Golf

Golf came late to Cyprus and has grown up almost entirely in one district. What the island offers is a long season — play is comfortable through the months when northern European courses are shut — and settings that make the most of the terrain, with holes routed along gorges, over ravines and above the sea. This site documents 6 courses and golf parks, listed by district further down the page.

The championship courses

Aphrodite Hills is the best known: a championship course inside a resort between Paphos and Limassol, laid out across a ravine that separates the two halves of the property. Minthis Hills is the one with the setting — 18 holes in the hills above Paphos, arranged around a monastery whose origins run back to the twelfth century, at an altitude that keeps it noticeably cooler than the coast.

The shorter game

Marios Golf Park sits on the Kato Paphos to Coral Bay road opposite the Azia Hotel and is reachable on the 615 bus, which makes it the practical choice without a car. Island Cove Mini Golf at Yeroskipou is an 18-hole mini golf course and a straightforwardly good family evening rather than a golfing one.

When to play

The Cypriot golf season is effectively the opposite of the northern European one. Autumn through spring is the time to come: warm, dry and playable when courses further north are frozen or waterlogged. High summer is genuinely hard work on an exposed course here, and the sensible tee times in July and August are the first of the morning or late in the afternoon. Book ahead in the winter months, when the courses fill with visiting golfers.