Kaya Palazzo Golf Club

Kaya Palazzo Golf Club in the heart of Belek Turkey offers an exceptional golfing experience for discerning players. This visually impressive course appeals to those seeking a blend of challenging play and luxurious surroundings.

Some 650,000 square metres of spectacular pine forest are the backdrop for Kaya Palazzo, which is one of the more recent golf courses to have been opened in Belek. Master PGA Professional David Jones set out to create a course which is not extremely long like many of the recent courses worldwide, but would provide a strong challenge for every player.

At its peak, Kaya Palazzo Golf Club is less than 6,500 yards long, but the imaginative design ensures that visitors are faced with demanding yet beautiful holes that are certain highlights of any golf holiday in the popular Belek region.

The Montgomerie Maxx Royal

Designed by 8-time European Tour Order of Merit champion Colin Montgomerie, this Belek heavyweight opened in 2007 and has been turning heads ever since. It didn't take long for the European Tour to come calling either, with the Turkish Airlines Open landing here just six years later as part of the Race to Dubai Final Series. Tiger Woods played the inaugural edition, and winners like Victor Dubuisson and Brooks Koepka tell you exactly what sort of examination this is.

If you're plotting a Turkey golf holiday and want one round that feels properly "tour-level", this is the one. The fairways are generous in places, but they're framed by umbrella pines, with water placed to punish a lapse in concentration. Add in meaningful elevation changes and you have a course that keeps you thinking from the opening tee shot to the final green.

Measuring comfortably over 7,000 yards from the championship tees, the course is certainly no pushover even for the best players in the world but with an additional three sets of tees the course can be played from as little as 5,382 yards, making it accessible to all and an excellent addition to any Belek Golf Holiday.

Rather unusually, Maxx Royal features 6 pars 3s, 6 par 4s and 6 par 5s so the playing experience is an extremely dynamic one which keeps the golfer on their toes from start to finish. Fairways are generous but have been carved through the mature pines that typify the Belek region, placing an emphasis on accuracy from the tee, without being overly penal on the odd stray tee shot. An extra feature of this course is that the back nine holes are floodlit allowing golf to be played into the evening.

Monty’s layout, which sits on the type of sandy sub-soil that is ideal for year round golf, also features no less than 8 on-site lakes, placing a premium on solid course management which should see you avoid most of the hazards.

As with any golf course, the conditioning is largely dependent on the season but like most of the resort courses in Turkey, every effort is made to keep this to the highest possible standard throughout the year.

The newest addition to the golfing landscape in Belek is among the most desirable, so why not include the fabulous Montgomerie course in your next golf holiday in Turkey?

Signature Hole – No18: Par 5, 543 yards (Blue Tees)

While it’s a tough task to pick just one hole at Montgomerie Maxx Royal, the signature hole is probably the doglegged par-5 13th. Two towering pine trees positioned in the middle of the fairway present the golfer with options from the tee: take the Tiger line to the left for a better chance of carrying the waste bunker which splits the fairway for your second shot; or choose the easier line to the right, lay-up, and be faced with a more difficult approach to the green. This hole is a test of both body and mind and sums up the Maxx Royal perfectly, with sound decision making and skilful shots required to escape safely with a par.