Like all golfers I am a nostalgic masochist. I enjoy dwelling on painful experiences of the past. That is why I collect scorecards. Wherever I play in the world I keep the scorecard as a memento to remind me that I have played some terrible golf in some usual tournaments in some very unusual places.
I now have nearly three hundred scorecards from every continent in my collection. I have one from Tokyo’s “Koganiemi Golf Club” , the most expensive golf club in the world.
I have a scorecard from Greenland’s only golf club , the “Sondie Arctic Wastes Golf Club” in Kangerlussaq , where the local musk ox community act as the green-keeping staff. I also have scorecards from Addis Abba G.C., Moscow Country Club, Royal Calcutta, Bombay Presidency and Glyfda in Greece, which is right next to airport.
But the pride of my collection is the scorecard from “Cascades at Soma Bay”. It brings back some pleasant memories. Of bad golf and wonderful massages in an incomparable setting. In a state-of-the-art thalassotherapy spa.
Egypt claims to be one of the oldest golfing lands in the world. Perhaps the oldest of all. The Pharoahs may well have invented the game. Wooden golf-like sticks and balls made from straw and clay have been found in the pyramids and archaeologists excavating another ancient site , the tomb of Kheti , unearthed wall paintings depicting figures apparently in the process of teeing off. Ancient hieroglyphics tell us that one of the Pharaohs , King Tuthmosis 111 ( 1490-1436BC ) , was fond of playing a game very similar to golf. One recorded activity is of him using the desert as his own private driving range.
Egypt is the latest Arabic nation to turn itself into the latest all-year-round golf holiday destination. Its twelve golf clubs are receiving large-scale international investment and offer top-class facilities to compete with the established markets in Spain , Portugal and Dubai. January to March is a good time to visit Egypt and play golf.
“Gezirah Sporting Club” in Cairo is Egypt’s oldest golf club. It was founded in 1886. Before the Nasser era it was an officers’ only club. “Alexandria Golf Club” was also built by British soldiers in 1899 and taken over by the state in 1952. Formerly a royal hunting lodge which was built as “ a hotel to end all hotels “ Cairo’s “ Marriott Mena House”’s testing flat nine-hole course- now being refurbed- was built at the beginning of the twentieth century. Every September, the course used to stage a tournament which was affectionately known as “The Pyramids Open.” It would be need a series of very bad slices to bring the Giza pyramids into play. However, you can lift without penalty from a camel hoof print.
The other top clubs in Cairo are Nick faldo’s Katameya Dunes (a 27 hole complex near the airport) attached to the Westin Hotel , “Katameya Heights Golf and Tennis Resort”, “Palm Hill Giza”, Greg Norman’s Allegria and the JW Marriott “Mirage City, also on the ring road near the international airport
Cairo’s other courses are “Dreamland ( a complex soon to have sixteen cinemas , nine hotels , an equestrian centre as well as homes ) , “Golf City” and the “Pyramids Golf Club” on the Cairo-Alex Desert Road. All are very unbusy.
Further south down the Nile, the ancient city of Thebes offers the “Royal Valley Golf Club”. Luxor’s only golf club is close to the international airport and visitors ( there are only six members ) can play from three tees – “King Tut” , “Rameses 111” and “Sphinx”. The ladies play off the “Nerfertity” tees! The Nile-side “Le Meridien Hotel” will arrange tee times.
“Jolie Ville” is the course at Sharm-el-Sheikh on the other side of the Red Sea. “El Gouna “ is another popular course. Both offer luxury time-share properties. There is also Ancient Sands at Hurghada. But perhaps the biggest and by far the best development in the Red Sea area is the 6864 yard “Cascades at Soma Bay” which adjoins the lavish Karnak temple-style “Sheraton Soma Bay Hotel” , 40 kms south of the provincial centre of Hurghada which is only fifty minutes by plane from Cairo and a four-hour drive to Luxor. There is also a Kempinski hotel.
Skirting the Red Sea , “The Cascades “, the first nine hole of which opened in 1998 , is the only links course in Egypt and was described by its designer , Gary Player, as “the next Pebble Beach.” Player has won over 160 titles around the world including the Egyptian Matchplay crown in 1955. It was his first victory outside his native South Africa.
The course is a former military airfield. 3.5 million litres of water are used on it every day. Holes have names like “Bunker Alley”, “Panaroma Bay “, and the spectacular fifth , “ The Pebbles of Soma” , a long par three with the sea down the right and the desert down the left! Golf in Egypt is not for the faint-hearted.
With its fast sloping greens and long carries off the tee “Cascades” is already considered one of the toughest courses in the world. It combines sheer beauty with sheer sadism. It is a course you want to play over and over again. It is different every time you play it as a links course should be. The wind turns it into a monster. As Christy O’Connor said about the great Irish course , Ballybunion ; “ If you shoot par you are playing much better than you are able to play!”
However you play. You willenjoy pluging into the Cascadas Spa#s Thalasso- hydrotherapy pool, your Scotch hose seater massage, your seaweed m powdered rose petals and hibiscus juice wrap and spicy cumin Egyptian scrub!