IFRANE, MOROCCO | When I first visited this North African land in 1995, it could charitably be described as a golfing backwater, with only a dozen or so courses in a place that is now more than twice the size of California. But thanks to the foresight of the late King Hassan II, who decades ago envisioned the game as a way to attract travelers to his realm, and the initiative that the monarch’s youngest son, Prince Moulay Rachid, showed after his father’s death in 1999, Morocco has evolved into a first-rate golf destination. Today, the country that in 1777 was the first nation to recognize U.S. independence boasts some 50 courses, among them designs by Jack Nicklaus, Robert Trent Jones Sr., Kyle Phillips, Gary Player and Colin Montgomerie.
During my latest journey to this country – to oversee a pro-am I helped create in 2023 called the Morocco-America Friendship Cup – I was able to check out one of the stops in this year’s event, the Nicklaus course at the Michlifen Golf and Country Club, as it was one of the venues for our tourney. Located at some 5,400 feet in this town of 14,000 in the Middle Atlas Mountains, the course is routed across rocky scrub land and through groves of mature cedars and oaks. In addition to boasting a variety of holes that test all aspects of a player’s game, the getaway has a fully loaded teaching and clubfitting center as well as an extensive practice range and short-game facility. It also possesses among the best-situated 19th holes I have ever seen, with a terrace that overlooks the massive double green that serves Nos. 9 and 18 and provides a view of a vast valley that is lookout-point pretty.
Throw in a sumptuous hotel just down the road that feels like a chalet in the Swiss Alps as well as a full-service spa, a pair of swimming pools and four restaurants, and you have a place where a person can happily hang his or her golf visor for several days.
Ifrane also happens to be a pretty good retreat for skiers in the colder months, and I would not mind coming back one winter with my planks.
But golf was the agenda this time around, and I was eager to finally tee it on a course that I had walked during construction but had never played.
I was also curious to see whether Michlifen lived up to reviews I had read and heard that not only touted it as one of the kingdom’s best layouts but also as one of Nicklaus’ top efforts.
As I prepared to start my maiden round here, I thought back to the first time I had heard this town’s name. It was in the spring of 2010, after I had traveled to Morocco to cover the Hassan II Trophy, which was then a part of the PGA European Tour (and is today a staple of the PGA Tour Champions). Nicklaus was there as well, having come at the request of the prince to check out possible locales for a new golf course. Some months later, the Golden Bear returned to the kingdom to review a site that His Royal Highness had selected in Ifrane, an area where members of the family had vacationed for years. The thin, fresh mountain air was an allure, and so were the interesting elevation changes that the land provided, to say nothing of the temperate climate that kept things, in Nicklaus’ words, “comfortably cool” in the summer.
The degree of difficulty rises slightly from there, but Nicklaus and his team do not get the least bit carried away. The yardages from the different tees are appropriate, the bunkering strategic and fair.
The architect liked what he saw, and soon after that second visit began the planning and approval process, with construction beginning in 2014. Four years later, the Michlifen course came online.
Today, the par-72 track features four sets of tees, with the back markers measuring some 7,100 yards and those that most mid-handicappers use just a tick more than 6,000 yards. Water comes into play on the 13th and 15th holes, the latter of which is a meaty par-5 that first doglegs to the left, and then moves to the right, with a fade being the shot to employ on the approach.
As for the most stirring holes, those would be Nos. 9, 17 and 18, all of which are routed along the edge of a wooded escarpment that looms over the vale below.
Michlifen records a remarkably low number of rounds a year (3,500), which makes every circuit here feel like a nature walk. And the course allows golfers to settle into their games by opening with a short and scenic par-4 that plays slightly downhill and then a just-tough-enough par-5 on No. 2.
Every round at Michlifen feels very much like a nature walk (click images to enlarge).
The degree of difficulty rises slightly from there, but Nicklaus and his team do not get the least bit carried away. The yardages from the different tees are appropriate, the bunkering strategic and fair. I also like how I have to hit fades and draws on my tee shots – and how often I find myself using a short iron into greens. To be sure, that is partly the result of the golf ball flying farther at this altitude. But it is also due to the architects making sure the course is playable for golfers of all ages and abilities.
I enjoy each hole on the front side, with my favorite being the par-5 eighth. It begins with an uphill drive to a fairway that stretches across the top of a saddle and is split in two by a trio of oaks that forces one to go left or right. From there, it takes me two more shots to get to the green, where the flagstick this day is rising from a hole cut on a back-left plateau.
I also fancy the par-3 ninth hole and tarry over my tee shot so I may be sure to properly take in the panorama it provides before hitting my 4-wood to about 20 feet.
The back nine is decidedly more difficult, as it is more wooded – and tighter – than the wide-open front. And the ground is not nearly as rocky. The holes on that section of the course also seem to play longer, and I find myself hitting more fairways and long irons into greens than I did on the front. But the sense of fun never goes away, and as my playing partners and I sip a post-round white wine from the nearby Château Roslane vineyard, we concur that the course at Michlifen is indeed one of Morocco’s finest – and one of Nicklaus’ more inspired creations.
It is also a track that we could not wait to play again the following day.