Royal Greens Golf & Country Club

Overview: Royal Greens Golf & Country Club occupies an 80-hectare site in Al Murooj, King Abdullah Economic City, on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast. Dave Sampson's European Golf Design routing opened in 2018 and is built around a mixture of maintained turf, exposed sand, wadis and salt-water lakes. The strategic character changes from hole to hole: the official course guide describes fairways bending around lakes, greens set above their approaches, waste bunkers and wind-affected lines. The closing stretch turns toward the shoreline, with the par-three 16th playing alongside the Red Sea. That combination of coastal exposure, desert landforms and water-management features gives Royal Greens a distinctive place in the region's modern golf landscape.

History: Development of Royal Greens was part of the expanding King Abdullah Economic City project. Construction began in 2014, and the facility formally opened in April 2018; Dave Sampson and European Golf Design were responsible for the course, with Troon appointed to manage it. The opening exhibition included players and officials from the Saudi and European golf communities, and Royal Greens soon entered the international tournament calendar. It hosted the Saudi International from 2019, and later became the Jeddah venue for LIV Golf events. Those competitions made the course an important early stage for Saudi Arabia's effort to build a larger competitive golf network.

Did You Know? The course's irrigation and drainage story is tied to its coastal setting. Golf Course Architecture reported that treated seawater could be used for irrigation, while a network of wadis and streams carries storm water into four large salt-water lakes. The property therefore combines golf design with a working landscape system. The 16th, a par three playing along the Red Sea, is the clearest visual expression of that relationship.