Turkey
Turkish Delight, Questionable Golf
Colin Montgomerie's championship course at Maxx Royal in Belek, on Turkey's Mediterranean golf coast.
The place
Belek is what happens when a Mediterranean coastline decides to become a golf destination. The Montgomerie at Maxx Royal is a championship layout, pine and sand and the kind of polish that makes a California municipal golfer blink. Colin Montgomerie put his name on it. The Turkish Mediterranean put the light on it. This pin belongs on the exact course, not on a generic Antalya dot: a specific piece of Belek, a specific idea of luxury golf, and a traveler trying to remember that the point was never the polish. The point was standing somewhere new with a club in hand.
“Collecting countries, courses, and questionable scorecards.”
JW’s personal notes from the round will live here — the funny moment, the people, the 19th hole — without inventing what hasn’t been written yet.