It is a blend of ancient and modern attractions. It mixes the most basic lifestyle with luxury living. It stirs the soul as deeply as it indulges 21st Century whims. And it is as rich an experience as a visit to a country can be.
A golf holiday in Jordan is, you might have already guessed, far from standard.
Indeed even describing it as a golf break is possibly even stretching the usual terms of reference for what we expect to happen on this sort of thing, given Jordan has only one course.
So, your options for sating your thirst of the Royal & Ancient game are limited. If a golf holiday to you means eight rounds in four days on six different courses, this probably isn’t for you. But if you’re starting to make that judgement, I respectfully suggest you are making a mistake, because it means you will miss out on one of life’s great experiences.
The golf element is provided by Ayla, a Greg Norman design in the southern city of Aqaba. It is one element of a new high-end resort complex complete with marina, hotel and beach clubs.
It compares favourably with lots of Middle East courses and is the most fun and playable design by Norman I’ve experienced.
It will host the groundbreaking Jordan Mixed Open in April, when players from the Challenge Tour, Staysure Tour and Ladies European Tour compete in the same event.
And I predict Ayla will be a fine host, with players of all ages and both sexes enjoying being able to attack so many of the holes – unless it is especially breezy, which is entirely possible.
Ayla is, as I’ve already intimated, only one of the memorable stops on this Jordan adventure though.
Whether you fly into Aqaba or into the capital Amman in the north, you should explore almost the length of the country before or after the trip’s golf aspect.
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I flew in and out of Amman, meaning it was the second part of the trip that the golf element dominated.
Amman is the capital but as you’ll soon realise, it is overshadowed by other attractions in Jordan. Even so, it should not be overlooked.
It is a bustling hillside metropolis with shops, bars, restaurants and cafes to enjoy, and in the amphitheatre and citadel it has historic attractions that would literally not look out of place in feted tourist cities Rome or Athens.
A morning and afternoon is just about enough there – although if you have more time than I did, it’s worth spending a half day in Jerash, north of Amman.
If your schedule does not allow that though, you instead start moving south, initially destined for Petra three hours away. This is one of the Seven New Wonders of the World and is increasingly popular with tourists. Simply, it amazes you around every corner.
It is hard to know what takes your breath away more: the enormous carvings into stone or the staggering natural beauty of the rock formations that reach into the sky. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed here and the scenery is so jaw-dropping it feels almost as if man created it to be a film set.
It is all soaked up by foot – well, you can also hire a donkey! – snaking through narrow openings between sheer walls of rock to get to the Treasury – one of the highlights – and then a more rugged section over rocks to reach the famous Monastery at the end.
You need to set aside more or less a full day in Petra, while some people spend 72 hours here to soak up all the geology, archaeology and intricate carvings. However long you allocate to Petra, you’ll never forget it.
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I then drove to Aqaba and set up base at the Hyatt Regency hotel within the Ayla complex, but you could stop off at the next amazing destination of the trip – Wadi Rum – which is more or less halfway between Petra and Ayla.
This also looks like it was built to be a film set and guess what, it was shots of Wadi Rum in Lawrence of Arabia in 1962 kick-started Jordan’s tourism industry. It’s hosted many films since, including The Martian, with Matt Damon describing Wadi Rum as “the most spectacular and beautiful place I have ever seen, and like nothing I’ve ever seen anywhere else on Earth”.
You can drive yourself in for a quick look at the Wadi – a valley of sand cut interspersed with towering islands sandstone and granite rock that is also known as Valley of the Moon – or you can go on a tour in a 4×4.
Or you can do as we did and do a tour then stay overnight in a Wadi camp, which includes a traditional Zarb dinner of chicken and rice cooked in exotic herbs and spices in the ground for hours and served with a selection of sensational dips.
The Bedouin who still live here are your guides, drivers, waiters and chefs, and reflecting on their simple existence is a stark reminder of the superfluous nature of much of modern life.
The overnight stay is glamping, Bedouin style. So you won’t wake up with a sore back, just a spectacular view out of your tent.
Nevertheless, you might be glad to return to the luxury of the Hyatt at Ayla. It is a smart, modern hotel with an infinity pool, good gym and excellent spa, a superb Lebanese restaurant and swish bedrooms. It’s also under five minutes from the golf club.
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Head to the next page to see what our travel editor thought of the course…
The first thing you notice as you arrive in your shuttle from the hotel is the distinctive clubhouse.
It is small and characterful, in contrast to so many brash and pointlessly vast Middle East clubhouses. To best describe its appearance I would suggest that Fred Flintstone could have lived here, which is entirely apt given the course is surrounded by yet more stunning mountains.
Anyway, it’s a fun introduction to Ayla, and is a portent of things to come on the course.
Norman designed it in 2016 and it is not entirely typical of most of his other work, which can often seem stringent to the casual player.
That is often especially the case off the tee, with the Australian perhaps forgetting his ability to drive the ball with consistent brilliance isn’t shared by all of us.
Here, though, he and his design team have presented wide fairways and beyond the short grass are sandy areas where you will never lose your ball unless you find a clump of the marram-like grass that can survive this intense heat.
There is a decent amount of water too, but rarely are you sweating over where to try to place your ball off the tee.
The challenge instead is on second shots as well as on and around the green. And in this often breezy coastal location, the challenge on the long shots naturally increases significantly when the wind picks up.
The bunkering is not excessively heavy but often penal if you find sand; for all but the most skilled bunker players, finding the fairway traps is at least half a shot gone while the greenside equivalents require deft touch.
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The 1st, a mid-length par 5, is one of the notably well-bunkered holes, and after a pretty short hole over a centre bunker to an amphitheatre green – not the last of those at Ayla – come three par 4s that illustrate the variety of the course.
While the 3rd encourages you to think of a run at a birdie putt – it’s 353 yards off the whites to a small ‘infinity’ green – with the mountains glowering behind, the 4th is all but 400 yards off the same tees and asks different questions if your approach, which is to a benched, elevated green.
Then comes another different but strong par 4 to a smaller, flatter green which has unforgiving run-offs around it. The mountain range is possibly at its most breathtaking behind this green.
That brings you to the toughest and probably the best of the short holes. The 6th plays slightly downhill but that is where the assistance ends; water lurks left and front-left and even if you find the target the green is so huge that three putts are a threat for even the usually sure-handed.
There are two short holes on both nines, with the 12th played alongside the hotel – and more importantly a stream with bunkers right and left – while the 16th is a strong par 3 in something of a mirror image of the 6th.
The front nine, 100 yards longer than the inward half, ends as it started with a par 5. This one plays into the north-south prevailing wind as it snakes alongside a ditch towards an amphitheatre green, where the bail out to the right leaves a very awkward chip from a steep bank with a tree likely blocking your path.
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The 5s coming home comprise the 13th, which has what seems the most narrow fairway on the course and a tempting approach to a green tucked on the left over sandy waste, and the gettable downhill, beautifully-bunkered 17th.
The 11th, along a narrow fairway to a green beyond a ditch, vies with the 18th for the title of toughest par 4 on the course – the 8th is another candidate – but the holes that stick most strongly in my memory are the two sportier two-shotters in the middle of the nine.
You can really attack the 328-yard 14th, 270 off the whites, which has a bunker on the right but whose small infinity green is waiting to be peppered with a wedge. And then you can have a crack at getting close to the next, with trouble awaiting on the right but where a fade at the left edge of the green will keep you safe.
Two good scores are entirely possible there and a tidy scorecard throughout is within the grasp of all – as ‘resort’ golf surely ought to be.
The journey back to Amman looks less appetising. In fact it looks downright tedious, with no Wonder of the World to entertain you. But then you are told another world-famous landmark, the Dead Sea, can be easily snapped up on the journey back.
Casually sightseeing a world-famous landmark on the journey back to the airport nicely sums up the brilliantly crazy nature of a golf break in Jordan.
Golf in Jordan: Travel essentials
The journey: Well, there are easier destinations to get to, no doubt. Istanbul is a popular route into Amman, via the likes of Manchester or Birmingham with Turkish Airlines. There are some tremendous prices to be snapped up if you book ahead. The direct option is via Royal Jordanian out of Heathrow. You can expect to pay £350 and above for the flight into Amman. You can also fly into Aqaba with EasyJet direct from Gatwick
Where to stay: The Hyatt Regency in Ayla is the perfect base for the southern part of the trip, a sparkling new hotel with good amenities and a really cool bar ‘Vista’, where you can’t help but have maybe one or two drinks too many. There are also nice extras like free yoga and fast wifi that you never have to log back into. In Wadi I stayed at Captain’s Camp and in Petra at Sunset Hotel, which offered great value. Alqatal hotel is perfect for a low-cost Amman airport stay.
Off the course: As detailed in the main article, this is the strength of the trip. It’s a toss up between Wadi Rum and Petra as to what is the most memorable day; just make sure you do both and decide for yourself. Definitely try to have an afternoon in Amman and call in at the Dead Sea for a picture opportunity. Otherwise, you can take a boat trip and snorkel in the Aqaba waters or horse ride in the desert.
When to go: A big advantage of this trip is Jordan’s climate, which you’d expect to be excellent as a Middle Eastern country. But as well as being warm all year round and with negligible rain, there is much less humidity here than in the United Arab Emirates. It is a great option in our winter and if you definitely want to be sunbathing when not playing or exploring, wait til March or make November the latest you go.
Area guide: Marrakesh, Morocco
