Is golf in Marrakech and Morocco actually good?

I get this question from a certain kind of guest who assumes Morocco is all camels and couscous, and I love watching their face when I tell them Marrakech is one of the most underrated golf destinations in the world. The city has well over a dozen courses, several of them genuine championship layouts, and the setting is honestly cinematic — you are putting on a perfect green with the snow-dusted High Atlas filling the horizon and palm groves rustling around you. It does not feel like anywhere else I have played.

The names that matter: Royal Golf Marrakech is the historic one, played by kings and Churchill himself, full of old orange and olive trees. Amelkis, Al Maaden (with its striking modern art and water features), the Robert Trent Jones-designed Assoufid out toward the desert edge, and the PalmGolf courses are the ones I steer keen players toward. Agadir is the other golf hub — Golf du Soleil and the Robert Trent Jones course there are superb and pair with the beach — and Rabat has the famous Royal Golf Dar Es Salaam, which hosts the Hassan II Trophy on the European Tour.

What sells most of my guests is the value and the rhythm. Green fees are a fraction of what you would pay at a comparable course in Spain, Portugal or the US, caddies and buggies are inexpensive, and the courses are quiet outside peak weeks. Better still is the day you can build around it: tee off early when the air is cool, finish by late morning, then spend the afternoon in a hammam, the souks, or by the riad pool. I have arranged trips where one partner golfs while the other does a cooking class, and everyone comes home happy.

A few honest caveats. Summer in Marrakech is brutally hot — 40°C plus — so serious golf runs roughly October to April, with December to February being the glorious peak when fairways are green and the Atlas is at its snowiest behind you. Book tee times in advance during that window because the European golf-holiday crowd knows the secret too. And the courses are largely tied to resort and residential developments, so they are polished and manicured rather than rugged links — beautiful, but a different character to a windswept coastal course.

If golf is the spine of your trip, I will build the logistics around it: courses pre-booked, clubs hired or your own transported, a driver who knows every clubhouse, and the cultural side of Morocco slotted into the afternoons. It is one of the easiest luxuries to add here, and almost nobody back home will believe how good it was.