different regions around the country, exploring the various golf facilities that operate close to all the major cities, from Saïdia on the Mediterranean Sea in the northeast to Agadir on the Atlantic Ocean in the southwest. Links to these trip reports are listed at the bottom of this article for further reading. Marrakech boasts a dozen courses around the perimeter of the Red City, and we’ve also visited most of the coastal layouts between Essaouira and Rabat then beyond to Tangier – in fact, there’s less than a handful golf locations that we’ve yet to see around the nation. We created a Top 10 chart for Morocco back in 2012 which was doubled in size three years later. These rankings were updated in 2020 then further extended to a Top 25 last year so, all things considered, we think we’ve a reasonable grasp of all things golf-related within the country. Last month, we were invited to attend what was marketed as the “Return of the Champions” – comprising the 48th edition of the Hassan II Golf Trophy and 27th edition of the Lalla Meryem Cup at Royal Golf Dar Es Salam in Rabat. This golfing extravaganza featured 66 players from the PGA Tour Champions circuit on the Red course and 108 professionals from the Ladies European Tour on the Blue course (the 18th hole on this layout is pictured at the top of the article). What appears next is a blog-style account of how the week unfolded… MONDAY After a late breakfast at the Sofitel hotel in Rabat on the Monday morning, we took the shuttle bus for the 20-minute journey to the Media Centre for accreditation then a wander around the golf club campus to familiarize with the location of the Players’ Lounge, Caddy Area, Exhibitor Units – and the all-important Food Court for lunch! As most of the press people had still to arrive, it give us a chance to sit down with a couple of folk who would keep us right during the week, namely Michel Besanceney (General Co-ordinator of both competitions) and Mounia El Khettar (Communication Director from the Royal Moroccan Golf Federation). Another person who rarely gets in the spotlight at big events is the head greenkeeper so we made a point of talking to Australian Simon Rees, previously at Abu Dhabi Golf Club, who told us when we were here in May last year of his plans to convert the fairways to a type of grass that’s more suited to the Rabat climate. He has experience of setting up for big international events before so he appeared very relaxed about the following few days. A walk round a few holes close to the clubhouse confirmed everything was in position for the week ahead. Both Robert Trent Jones Sr-designed courses have been upgraded in recent years, with James Duncan working on the Red and Cabell Robinson on the Blue, and the results of these big budget improvements are very impressive. TUESDAY The main focus on Day 2 was the Press Conference for both tournaments, attended by the Stephen Ames (winner of last year’s men’s event), Miller Brady (President of the PGA Tour Champions), Alexandra Armas (CEO of the Ladies European Tour), local player Ines Laklalech (who won the Lacost Ladies Open de France in 2022) and a couple of officials from the Royal Moroccan Golf Federation. Miller Brady mentioned that this was the third of twenty-eight events to be played in 2024 across 19 states in the US and three other countries (Morocco, Scotland and Canada), with the first two competitions already staged in Hawaii and Florida. He felt sure the Hassan II Golf Trophy Tournament would be a resounding success, despite a weather forecast of rain along the way. Alexandra Armas reminded everyone the Lalla Meryem Cup was being played for the 12th time as part of the LET schedule and that last year’s winner Maja Stark from Sweden had gone on to represent Europe in the Solheim Cup, winning 2.5 points from the four matches she played in. She looked forward to an abundance of young players teeing it up with the aim of following in Maja’s footsteps. A second press conference was then convened by the LET to announce hosting details for the Lalla Aïcha Qualifying School in December, which will be staged for the next three years in Marrakech. Pre-qualification will take place over three rounds on four courses at Palm Golf Ourika, Palmeraie Rotana, Noria and Samanah before final qualification over five rounds at Royal Marrakech and Al Maaden. In the evening, a group of journalists headed out of the hotel by taxi to the Rabat medina in search of the Dar Zaki restaurant. It took a little time to locate it among the narrow alleyways but, what a find – no wonder it’s rated #1 out of 356 in Rabat by tripadvisor.com! The food was simple but wonderful, with a selection of sharing starters and mains the way to go. And with a bill of less than eighty euros for five people it was an absolute bargain for a meal to remember. WEDNESDAY We were invited to participate in the Friendship Cup pro-am with players from the PGA Tour Champions the day before the serious business got under way. Team Stableford totals consisted of both the professional’s score and the 4-person amateur team score (playing in a scramble format). Royal Golf Dar Es Salam has just completed a new practice facility (with soon to open library, museum and offices) where professionals and pro-am participants were able to warm up prior to teeing it up on the 1st hole. At the last minute, one of our European Golf and Travel Media Association members had to drop out through injury but Omar Lamrini from the golf club stepped in to make up the numbers. Professional Mario Tiziani from Michigan, the brother-in-law of Steve Stricker, led the line and he played a very solid round, contributing to a total score of 77 points which saw the team finish 15th out of 30, so no disgrace there. The slow pace of play did however give us a chance on several tees to chat to John Daly, the professional in the group behind us who, with his country music blaring away on his cart, has to be one of the most laid-back golfers you’ll ever come across – all that was missing was a case of beers in the back of the buggy! Unfortunately, our very slow round of six and a half hours gave us no opportunity to look in on the Pro-Am Hassan II Kids Cup by First Tee on the 9-hole Green course, where nine teams of three (two children and one pro) participated in a fun competition. The Royal Moroccan Golf Federation signed a partnership with First Tee USA in 2019 to transmit skills and life values to young people through golf and so far more than two hundred youngsters have benefitted from this program across five Moroccan cities. Later in the evening at the invitation-only Cocktail Party in the Fairmont La Marina Rabat Salé Hotel a couple of EGTMA members from Ireland, Ann Mooney and Geraldine Bradley, were spied in the company of Colin Montgomerie and his wife Sarah. When asked if they were now frequenting Elland Road more often during the current football season, Monty confessed he’d actually been to Anfield quite a bit (as Sarah is a Liverpool fan) but they’ll hopefully see a lot more of Leeds United later in the year – assuming they get promoted to the Premier League in May! We also got the chance to have a quick chat with architect James Duncan about the course improvements made to the Red course at Dar Es Salam, the upgrade of the El Jadida course and his latest project at Brambles in California. He also has an interest in the Coul Links development in Scotland so perhaps he’ll be back in Caledonia before too long? THURSDAY The first two days of competition at RGDES were earmarked for a couple of side trips, away from Rabat, so the Thursday was spent in Bouskoura on the southern outskirts of Casablanca, where three golf courses are all situated close to one another within large residential developments. Casa Green (pictured above) was first up in the morning and it’s one of nine Madaëf Golfs facilities in Morocco, with the course designed by French-based Jeremy Pern. Following a buggy tour of the property, a lengthy chat with Director of Golf Reda Bennis was one of the more interesting hours spent during the entire week – there’s nothing like local knowledge to keep you abreast of developments. In the afternoon, there were similar visits paid to the nearby Tony Jacklin Casablanca and Palmeraie Country Club golf courses. Whether any of these three Bouskoura layouts make it into our next Moroccan listings remains to be seen but they all stand a chance. The brochure produced for The Return of the Champions devoted a page to seven courses to check out close to Rabat, namely the three that we visited at Bouskoura and four others: the 18-hole layouts at Bahia Beach [#24 in our Moroccan chart] and Royal Anfa Mohammedia [listed at #20], along with unranked 9-hole tracks at Bouznika Bay and Royal Golf Anfa. We didn’t have time to see these other four courses but they all remain in the frame for our next national chart update whenever it happens.  FRIDAY The IMG-operated facility at Michlifen is a 6-hour round trip from Rabat into the Middle Atlas mountains but we’ve been there a couple of times in the past and know it’s well worth the drive to get there and back. Jo Maes, President of EGTMA, was keen to have a look and so we set off from Rabat nice and early at 07:00. The image above shows the overcast weather on arrival but within minutes the very fine rain at altitude in the clouds was like a foggy mist, meaning you could see less than 50 metres in any direction! Playing a round of golf was out of the question, disappointingly. Head greenkeeper Alex Avila, who we’d previously met when he worked at Oued Fes Golf, showed us around the clubhouse and the academy, both of which are set up to the highest standards, before the Michlifen hotel general manager Abdelaziz Aoumeziti joined us for lunch. In the afternoon, we were given a tour of the 5-star hotel (located a 10-minute drive away in the centre of Ifrane) including the spa and enormous multi-sports hall (where Jo Maes was determined to display some of his old basketball skills). The hotel is designed and decorated like a luxury chalet where visitors come in the winter when the snow often falls (“Michlifen” means snow flake) or in summer to escape the heat in the cool mountain climate. Too bad rain stopped play for us on one of the days we were most looking forward to! SATURDAY And so, the culmination of the week-long trip brought us back to Rabat for the third and final day of play in both the men’s and ladies’ competitions. And to start the day, we wished every success on the 1st tee to one of our core team members, Panellist & Travel Consultant Javier Pintos, who was caddying for a fellow Argentinian, Ángel Cabrera, the two-time Major winner. “El Pato” as he is nicknamed, had a reasonable tournament, finishing joint 27th in a field of sixty-six. The man from Córdoba was only cleared to play again in PGA Tour-sanctioned events last December after spending some time in prison so it’ll be interesting to see how he gets on now in this comeback season. Of course, competitive golf is all about winners and it was another Argentinian, Ricardo González, who held off a strong challenge from Thomas Bjørn to finish one shot ahead of the Dane and claim the Hassan II Golf Trophy with a three-round total of ten under par. This prompted a mini-invasion of Argentinian supporters who were inside the ropes on the 18th green on the Red course when the final putt was sunk, with our man Javier right in the thick of things! The prize for winning the men’s tournament is a Moroccan dagger, known as “The Khandjar,” which the victor gets to keep. Across the road on the Blue course, Bronte Law from Stockport in England, completed her final round with a par four on the 18th to post a magnificent nine under par score of 64, edging out her nearest competitor Pauline Roussin-Bouchard by three shots as she claimed victory in the Lalla Meryem Cup. The prize for winning the ladies’ tournament is a “Minaudiere” clutch bag encrusted with precious stones which is a rather unique way to mark a special win on the LET circuit. At the press conference afterwards, Bronte gave fulsome praise to Ian Woosnam who has been helping her behind the scenes but her victory was tinged with a little regret that her parents had been unable to make the journey to Morocco to support her – maybe next year now when she returns as defending champion? If you have any comment to make on the above article then please use the “WRITE A RESPONSE” link at the bottom of this page. Jim McCann Editor Top 100 Golf Courses FURTHER READING On this website, click any of the nine links below: DECEMBER 2015 Top 20 Golf Courses of Morocco 2016 JUNE 2016 We’ve revisited Morocco to uncover further golfing delights APRIL 2017 We return to Morocco to find out what’s new in the Western Kingdom OCTOBER 2018 Moroccan golf reaches new heights in the Middle Atlas mountains at Ifrane JUNE 2020 Top 100 Golf Courses revises its North African rankings AUGUST 2022 Golf Resorts in the Red City of Marrakech JANUARY 2023 Agreeable resort golf in Agadir MAY 2023 Morocco is calling – what are you waiting for? JUNE 2023 Top 25 Golf Courses of Morocco 2023 Golf in Morocco: Land of Wonders is a big, glossy production that was published in 1996 to mark the Silver Jubilee of the Hassan II Trophy. Written by Barry Ward and Tom McArthur, with extensive photography from Brian Morgan, this book was something of a labour of love to produce for Mohamed Khnichich from Marrakesh Express Travel [ISBN 0 9529617 0 9].