RABAT, MOROCCO | Staged for most of its history on the Red Course at Royal Golf Dar Es Salam, the Hassan II Trophy has long been among the most interesting tournaments in golf, for the tour professionals who compete in it as well as the amateurs who play in the pro-am that precedes the main event.
Part of that is due to its setting in this North African kingdom and the sense of the exotic that one feels here, whether wandering the narrow streets of its maze-like medinas as the calls to prayer from the muezzin echo off their white-washed walls or savoring multi-course meals of Morocco salads and chicken or lamb tagine while listening to Gnawa musicians pluck their bass lutes and pat their double-headed drums.
Even the layout evokes the aura of the Maghreb region, thanks to the marble columns that the tournament founder, the late King Hassan II, moved from the ancient city of Volubilis roughly 100 miles to the east to a spot between the 11th and 12th fairways of this Robert Trent Jones Sr.-designed course.
Then, there is the prize that goes to the tournament winner, which is a gold-accented, jewel-encrusted khanjar, or dagger.
The late King Hassan II in 1993
ABDELHAK SENNA, AFP via Getty Images
Another thing that sets this competition apart is its origins, founded and then carefully nurtured by the monarch, a direct descendant of the prophet Muhammad as well as an avid golfer who counted Claude Harmon and Billy Casper as his swing doctors. His Majesty had come to see golf as a way to introduce people to Morocco and highlight its many attributes as a tourist destination. And he believed that if done right, his tournament would turn the tour professionals and the amateurs who participated in the pro-am competition into avid ambassadors for the game here.
Longevity is another distinguishing element. First played in December 1971 and initially named the Morocco International Golf Grand Prix, the inaugural edition featured a field of 25 tour professionals, among them multiple major-championship winners Sam Snead, Johnny Miller, Tony Jacklin and Casper, as well as Orville Moody, who had won the U.S. Open two years prior. And it was Moody who prevailed in that event.
By the time it was held in 1972, the tournament had been renamed the Hassan II Trophy. And for the next three decades, it prospered as one of the most popular silly-season events on the planet while earning a reputation as perhaps the most exclusive pro-am in the game, with rounds of golf in this coastal capital city and also Marrakech as well as a social agenda that included black-tie galas, lavish lunches served under Berber tents and visits to the royal stables.
For a few years, the Hassan II Trophy even included rounds on the rarely played palace course in Agadir that Trent Jones designed with his longtime associate Cabell Robinson.
In 2010, the tournament became a stop on the European Tour. After not being staged for two years during the COVID-19 pandemic, it re-emerged in 2023 as a PGA Tour Champions event. And its playing last week marked the 50th time the Trophy had been held.
That’s a remarkable record and also an impressive legacy for the king who founded it as well as for his second son, Prince Moulay Rachid, who assumed the golf portfolio in Morocco at the request of his brother, King Mohammed VI, not long after their father died in the summer of 1999 and has been furthering the game in their homeland ever since.
Prince Moulay Rachid
Ross Kinnaird, Getty Images
Morocco’s first course came on line in 1914 at the Diplomatic Country Club in Tangier, with nine holes routed around a polo field. A little more than a decade after that, a nine-hole course opened at Royal Golf Marrakech in that imperial city. And members made it a full 18-hole track in 1933. Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower were among those golfers who teed it up there soon after that expansion.
King Hassan II played his first round of golf in Tangier shortly after ascending to the throne in 1961, introduced to the game by his younger brother, Moulay Abdellah. His Majesty fell hard for the sport, so much so that eight years later he decided to create a golf complex in the vast Maamora Forest outside this city. Full of cork oaks as well as pine, acacia and eucalyptus trees, it also boasted wonderfully varied land that was perfectly suited for golf.
To execute his vision of what came to be called Royal Golf Dar Es Salam, which translates from Arabic to “House of Peace,” the monarch turned to Trent Jones, who was regarded at the time as the finest course architect in the business. Trent Jones produced the routings for a pair of 18-hole layouts as well as a nine-holer and oversaw the construction, which involved hundreds of workers, the vast majority of whom were members of the Moroccan military. As was his habit in all affairs of state, the king took a very hands-on approach in that process, often riding around the property as the courses took shape and then making design and construction suggestions.
It was during one of those outings that Hassan II hit upon the idea of erecting the Volubilis columns on the golf course.
Dar Es Salam was formally established in the fall of 1971. The first to open was the Red Course, which was designed to be a championship track. That was followed by the Blue, which was more of a layout for recreational golfers, and the nine-hole Green Course, a place largely for novice golfers and those players who did not have time to play a full 18 holes. The King was member No. 1, and Prince Moulay Abdellah hit the opening tee shot.
As for the head golf professional, His Majesty asked Butch Harmon to assume that position, and the eldest son of the king’s longtime golf coach and playing companion, who was just 28 years old at the time, happily did so.
Morocco now has more than 40 courses scattered around the country – and more to come.
The Hassan II Trophy grew steadily in size and prestige from its modest beginnings. And its roster of champions includes two-time winners Casper and Payne Stewart as well as Lee Trevino, Ernie Els, Colin Montgomerie and Miguel Ángel Jiménez.
Nick Price was ranked No. 1 in the world when he captured the 1995 edition of the event, and Pádraig Harrington prevailed in 2007 just months after taking the first of his two Open Championship titles.
Vijay Singh used his victory in the 1991 Hassan II Trophy very much as a stepping stone for his Hall of Fame career, winning PGA Tour Rookie of the Year honors two years later and also a pair of PGA Championships in 1998 and 2004 and the 2000 Masters. And the fields each year invariably featured a pleasing mix of golf legends, from Gary Player and Seve Ballesteros to Nick Faldo, Curtis Strange and Bernhard Langer while also serving as a proving ground for soon-to-be golf greats like Lee Westwood.
The game in the Kingdom has also prospered during that stretch, with more than 40 courses scattered around the country – and more to come. Government statistics reveal that tourists play nearly 320,000 rounds on those layouts annually, with Moroccans contributing an additional 100,000 rounds of their own.
Much of that growth is a result of the Hassan II Trophy and the ways it so successfully elevated the profile of Morocco and helped it become the golf destination it is today.
It is the King’s legacy and also that of Prince Moulay Rachid, who has carried the torch his father lit with the founding of Royal Golf Dar Es Salam and the Hassan II Trophy and taken the initiative to new levels by also working to develop Moroccan golfers along the way.
Here’s hoping it continues to burn brightly.
Editor’s note: John Steinbreder has covered a dozen Hassan II Trophy tournaments since 1995 and even played in a few of the pro-ams preceding the competition. His latest book, published by Assouline, is titled “Morocco - Kingdom of Golf.”
Top: The Volubilis columns at Royal Golf Dar Es Salam
Octavio Passos, Getty Images
