Thracian Cliffs - Bulgaria

Fantastic course and resort. Breath taking scenery and a real challenge, with each hole presenting a new challenge. A mix of tee positions means that the course can cater for all handicaps.

The front 9, hugging the cliffs and Black Sea, are arguably the more spectacular, although the back 9 competes with tee views stretching down to the sea behind and tricky greens to attack. Personal highlights include the 3rd (Par 5), 6th (Par 3), tight 8th (Par 4) and 12th (Par 4) - with many more holes equally as memorable.

This is on par with the very best resort courses in Europe, well worth a visit and a real gem of a find.

Reviewers below use words like crazy, spectacular, breathtaking and quirky to describe the experience of playing at Thracian Cliffs and I’m not going to disagree with any of them as it’s all of that and more – it’s just a shame when I played here recently the weather was dull, overcast and drizzly, which didn’t exactly help show off the course at its very best.

As you leave the Biarritz green on the first hole and compare the top of the escarpment high to your left against the waters of the Black Sea down to your right, you might just wonder how on earth a golf course was ever built on such a narrow strip running between the two. It’s quite a sensational setting (a little like I experienced before at Old Head in Ireland) and at times this surreal location can be almost overpowering.

The opening eight holes are played closest to the water’s edge – highlighted by stunning back-to-back par threes at holes 5 and 6 – and they occupy the prime positions on the property. It’s an unrelenting visual treat from one hole to the next, concluding with a wonderful pair of short par fours at the far end of the course.

It’s perhaps only natural to feel the holes on the way back aren’t quite as stimulating because they’re routed a little bit further away from the shoreline but they are also played at a higher elevation, making the views along the coast even more far-reaching, if anything. The downhill 12th, played to an offset infinity green, followed by the heavily-bunkered 13th were probably the pick of the holes for me on the inward half.

I’d managed to whizz round the front nine on a buggy in 90 minutes on my own but then got caught up behind a series of 4-ball groups on the way home. Taking twice as much time to play the inward half didn’t exactly thrill me but it did afford the opportunity to team up with a couple of Finnish golfers who were happy to be on what was for them the best course they’d ever played.

I have it on good authority that the last two holes were meant to be played originally as holes 1 and 2 but the proposed clubhouse and associated accommodation units (presently empty buildings looming over the 16th green) were put on hold due to the global recession that bit shortly before the course opened.

The development of these half-empty premises would make for a far more satisfying finale at the current 16th, allowing the (relatively) lacklustre #17 and #18 to be played at the start. At the moment, finishing on these two holes left me feeling slightly deflated at the end of what had otherwise been a quite remarkable round of golf.

Jim McCann

What a crazy, spectacular, brilliant and unforgettable golf course! The photos you see are real, but can't really do justice to the vistas actually on the course, or to the layout of the course when you play it. Go there. Go there now!

I started with equal parts fear and delight on the first tee, but had one of those wonderful days where the ball was going where I wanted and that meant not a single one disappeared over a cliff (one did take off and hide in a thicket on the 14th or 15th): happy days! Used every club in the bag, took a million photos, enjoyed the challenges the shotmaking required, and just generally loved every moment of my game. The smile on my face this day may have been second only to the one on my face when I finally managed to play the Old Course at St Andrews.

Most course ranking lists use a combination of design, conditioning and aesthetics in their process. Thracian Cliffs rates very highly in all of those areas and is clearly the number one course in Bulgaria.

I shall write this review in two parts. Firstly the course, then the resort.The course gets 6 balls. No doubt about it. The photos you see are exactly how it appears, there is no trick of the camera here. All 18 holes are fantastic. You cannot be disappointed. We played the course 3 times, and it was interesting how much easier the course became once you knew the landing spots, where the safe areas were and so on. The closest comparison I can make is Monte Rei. Not because the two courses are exactly alike, but because the design between tees, the buggy only layout, the vista which welcomes you on each tee, I've played both and there are likenesses.Secondly, the resort. With local knowledge now known, I would not have stayed here. Unless you like eating in the same restaurants in the same close-knit resort night after night, this is not for you. There are some nearby towns with good local restaurants that are a far better bet. These are far more accessible from the Lighthouse resort. So in hindsight, I'd have stayed at the Lighthouse resort, and travelled out from there each night.

Given its spectacular setting and the glorious weather my group enjoyed it sounds almost churlish of me to disagree with these other reviews of fulsome praise for the course. But disagree I must.

The course is quirky to say the least and Gary Player has done extremely well to fit 18 holes in given the nature of the terrain- it is built into the side of a cliff face. Maybe it was because we played it at the tail end of the season but the greens were average at best and the tee boxes downright poor. Factor in that you can lose sleeves of balls that either tumble down the cliff face into the Black Sea or disappear into swathes of thorn bushes and this is certainly no place for the average holiday golfer with a high handicap. Given the layout, with some extremely long rides (this is a buggy only track) between green to the next tee box not helped by the lack of on course signage, this is also a course that will take at least five hours to play. A group of Rumanian businessmen took seven hours to reach the 14th tee the day before we played. Our group of eight, with three single figure handicappers in, contrived to lose over 80 balls on our first round. Fortunately the drinks buggy, which routinely sold out of beer and chocolate before it reached us, never runs out of extra sleeves of balls.

For a really enjoyable, fair and well designed course I much preferred Player’s first venture on the Black Sea coast, namely BlackSeaRama which may have a number of largely, ugly buildings dotted around its perimeter but is altogether a far better and fairer test of golf.

Thracian Cliffs is a fun one-off experience with some stunning tee shots as well as a couple of downright daft ones, no more so than the long par three sixth where one launches a ball over the side of the cliff and watch as it plummets either onto the green or else is lost forever. Vertigo sufferers may well want to skip it completely and head for the seventh where one simply has a 175 metre carry over the sea before reaching the fairway.

Finally, there is the soulless clubhouse that is situated in the residential village where most players stay. There are plans to move this to a bigger property that overlooks the course and this would certainly improve things. The current establishment is a good par four length walk from the 18th green which wholly negates Thracian Cliffs’ biggest asset, namely the stunning beauty of its setting. I am happy to have played it but disappointed that I was not more impressed with what could and should be a remarkable golfing experience for the better player. Maybe October is simply too late in the year to see the place at its best.

I arrived a little sceptical of how good this course could be, not paying any attention to Gary Players comments about being in the top 3 courses on the planet (because he always gets carried away with how good he thinks his courses are) Well, I was pretty impressed. I am lucky enough to have played golf around the world (mostly Scotland, Ireland, South Africa and the USA) and Thracian Cliffs really is a very good course, set along, between, on top of, and besides the spectacular cliffs - not top 3 in the world, but very good none the less. It is a very tough course (and I played only from the second hardest tees) and I would suggest playing for the pure fun of it and not trying to keep a score, as this might ruin your day. Take some risks, try to make some of the carries over the cliffs and play fun, tough golf for the sheer hell of it!!!

Spectacular , brilliant, breath takingthe best i have ever played (and probably will)I cannot understand why this course is ranked in the thrity's of Europe.I have played other courses in the top 10 and this one is mutch better.congratulations to Gary Player the designer

I can only concur with the previous reviews. We played this course last September and it is a golfing experience like no other. You arrive on a number of tees and the carry looks impossible. It is not. But the shot is intimidating in the extreme. A look at the card shows that on the back tees you are expected to play about 13 over your handicap!! But it is hugely enjoyable and does not feel unfair. Gary Player has created one of the world’s great courses and if it is not the best I have played it is in the top few and my list includes the Ailsa, Kingsbarns, Eichenheim amongst others. Just one word of caution. Take care if you do not have a head for heights. I missed the 4th green to the right of the greenside bunker. This left me with a chip over the bunker to the green. The shot was played with my back foot about 4 inches from the cliff edge with a drop of over 100 feet to the sea below. Needless to say I did not step back to admire my shot. Clean trousers please!!

Had heard many great reviews on this course and travelled there with massive expectations.It did not disappoint on any levels .Truly world class and i can say that as a golf pro who has played many of the worlds great courses.The views are out of this world not on just a couple of holes but from every hole.The holes are beautifully designed ,challenging but if you pick the right tee very playable.Believe the hype this place is really that good ,a must play for any golfer.

If you only take one golf holiday this year then head to Bulgaria and Thracian Cliffs Golf Resort .it is where drama meets nature meets golf. The greens are gigantic the vistas spectacular and the golf is stunning. To illustrate: The 6th hole 230 yds from the tips par three “signature” , the green 60 yards below looking like a postage stamp surrounded by the Black Sea hitting off the top of a cliff and the hang time seems like minutes. The 7th go out to the white tees across a bridge onto an island in the sea, prepare to hit a drive over 200yds at an angle to hit a narrow fairway leaving a second to an elevated green 25yds above you. Next to the 8th a tight tee shot to a narrow banked fairway par four to a hidden green added by the knowledge that the previous green had fallen into the sea over the winter golf versus the forces of nature. To the 9th a long par four with a giant fairway bunker, cliffs to the right, and a ravine to the left. And a two tiered green again heavily bunkered to try and hit with a long iron. Now a buggy ride to the elevated 10th tee box were you can see the fairways of holes 7 and 9 running below you in parallel to the sea.

If you want spectacular golf on a course the like you will never have played with the sea visible from every hole then this is the place for you, this course provides everything you could wish for. the tee boxes are generous to allow all standards a good game of golf, the fairways are generous but do require accuracy to score well and the greens are heavily bunkered and are quite literally huge at least two clubs front to back. In essence though it is the nature of the course that makes it so exhilarating the cliffs, the sea, the feeling of beauty that you get from playing here, it is a marvel and as Gary Player says on the promo video before starting out its going to be a lot of fun, he’s not wrong.