The PGA Tour Champions heads overseas this week for a milestone moment. The 50th edition of the Trophy Hassan II tees off Thursday at Royal Golf Dar Es Salam in Rabat, Morocco — and the 66-player field is loaded with World Golf Hall of Famers, a defending champion chasing rare history, and a Red Course that has tortured European Tour pros for half a century.
For a tournament built by a king to put Moroccan golf on the world map, the 50th edition feels like a return to its roots — and a reminder of just how globally the senior circuit now plays.
What’s Happening
The Trophy Hassan II runs Thursday, May 21 through Saturday, May 23, 2026. It’s a 54-hole, no-cut event — standard for PGA Tour Champions — played on the par-73, 7,329-yard Red Course at Royal Golf Dar Es Salam, the Robert Trent Jones design carved out of cork oak forest 15 minutes outside the Moroccan capital.
This is the 50th playing of an event that has bounced between tours throughout its history. It started life as a European Tour stop in 1971, hosted Ladies European Tour and Asian Tour events along the way, and joined the PGA Tour Champions schedule as the first international stop of the season. The 2026 field brings together 5 major championship winners with a combined 11 Grand Slam titles, 6 former winners of the Trophy itself, and players representing 16 nationalities.
The Hall Of Fame Wing Of The Field
Four members of the World Golf Hall of Fame are in the field this week — a remarkable density of pedigree for a single 54-hole event:
- Vijay Singh (inducted 2005, year listed by tournament release 1991 ranking) — three-time major winner who turned the senior circuit into a second career.
- Colin Montgomerie (1997) — eight-time European Order of Merit winner whose ball-striking still travels well on tight, tree-lined layouts like Dar Es Salam.
- Ernie Els (2011) — four-time major champion and one of the most accomplished international players in PGA Tour Champions history.
- José María Olazábal (2009) — fresh off a stunning short-game display at the 2026 Masters at age 60, the Spaniard’s touch around the greens should translate beautifully to the slick Bermuda surfaces in Rabat.
That’s 11 majors and four Ryder Cup careers worth of experience teeing it up against the rest of the over-50 set. It’s not the deepest field of the year — that distinction belongs to the senior majors — but for an international event in May, it’s an impressive lineup.
Jiménez Chasing 50-Year History
The defending champion is Miguel Ángel Jiménez, who won here in 2025 and returns to attempt something only two players have done in the tournament’s 50-year history: win the Trophy Hassan II in back-to-back years. He’d also become the first to do it during the PGA Tour Champions era of the event.
Jiménez is uniquely suited to Royal Golf Dar Es Salam. The course rewards precision off the tee through narrow corridors of cork oak — and the Mechanic, even at 62, remains one of the most accurate drivers on the senior circuit. He’s also a six-time winner of the European Senior Tour’s Hassan II predecessor stage, knows the property cold, and has a fan base in Morocco that turns the Red Course into something close to a home game.
The two players to win Dar Es Salam in consecutive years did so when the event was a European Tour stop — long before the Champions Tour took it over. So Jiménez has a real shot at being the first to do it as a senior, against the strongest international field this event has assembled in years.
Why Dar Es Salam Demands A Different Player
The Red Course is a famously stern test. Robert Trent Jones routed the layout through dense cork oak forest, and the trees are the defining feature — penal off the tee in a way most modern PGA Tour Champions venues simply aren’t. Wide-open American senior layouts reward bombers; Dar Es Salam rewards shapers.
Add in the par-3 9th hole — an iconic island green that ranks among the most photographed par 3s in international golf — and you have a course that asks players to manage stress as much as distance. Expect the leaderboard to skew toward grinders and ball-strikers rather than the long-iron specialists who dominate softer American senior venues like Greystone for the Regions Tradition.
Watch Steven Alker in particular. The New Zealander has been the model of consistency on PGA Tour Champions for the last three seasons, and his measured iron play and patience are tailor-made for a course where one wayward drive into the cork oaks can cost two shots. Alker hasn’t won in 2026, but his back-half finishes have been strong enough to suggest he’s due.
Why It Matters
The Trophy Hassan II is one of those tournaments that quietly anchors the international identity of golf at the senior level. PGA Tour Champions is overwhelmingly American — most events take place at warm-weather American venues with corporate title sponsors. The Morocco stop is the rare reminder that elite golf at every level is a global sport, and that the over-50 game has roots that stretch well beyond the U.S. sun belt.
For the field, the tournament also serves as critical preparation. Following the early-May Insperity Invitational and Stewart Cink’s win at the Senior PGA Championship, players who skipped the U.S. East Coast swing get a competitive reset before the U.S. Senior Open looms in late June. International players in particular use the Rabat trip as a soft launch back onto the schedule.
And for the 50th edition specifically, there’s a ceremonial weight that’s hard to ignore. King Hassan II of Morocco built Royal Golf Dar Es Salam to put his country on the international sporting map. Fifty years in, his tournament continues to do exactly that — drawing four Hall of Famers, six former champions, and players from 16 countries to a course in the cork oaks outside Rabat.
What This Means For You
If you’re a casual golf fan, the Trophy Hassan II is worth your weekend morning. The time zone works for U.S. audiences (Morocco is GMT+1, which translates to early-to-mid afternoon coverage on the East Coast). You’ll see four Hall of Famers in the same field, on a course that looks nothing like the manicured U.S. parkland tracks the senior circuit usually plays.
If you’re a golfer yourself, watch how the Hall of Famers move the ball off the tee. Cork-oak corridors are unforgiving — and the players who survive Dar Es Salam are the ones who play shapes rather than straight lines. Olazábal’s chipping clinic at the Masters this April showed what’s still possible with imagination and feel. Watch closely on the par 3s and around the greens this week — you’ll pick up more about touch and trajectory in three rounds in Rabat than you will in a month of trying to copy a PGA Tour bomber.
Key Takeaways
- The Trophy Hassan II hits its 50th playing May 21–23 at Royal Golf Dar Es Salam in Rabat, Morocco — the lone international stop on the PGA Tour Champions calendar.
- Four World Golf Hall of Famers are in the 66-player field: Vijay Singh, Colin Montgomerie, Ernie Els, and José María Olazábal.
- Defending champion Miguel Ángel Jiménez is chasing back-to-back wins — something only two players have done in the tournament’s 50-year history.
- Steven Alker and the international contingent are well-suited to the Robert Trent Jones design, which rewards precision over power.
- The 2026 field represents 16 nationalities, 5 major champions, and 11 combined Grand Slam titles — one of the strongest international Champions Tour fields of the year.
Coverage of the Trophy Hassan II is available globally via PGA Tour Champions broadcast partners. The 54-hole tournament concludes Saturday evening local time in Rabat.
