BAHAMAS
The Abaco Club When you first glimpse the The Abaco Club’s golf course, nestled in a Garden of Eden setting called Winding Bay on Great Abaco Island (the biggest of a chain of Bahamian islands known as the Abacos), it provides an unforgettable sight with lush emerald green fairways skirting pristine beaches and the deep- blue backdrop of ocean. Billed as the world’s first “tropical
links” golf course, this spectacular layout is the centerpiece of a $250 million re- sort built by British tycoon Peter de Sa- vary (and now a Ritz-Carlton managed club), who hired Donald Steel and Tom Mackenzie to bring a slice of Scotland to the tropics. They have incorporated classic links ingredients—swales, humps and hollows, small pot bunkers and undulating greens—into the design. The gin-clear waters of Winding
Bay are in view on the first 14 holes, while the final four traverse a coral cliff above the Atlantic. On the 18th tee block, you are greeted by the sound of waves crashing against the rocky cliffs and a rolling carpet of lush landscape that stretches from tee to green. For the golf connoisseur it does not get much better than this.
BARBADOS Sandy Lane The exclusive Sandy Lane resort is
home to two championship golf courses (and a 9-holer), and the place where Tiger Woods reserved all 112 rooms and fa- mously tied the knot in a lavish ceremony at a reported cost of almost $3 million. Like everything at Sandy Lane, the
golf courses have been landscaped to a high standard. The Country Club is a parkland course, featuring several man-made lakes and some challenging approach shots to greens well protected by water and sand. Holes 6 and 7 are particularly sweet, and it has nothing to do with the fact that plumes of smoke can be seen rising from a nearby dis- tillery busily converting cane juice into rum, the islanders’ tipple of choice. Sandy Lane’s other course, the
Green Monkey, has so far remained hidden from the golf public. It’s like the Mona Lisa of golf—enigmatic, un- touchable and only available for Sandy
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No. 16 Green Monkey, Barbados
Lane guests to play. Some people will pay any price to play, and stories abound of people tossing their room keys to their caddie after a round. “The vision of the owners,” says
course architect Tom Fazio, “was to create a place as dramatic as any there is in the world.” Sculpted from what was once a working limestone quarry, course architect Tom Fazio slowly builds drama through the first eight parkland-style holes, and then startles golfers with a rapid descent into an abandoned quarry, where 87-feet-high coral walls dwarf the fairways. The signature hole, the 226-yard par-3 16th, is destined to become one of the world’s most photographed golf holes. Players hit down into the old quarry to a green edged by a massive bunker featuring a grass island carved in the shape of a Bajan green monkey, a species introduced to the island from West Africa more than 350 years ago and the inspiration for the course name. A friendly and popular course for
golfers of all abilities is Barbados Golf Club. Wide-open fairways, gently roll-
ing hills and a series of coral-waste bun- kers feature at this 18-hole track. Two lakes enhance play on five holes and the flora, especially the yellow-and-red flowers of the Pride of Barbados bush that line the fairways, add to the visual appeal. A nine-hole track at Rockley Golf & Country Club completes the Barbados golf collection. Away from the golf there’s plenty
to do: self-drive the island, watch a cricket match at Kensington Park Oval in Bridgetown, visit the famous Friday Fish Fry at Oistins and take a Mount Gay Distillery tour where the world’s oldest rum brand was born over three centuries ago.
NEVIS
Four Seasons Nevis—this speck of an island southeast of Puerto Rico, was thrust into the forefront of world travel in 1991 when Four Seasons Nevis opened as the Caribbean’s first AAA Five Diamond Resort. Over the years it has compiled a list of awards and accolades as lengthy as the dining room wine list.
PHOTO: SANDY LANE
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