Our history
In 1897, a major event ! It is the foundation of the first golf club in Morocco under the name "Tangier Golf Club". This historical fact has come to institutionalize the practice of golf in Tangier and formalize the administrative and technical structures that flow from it.
According to documents attested, it is in 1899, that took place the foundation of the first polo club of Morocco in Tangier. The latter (who is also the ancestor of our Royal Country Club) will bear, in 1910, the name: "Tangier Country Club Diplomatic".
It was played on the Marshan plateau, but the game was often hampered, it seems, by a well in the middle of the field around which the women of the region met and by the Punico-Roman remains, there was serious consideration a transfer of the sport elsewhere.
In 1902 or 1903, diplomats having obtained the right to play in Boubana, Richard William Alan Onslow, another English diplomat, launched another polo club in Tangier (first club of Boubana).
In 1910, the polo club took the name of "Tangier Country Club Diplomatic". The latter will house the golf course but will also host other sports. This fusion of existing clubs was welcome and will be a prelude to energetic action in the field of diplomatic sporting practice.
The elected president of this club was M. de Rappard, Minister of Holland at Tangier, who was at that time dean of the diplomatic corps. He had as honorary secretary, Mr. Alfonso Caro, representative of the Spanish Legation in Tangier and Captain Howard William Kennard, First Secretary of the British Legation in Tangier.
An exceptional story that began in 1914 by its foundation under the name of DIPLOMATIC COUNTRY CLUB under the era of Sultan MOULAY ABDELAZIZ.
Designed by the architects COTTON and PENNINK the golf of Tangier is the first golf created in the Mediterranean basin and one of the oldest in Africa.
In 1939, Charles Hugh Alison, British golf architect (Colt, Alison & Morrison Ltd), born March 5, 1833 in Preston (Lancashire) and died on October 20, 1952 in Johannesburg, was awarded the honor to redesign the nine holes of the Country Club.
Needless to say, the courses made by Alison were ranked among the top 50 golf courses in America by the "Golf Digest" in 2007. That is to say the importance given, at the time to the Royal golf of Tangier.
In 1956, the day after the Independence of the Kingdom and therefore with the reintegration of the city of Tangier to the motherland after the repeal of the Charter that bears his name in 1957, the Tangier Country Club will begin a new era of its exciting story.
HIS MAJESTY HASSAN II, which granted the golf of Tangier its high benevolence makes him enter towards the end of the Seventies in modernity while preserving its natural and authentic character and by involving in its renovation its own architects.
From 1974, still benefiting from the royal and institutional support, the Club, initially doyen of the Moroccan clubs, will also be able to take pride in its new status of one of the best clubs of the Kingdom. Its length is now six miles and, in addition to its technical qualities, it "has originality that is found very rarely in other courses around the world."
Golf course Tangier, redesigned in 2000 by PETER HARRADINE, renowned architect presents undulating fairways, with multiple attractions, surrounded by pines, fir trees and eucalyptus which make it a privileged place of leisure and sport of more than 65 hectares located downtown.
The Royal Country Club of Tangier is not only centenary, it is also and above all, the Dean of the Moroccan clubs, that of the clubs of the Mediterranean Basin and the second to our knowledge, (after that of South Africa), the African continent.
The Royal Country Club of Tangier was declared a National Heritage on January 1st. The lung of the city of Tangier, this title also pays tribute to the redevelopment and modernization efforts provided by the Committee.