Shura Links: Red, greens and blue

Upon landing at the new Red Sea International Airport in Saudi Arabia, my walk from plane to onward transportation took just a couple of minutes, through a Foster + Partners terminal designed to provide a tranquil and memorable travel experience more akin to a resort than airport, and where speed of transit is the primary goal.

After a 20-minute drive through the desert, a 1.2-kilometre bridge comes into view, along with a first glimpse of Shura Island on the other side. The seamless journey is part of the luxury experience that Red Sea Global, the Public Investment Fund-owned company behind The Red Sea Project, is striving to deliver as it establishes a new tourist destination on the country’s west coast.

One of 92 islands within the Al Wajh lagoon archipelago, Shura remained largely untouched until Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced The Red Sea Project in 2017 as part of Saudi Vision 2030. Today, five of a planned 11 hotels are already open, and work continues on residences, a marina, shopping and other resort facilities.

The golf course sits at the centre of the island, with half of its holes playing alongside water. Mass earthworks, ground stabilisation and marine works began in 2021 on what had previously been a flat and largely featureless area. Brian Curley was appointed in 2024, inheriting a routing and basic grading plan that had already been prepared.

“I had a huge amount of freedom, but the routing had to largely stay the same,” says Curley. “I made adjustments though, such as the new par-three sixth as well as adding the short-game area and putting course by reducing the ninth from a par five to a four.”

The par-three sixth, an addition Brian Curley made to the layout (Photo: Brian Curley)

Curley wanted to ensure the resort infrastructure, which will only expand in the coming years, did not dominate the golfing experience. Working alongside Richard Haas, Red Sea Global’s head of golf design and construction, he created a system of dunes to help define sightlines.

“We were fortunate to be able to build some very high and dramatic dunes where we wanted to block views – such as the infrastructure building zones,” says Curley. “The result is that Shura has plenty of movement both from a visual standpoint and to help the golf course site drain well.”

This approach has been very effective: on holes that play close to the resort development, the dune shaping keeps the focus on the golf course. Where the course turns towards the Red Sea, aqua blue water becomes the dominant visual element.

The par threes are particularly memorable. The sixth, the hole Curley added to the original routing, plays from a slightly elevated tee to a green that juts into a translucent channel and open sea backdrop. There is a bailout area on the right, but anything long or left is likely to end up in sand or water. The fifteenth is equally impressive. Its long and narrow green, set at a slight angle to the line of play, is situated on a small island. Anything short or long is liable to fall away into shortgrass surrounds, leaving a tricky chip to an undulating green. But that is a better fate than a pull, which, with a bit of encouragement from the wind, is likely to find the water. The short sixteenth plays from the same small island, back over a channel to perhaps the most well-protected green on the course.

The par-three fifteenth green sits on a small island shared with the tees of the next hole (Photo: Brian Curley)

The short sixteenth plays from the same small island to a well-defended green (Photo: Brian Curley)

Curley has sought to create a “low profile” design that would allow a ground game approach when the wind kicks in.

“This meant greens that allow balls to run in, rather than playing to perched surfaces,” he says. “Formal greenside bunkers are mostly pulled away and flanked. The greens are large and feature big movement in lieu of a lot of immediate bunkering, but there are also large expanses of pinnable zones.”

The result is holes that encourage and reward imagination, rather than an aerial game as default.

“Given the seaside setting and being subject to wind, my main push was to create width and a ‘find your ball’ experience,” says Curley. “Too many courses in the Middle East are now surrounded by dense landscaping that make for slow play. My goal was to incorporate the seaside environment without extensive demand of tee shots.” Generous fairways give golfers options from the tee, with the best angles into greens earned through thoughtful positioning rather than simply finding short grass.

With a windswept, seaside setting, one of Brian Curley’s design priorities was to create width. Pictured, hole two (Photo: Brian Curley)

Curley says one of his favourite tee shots is at the twelfth, where a dramatic sandy gouge divides the landing area and creates both visual interest and strategic choice. Similar moments appear on the fifth, seventh and fourteenth, where carries over dunes introduce uncertainty. “Without these, tee shots could become repetitive, but the slightly blind aspect brings a very distinct visual,” says Curley.

Hundreds of thousands of plants, shrubs, flowers and trees have been introduced across the site, relying more on varieties of ice plants than standard ornamental grasses. “The plantings are needed to create the dunescape we desired,” says Curley. “Without these, the sandy expanses would be overwhelming. That said, most of the density is behind tees and greens.”

The fourth hole, with the Red Sea in the distance (Photo: Brian Curley)

In line with the entire vision for the island, Shura Links has sustainable principles at its core. Developed using the OnCourse platform by GEO Foundation, the course features just 70 acres of irrigated turf, a drought- and salt-tolerant Platinum TE paspalum grass supplied by Atlas Turf Arabia. Bio-organic nutrition is used to avoid risk to marine life. Toro’s Lynx Control System manages irrigation, while the POGO turf management platform uses GPS-guided sensors to monitor soil moisture, salinity and canopy temperature. Energy requirements are met by a solar power infrastructure.

“Precision agronomy, real-time data, and off-grid infrastructure aren’t future concepts anymore,” says Jon Brook, general manager at Shura Links. “They’re essential tools for building golf courses that can exist responsibly in tomorrow’s environments.”

Saudi Arabia has bold plans for golf tourism, with at least five new courses expected to open in the next five years, representing an increase in its current stock of around 33 per cent. Shura Links, which has immediately vaulted its way into the Middle East’s must-play list, is an impressive marker of the country’s ambition.

A Foster + Partners clubhouse is located near the eighteenth green (Photo: Kevin Murray)

This article first appeared in the July 2026 issue of Golf Course Architecture. For a printed subscription or free digital edition, please visit our subscriptions page.