This Is the Only Golf Course in the World Where You Can Hit Balls at a Pyramid
The Mena House Oberoi Golf Club is set beside the Giza plateau, about 700 meters (about 0.4 miles) off the Great Pyramid. This is important because plenty of courses claim “pyramid views” in marketing copy, but a view can mean a hazy outline miles away. Here, the pyramids stay in your face all around, so close that they turn into the dominant background on multiple shots.
A Course Older Than Most Countries
Mena House’s story begins in 1899, making it the oldest golf course in Egypt. It did not begin as the polished resort-style experience golf travelers expect today. Early versions were sandy, then a major redesign in 1917 brought grass greens and a more playable setup.
The layout also has a quirky detail that golf nerds love repeating: it plays as a nine-hole course with two greens per hole. Loop it twice, and the targets shift, so the second run feels like a remix instead of a rerun. The total yardage across two loops is around 5,300 yards, so nobody confuses it with a modern monster, but length is not the point here. The point is the setting, plus the weird mental game of trying to hit a clean iron while standing next to 4,500-year-old architecture.
The Renovation That Kept The Place Modern
Image via Wikimedia Commons/Pgjansson
History alone does not keep a course alive. In 2007, the club went through a significant renovation led by Robert Trent Jones II. The updates were the kind golfers actually notice: lakes added for strategy and penalty, floodlighting for night golf, automatic irrigation, and a switch to Sea Isle Supreme Paspalum grass, a variety often chosen in hot climates. The renovation also stretched the routing conceptually.
Why Golf Tourism Cares About This One
Golf tourism lives on high-spend travelers, and Egypt’s golf pitch relies heavily on combining sport with headline-level landmarks. One travel-industry breakdown puts golf visits around 20,000 golfers annually, with average spending near $750 per week.
The numbers can vary by source and year, but the logic is that golfers build trips around tee times, and they pay for convenience. Mena House also benefits because it links cleanly to lodging. The adjacent Marriott Mena House Cairo hotel is the obvious base if someone wants to roll out, grab breakfast, and get to the first tee without turning the morning into a logistics project.
How To Play It Without Overthinking It
Image via Getty Images/Lucy Ryan
Timing is very important in Cairo. The most comfortable playing window is from October through April, with mild daytime temperatures ranging around 22°C (about 72°F). Dress codes are classic golf styles, collared shirts, and standard golf shorts or pants.
Caddies are also a smart call here, since the setting turns everyone into a photographer. The funniest part is how quickly the round stops being about score. You still want to stripe it, sure, but the real win is walking off with proof you played golf close enough to a pyramid that your buddies will accuse you of using Photoshop.