Fez is not a golf destination in the beach-resort sense: you come first for the city, founded at the end of the 8th century by the Idrisids, and for Fès el-Bali, one of the largest historic car-free areas in the world. Golf slips in naturally. In the morning, a tee time among the olive trees south of the city or along the Oued Fès; in the afternoon, the lanes of the medina, the tanneries and mint tea on a terrace facing the hills.
The city's two courses are very different. The Royal Golf de Fès, opened with nine holes in 1994 and extended to 18 in 2004, rolls through olive trees at 700 metres above sea level, with the ridges of the Middle Atlas on the horizon. Oued Fès Golf, opened in 2012, is a flat course of woodland, meadow and wetland, built on a floodplain beside the river. Two styles, two quite distinct days.
For a third course, head up to Ifrane, some sixty kilometres to the south: the Michlifen Golf & Country Club, Jack Nicklaus's first Signature course in North Africa, is played at 1,650 metres among the cedars. Three to five nights are enough for all three, with a whole day kept for the medina and, weather permitting, an outing to the Roman ruins of Volubilis.
