Marrakech Golf Club, which features the first golf course designed by Niall Cameron, had its debut earlier this month.
The club, which bills itself as “the first truly private members’ course in Morocco,” will serve as the centerpiece of Assoufid, an upscale community just a short drive from downtown Marrakech. Exclusivity will be a major part of the community’s appeal, as its 555 acres are to include just 80 villas, a 98-room hotel with a spa, and a golf academy.
Assoufid will be managed by Sir Rocco Forte’s hotel group, which made a splash in golf circles in 2009, when it opened Verdura Golf & Spa Resort on the island of Sicily. Forte enlisted Cameron, a Scottish golf pro who serves as Verdura’s director of golf, to design Assoufid’s course, a 7,020-yard track that was built on property formerly dotted with olive trees.
“I had to pinch myself when I first saw the site,” Cameron said in a press release issued late last year. “The terrain for the golf course was ideal.”
Forte aims to sign 300 members to the club, and he’s reserved a spot for each of Assoufid’s property owners.
Some information in this post originally appeared in the January 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
