New shades of green

摘要

On a manicured fairway in Morocco's capital, Rabat, a muezzin's call to prayer drowns out the crack of a well-aimed iron and the whirr of a little white ball. As a hobby and a business, golf may be past its peak in Europe, North America and Japan, but in the Middle East and north Africa, there is lots of room for growth. And in places the future looks promising. Morocco recently hosted 138 global golf stars in a contest for prize-money worth €1.5m ($1.6m) named after the late king, Hassan Ⅱ; he teed off almost every day of his reign and hired some brilliant golf-course architects. His successor, Mohammed Ⅵ, prefers water sports, but the course-building has accelerated; the country now has 40 places to play golf, up from 12 at the turn of the century; its tourism hub, Marra-kech, is also its golf capital. Balls were first whacked in north Africa during the colonial era (the French built a course in Tangier in 1914); and since 1923, Beirut's Francophile elite has braved the din from the adjacent airport, and far more disturbing sounds, to hobnob at that city's golf club, as much a social as a sporting venue.