Golf Holidays in Turkey: The Complete Belek Guide

Belek earns the title on sheer concentration. Industry figures put 16 of Turkey’s roughly 21 courses in this single cluster, capable of hosting up to 680,000 golfers a year, and the destination has been named Best Golf Region of the Year in Europe by the International Association of Golf Tour Operators (IAGTO). The pedigree is genuine: Belek has hosted the DP World Tour, most notably the Turkish Airlines Open, held since 2013 at the floodlit Montgomerie Maxx Royal course designed by Ryder Cup captain Colin Montgomerie. The field has drawn the biggest names in the game, with Brooks Koepka winning the 2014 edition.

It is also a destination on the rise. Golf bookings in Antalya for 2025 had already run 15% ahead of the previous year, with Belek resorts targeting at least 140,500 golfers and 560,000 rounds across the year. Around 10,000 to 12,000 UK golfers make the trip annually, with Germans the largest visiting nation and the British second.

Golf has helped extend Antalya’s tourism season to effectively 12 months of the year, with the sport playing a key role in attracting visitors outside the traditional summer beach season. Hürriyet Daily News

For UK golfers that off-season pull matters. The mild winters and dry spring and autumn turn Belek into one of the few places in Europe where year-round play is realistic. Our guide to the best golf resorts in Belek goes deeper on the cluster itself.

Belek’s courses share a coastal-pine setting but differ sharply in character and designer pedigree. Carya is the heathland outlier and a night-golf novelty; Lykia Links is the region’s one true seaside links; the rest run from Faldo’s tough 27 holes at Cornelia to the championship Montgomerie Maxx Royal. The table below is built only from verified course facts.

Carya is the one most people remember. Built on undulating sand dunes, it is the first classic heathland-style course on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast and the first fully floodlit golf course in Europe, which means you can actually play under lights after dinner. Lykia Links, by contrast, gives you crumpled dunes and sea views on roughly 60 hectares of sandy coastal land at Denizyaka, the only links of its kind in the country.

Carya Golf Club at Regnum Carya is Europe’s first and only fully floodlit 18-hole golf course, designed by Thomson, Perrett & Lobb and listed among the top 100 golf clubs in the world. Top100GolfCourses.com

Belek is an all-inclusive-resort destination, and the hotels sit right on or beside the courses, so your golf, your room and your transfers tend to come as one tailor-made package. Choice runs from the well-priced family of Sueno hotels through mid-tier resorts such as Sirene Belek and Voyage Belek Golf and Spa, up to the Gloria estate and the top-tier Maxx Royal Belek Golf Resort and Regnum Carya, the latter home to that floodlit Carya course.

Most resorts carry their own golf, so the obvious play is to match hotel to the course you most want to play. Staying at Regnum Carya puts you on the heathland and night golf; Maxx Royal pairs with the Montgomerie; the Gloria estate gives you the Old, New and Verde courses on the doorstep. Many guests still play across the cluster regardless of where they sleep, since the courses sit a short transfer apart. For couples, our Belek couples guide covers the spa-and-golf resorts; for larger parties, see group golf holidays in Belek and golf society trips.

The Antalya and Belek coast follows a sharp Mediterranean pattern, and timing your trip well is the single biggest decision. Spring and autumn are comfortable, summer is hot, and winter is mild but wet. The climate figures below come from 30-year records (1990-2020).

The clearest steer is that April, May, October and November are the most comfortable golf months, with average temperatures of 20-26°C. Belek’s hot season runs from 15 June to 19 September with highs above 30°C throughout, and July and August are almost bone-dry at just 4-5mm of rain. The honest caveat: those midsummer months pair near-zero rain with the kind of heat that record-watchers have seen reach about 45°C, so if you travel then, take your tee times early and accept the afternoons are for the pool. July is also the sunniest month, at roughly 11.5 hours of sunshine a day. There is more on this in our best time to play golf in Turkey guide.

Golf Planet Holidays packages are ground-only, covering hotel, golf and transfers. Flights are not included, but we can add them as an optional ATOL-protected extra where required, so you can book the whole trip in one place or bring your own seats. Connectivity is strong either way: as of June 2026 there are around 77 weekly direct flights from London to Antalya alone.

The gateway is Antalya Airport (AYT), about 33km from Belek, a road transfer of roughly 30 to 40 minutes depending on traffic. On arrival, British citizens can visit Turkey without a visa for up to 90 days in any 180-day period for tourism, per the UK government’s official advice. Your passport must have an expiry date at least 150 days after your date of arrival and at least one blank page. Turkey runs on UTC+3 all year, so it is 2 hours ahead of UK clocks in summer and 3 ahead in winter. The currency is the Turkish lira, though many resorts in Antalya and Belek also take euros and pounds.

Belek is built for the group trip. The all-inclusive resorts, the short transfers between championship courses, and the buggy-friendly layouts make it one of the easiest destinations to organise for a society, a stag party of golfers or a buddies’ getaway. It works just as well for couples, where one half plays and the other takes the spa and the beach, since the same resorts that hold the courses also run full leisure facilities. See our buddies’ getaway guide for the group angle.

It suits a wide range of abilities too. The cluster spans the gentler resort courses through to Faldo’s demanding Cornelia and the championship Montgomerie, so a mixed-handicap group can find a sensible challenge each day. If you are weighing it against the obvious alternative, our Turkey or Portugal comparison sets out the trade-offs. The headline reason Belek keeps winning UK golfers is the same one that has extended Antalya’s season to twelve months: dependable sun across a long window, and a dozen serious courses within a few minutes of your room.