At the crossroads of Europe and Asia, a call for golfers
I was discussing the price of a turquoise bracelet with a shopkeeper in Belek when I heard it for the first time: the adha-n, or call to prayer, echoing through the lively marketplace. I traced the euphonic voice of the muezzin to a silver-domed mosque, where the faithful were gathering for the Asr, the afternoon prayer. It was the clearest signal of many that my golf excursion in Turkey would be about much more than tee times.
Proudly secular, Turkey is a living history book in which Hittite and Roman ruins, Ottoman palaces, and myriad styles of art and architecture tell the fascinating story of its past civilizations. Today’s Turkey, a nation the size of Texas, remains a tapestry of distinct regions, each with its own unique threads. Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar and medieval ramparts along the Bosphorus. The towering volcanic rock pillars of Cappadocia known as fairy chimneys. The whirling dervish monks performing their acrobatic ritual in Konya and otherworldly mineral springs at Pamukkale. And yes, the parade of golf resorts around Belek.
It’s in Belek, on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast just east of Antalya, where golf has really taken root. But good courses can be found all around this diverse country. Kemer Country Club, a resort track located just outside Istanbul in the Belgrad Forest, is an engaging parkland layout with enough elevation change to make carts mandatory. West of Istanbul, routed over the hills above the Marmara Sea, the Klassis Golf & Country Club was refashioned by Tony Jacklin and is now known as Marmara. In the sparkling Aegean resort town of Kuşadası, Kuşadası International Golf Club offers panoramic sea views, rock-faced ravines, and tricky holes that verge on target golf. Thirty miles from the capital at Ankara Regnum Golf & Country Club, the 2021 Tim Lobb course occupies an open, rolling, prairie-like site with vistas that take in the distant city. Lobb fashioned a very different experience at Regnum Golf & Country Club Bodrum in the southeastern town of Çamlik, where five lakes and an olive grove populate the course’s hills and valleys. There’s a third Regnum course in Belek, Carya Golf Club, whose pine-lined fairways create the impression of a European heathland course. It and several of its neighbors comprise the country’s best (and best-maintained) courses.
Belek’s four- and five-star resorts attract an international clientele and cater to golfers with stay-and-play packages that include expansive buffets—and more bars than you can shake a stir stick at. You can begin the day with a lavish kavalti (Turkish breakfast) and end it enjoying fresh seafood, kebabs, savory pastries known as Börek, or the boatshaped flatbreads called pide—with a glass of ouzo-like raki to top it all off. You’ll need the fuel to take on Belek’s other top courses.
At Lykia Links, the turf isn’t true links turf, but you’ll be cavorting among the dunes by the sea, with dazzling views included. PGA National Antalya’s tough Sultan Course played host to the Turkish Airlines World Golf Finals, while its Pasha Course is a tamer test and, for most, a more enjoyable one. The Gloria Resort offers three 18s, all top quality, with the heavily wooded New Course routed around two imposing lakes and the Old Course around four. At the luxury Sueno beachfront resort, experience both layouts, Dunes and Pines, with their dramatic mounding and the Dunes’s memorable island green finishing hole. After your golf, take a dip in the Med, or visit the impressive ruins of a Roman amphitheater at Aspendos. They are just a few of the many reasons to heed Turkey’s call.
