Belek: how Turkey became one of golf's serious destinations

If you had suggested Turkey for a European golf holiday 30 years ago, you might have received a few puzzled looks.

Today, nobody who follows golf travel should be surprised.

Belek, on Turkey's Mediterranean coast near Antalya, has developed into one of Europe's most concentrated golf resort destinations.

And what interests me is that it has not tried simply to copy Spain or Portugal.

It has developed its own style of golf holiday.

Golf built on a grand scale

The Belek model is quite distinctive.

High-quality resort hotels sit close to championship golf courses, transfers are relatively compact, and the entire area has been developed with international golf tourism firmly in mind.

Türkiye's official tourism organisation lists 11 golf clubs and 16 courses in the Belek area, ranging from heathland-inspired layouts to modern signature designs.

The names associated with the courses tell you how seriously the destination has approached the game.

At the Montgomerie Maxx Royal, Colin Montgomerie worked with European Golf Design to create a championship course among Mediterranean pines and sandy ridges.

Carya Golf Club was designed by Thomson Perrett & Lobb and deliberately takes inspiration from the great Surrey heathland courses, including places such as Wentworth, Sunningdale and Walton Heath.

That is quite an interesting thought.

British golfing ideas transported to the Turkish Mediterranean.

And then somebody turned the lights on

Carya also offers one of the more unusual experiences in European golf.

The entire 18-hole course can be played under floodlights.

The club describes itself as the first course in Europe to provide floodlighting across all 18 holes.

Golf at night sounds slightly ridiculous until you think about it.

We are a sport that will happily get up at 5.30 in the morning for a tee time, spend four hours playing in rain and then complain that there are not enough hours in the day.

Perhaps floodlights are perfectly sensible.

I am not suggesting night golf is going to replace the Sunday morning medal, but it illustrates something about Belek.

The destination thinks seriously about golfers.

Resort golf has advantages

There can occasionally be a little snobbery around resort golf.

Some golfers believe a course somehow becomes less worthy if the hotel is very comfortable and somebody carries your clubs from the transfer vehicle.

I have never understood that.

I love traditional golf clubs.

I love old courses.

But I am also perfectly happy with a golf holiday being convenient.

There is nothing noble about spending two hours in traffic between your hotel and the first tee.

For a group trip, concentration is enormously useful.

You can spend your time playing golf rather than organising the logistics of playing golf.

And if your hotel also provides good restaurants, comfortable rooms and somewhere to relax afterwards, I am unlikely to complain.

Warm weather golf presents its own challenge

Our Turkey trip sits in November, which is part of what makes the destination appealing.

By then the season at home is beginning to feel very different.

The evenings are shorter.

The layers are getting thicker.

Golf bags seem permanently damp.

Travelling south to the Mediterranean extends the golfing year.

But changing conditions also ask questions of your game.

Golfers sometimes underestimate how much temperature affects them.

Your body moves differently when it is warm.

The ball can behave differently.

Greens can have unfamiliar grasses and speeds.

A course surrounded by pines and sandy ground asks different questions from a wet English parkland course in November.

These are exactly the things I like exploring with golfers.

Coaching should adapt to where you are

A coaching holiday abroad should never feel as if somebody has taken a lesson from the practice ground at home and simply moved it somewhere sunnier.

The destination should become part of the coaching.

What is the wind doing?

What is the lie doing?

How firm is the ground?

How should we approach this green?

What happens if you miss on the right?

Those are golfing skills.

And they are often more transferable than trying to create the perfect-looking swing.

If I can help somebody become a more adaptable golfer during a week away, we have achieved something useful.

Turkey offers more than golf

Belek sits within Antalya, a region combining Mediterranean coastline, resort infrastructure and access to significant historical sites such as Perge, Aspendos and Side.

Whether every golfer chooses to explore beyond the resort is another matter.

There is always one member of the group whose cultural itinerary begins and ends at the clubhouse.

I make no judgement.

But having choices matters.

A good destination should work for the golfer who wants to play as much as possible and for the golfer who also wants to feel they have travelled somewhere interesting.

Why Turkey belongs on the golf calendar

Golf destinations eventually reach a point where we stop describing them as "emerging".

I think Belek passed that point some time ago.

The golf infrastructure is established.

The courses are ambitious.

International professional tournaments have been staged there.

The hotels understand golf tourism.

And the climate makes it particularly attractive when conditions further north in Europe become less reliable.

For our November 2027 hosted trip, that combination has obvious appeal.

We can extend the golfing year, play in a destination designed around the sport and enjoy everything that comes with travelling as a group.

No winter mats.

No frozen fingers.

And hopefully no searching for a ball beneath a pile of fallen leaves.

That seems a perfectly reasonable way to finish the golfing year.

Interested in Turkey in November 2027?

Register your interest and we will send you the trip details when bookings open.