A couple of posts ago I mentioned the HOG World Tour stop to Mazagan Golf Club in Morocco, a Gary Player design right on the shoreline. Beautiful. Below are some video highlights.
Golf course three of four on the HOG World Tour to Morocco last week was the tremendously fun Royal Palm Golf Club in Marrakech (see map below for location). Royal Palm is architecturally different than Mazagan Golf Club and Royal Golf Dar Es Salam.
This course is more of what I would have expected in Morocco, a desert course. It has some light “target” style aspects to it, like courses in Arizona, Nevada, and southern Utah.
Some courses beat you up or lack in interesting holes and movement. Not here. This course was very “fun” to play.
The 2nd course on the Hooked on Golf Blog World Tour visit to Morocco was Mazagan Golf Club, located in El Jadida, Morocco. Mazagan is a Gary Player design, located right on the shore. Huge breakers hit the shoreline from the Atlantic Ocean. What a great location.
Mazagan Golf is located a short drive southwest from Casablanca, Morocco. The course is part of the Mazagan Beach and Golf Resort.
Much of the course is right on the shoreline. The views are equally as spectacular as the golf!
I will be posting a review of Mazagan Golf soon as well as posting some photos and commentary about the resort, which is very nice.
I’m still traveling and I had a small problem with my brand new MacBook Pro. The power cable plug broke. That and non-existent or extremely slow internet access has made it tough for me to post from the tour. I’ll be catching up for a while.
The HOG World Tour made it’s first golf stop in the African continent at Royal Golf Dar Es Salam in Rabat, Morocco.
Royal Golf Dar Es Salam
Rabat, Morocco
Royal Golf Dar Es Salam is a Robert Trent Jones, Sr. design. “RTJ” is one of the all-time greats of golf architecture.
Above are rocks which could be found in places on the course. They had some kind of crazy erosion, producing perfect holes.
Below is a map to show you just were Royal Golf Dar Es Salam is. Stay tuned for a more in-depth review and more photos!
Rather than doing a whole course redesign, it seems that my local country club here in Sandy is doing a wee bit at a time. Today I saw some work in progress of the Valley Nine’s par-5 5th hole. Recently they took out the two trademark pines at the corner of the fairway and put in a short right fairway bunker (photo below, right side of fairway) and long left bunkers.
Now they look to be adding a few yards to the hole by moving the tees back. I guess the bombers are still reaching the far fairway bunkers? My real guess is that they’re slowing adding yardage here and there to “toughen up” the course and make it look more respectable from a length and rating standpoint. In the photo above you can see two sandy areas, which are obviously the new tees. The old tee was essentially where the more distant sandy area is.
HOGWire – Golf Industry News
