Turkey - a solution to the credit crunch
Papillon
Papillon
Address:
Ileribasi Mevkii, Belek Turizm, Merkezi, PK 161 07500, Antalya, Turkey
Telephone:
00 90 242 710 12 00
Email:
Website:
Courses:
18 holes, par 72, 7,021 yards
From Lykia we commuted the half-hour to Belek, which truly stands as a golfing Nirvana, each of the mighty hotels facing the Mediterranean offering regular shuttle buses to the courses.
The courses are not, one has to add, all that busy. But then, the Monty and the Thomson are so new, most people are unlikely to have heard of them.
Montgomerie’s Papillon course, developed with his regular partners, European Golf Design, resembles Dye’s Lykia in so far as it is 18 holes, opening now, and part of a mind-boggling investment to incorporate a fifth hotel and nine-hole course.
But the 7,026-yard off four tee placements, descending from black to the 5,379-yard red, are in considerable contrast. There are long and testing par-fives to begin and end with, and water from the fourth to the seventh.
At the par-three 14th, it’s directly across and no head-up on your iron. Strictly, it is not impossible to play with the same ball if you treat Monty’s challenges soberly, which for me was the yellow tees, 1,000 yards or so short of the pro black.
The 18th, some of us thought, was a bit of a pig in the way good second shots were penalised by a design tipping each of us into one or other of the inlets of sand and waste all the way up the left. It’s a spectacular finish all right, with the clubhouse picture windows overlooking an enormous double-level green that denied a couple of us net pars. But Monty doesn’t always smile, does he?
