Golf was introduced to the Kingdom when expatriates working at Saudi Aramco scooped out an 18-hole course in the sand near Dhahran in the late 1940s. The oil company is believed to have pioneered the method for mixing oil with Saudi Arabia’s ultra-fine, indigent sand to keep the winds from blowing it away. Most of the desert courses developed since then have adopted this method, and golfers still refer to the greens as ‘‘browns”.

Rolling Hills Golf Course - 1960	Rolling Hills Golf Course - 2004

The Dhahran course was moved to its present site a few years after its inauguration, and the course celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1998.  Besides being the country’s oldest golf course, it became the largest when another 9 holes were added in the late 1970s. 

Now, the course at Dhahran has undergone another change and it re-opened in July of 2004 as an 18 hole Grass Course.  It is the first grass course in the Eastern Province and only the second 18 hole grass course in the Kingdom.

Until recently, only a few desert golf courses beckoned to the hardiest of golfers in the Kingdom. There were no grass courses — not even a ‘‘green” that was green — and golfers carry a piece of artificial turf to place under the ball on the tees and on fairways.

Today, a variety of first-class golf courses are available. In addition to a growing number of desert courses, Jeddah and Riyadh offer lush courses that look as if they belong in Florida.

Four grass 9-hole golf courses, two grass 18 hole courses, one 27-hole desert course and about ten 18-hole desert courses exist in the Kingdom. And more than half of them have been developed in the past eight years, indicating that golf is on the up-swing in Saudi Arabia.