Belek
Belek
Fifteen championship courses in fifteen kilometres of pine forest, thirty minutes from Antalya airport — the highest concentration of golf anywhere in the eastern Mediterranean.
Belek is not a town that happens to have golf courses. It is a fifteen-kilometre strip of pine forest between Antalya airport and the Taurus foothills, planted with championship courses and the hotels to go with them, and very little else.
The density is the point. From most hotels you are inside the gates of three or four courses within twenty minutes, and the furthest is still under forty. You do not lose a morning to a transfer. A four-round week here means four different architects — Faldo, Montgomerie, Thomson, Gayon — without changing your bed.
The ground is sand under pine. The courses drain fast and stay playable through winter rain, and on the layouts nearer the water the sea breeze arrives by mid-afternoon and changes the back nine.
The season runs the opposite way round from northern Europe's. March to May and September to November are the months: 20–25 °C, firm fairways, quick greens. July and August are for people who genuinely enjoy 35 °C. December to February is the value season — 15–18 °C, empty tee sheets, green fees at roughly half.
