Golf travel: Why we think you should try out Turkey

In a word: convenience. That’s why British golfers started flocking to Turkey a few years ago and have been returning ever since.

Winter Sun, for many golfers, needs to be simple. We’ve only got five days, or a long weekend, to get our fix and want to spend as much time as possible on the golf course and be able to enjoy ourselves afterwards.

Well, I am here to tell you that golf in Turkey is very, very relaxing. The flight into Antalya Airport is around the four-hour mark and from there it is all plain sailing.

If you haven’t yet been to Turkey then you will probably just accept there is going to be some sort of travel from one course to the next when on a golfing holiday – it’s the price you pay for wanting to play at different places.

But not here in Turkey. Unless you go to play at Lykia Links, which is still within half an hour of most hotels, you’ll be in transit for just 10 minutes; often less.

The stretch of land extending west from Antalya, which is on Turkey’s south coast, stretches for miles and includes little that is not either a luxury resort or a golf course. All these resorts offer transfers to the other courses and it means you can be on the 1st tee within minutes of leaving your hotel reception.
Quick-draining and firm, the conditioning is generally excellent so you can anticipate some crisp iron striking and putting on some quick and true surfaces. Once you’re finished, simply wander into the clubhouse or sit outside and enjoy a relaxing drink – you won’t need a designated driver as a minibus will whisk you and your merry crew back to your resort once you’re ready.

Golf is a very new sport in Turkey and they have several factors in their favour. One is certainly the economic factor of not being in the Euro.

Iberian resorts simply can’t or won’t compete on price. Another is the wonderful year-round climate that the south-coast region of Belek enjoys.

More than anything else, though, the golf is excellent. The land is perfectly suited to our sport. Many of the 14 courses in the Belek golfing hotspot (in fact, there are only 20 courses in the whole of Turkey) are quite literally built on sand – and that’s one reason why they play so well.

Quick-draining and firm, the conditioning is generally excellent so you can anticipate some crisp iron striking and putting on some quick and true surfaces.

In my experience, the conditioning of the courses in Turkey is outstanding – and that is something that cannot always be said in the Algarve, for example.