For those tuning into this week’s TV coverage of the Hero World Challenge, you may wonder if there are any other golf courses on the main island in the Bahamas you could play other than the course hosting the $4.5m event at the very private Albany Club.
In fact, there are other, more accessible golf courses including The Ocean Club and the stunning Royal Blue Golf Club, a course that has become one of the crown jewels in Bahamas golf.
Royal Blue is the first Jack Nicklaus ‘Signature’ golf course in the Bahamas and officially opened for play in May 2017.
Those of us who reported on the 2015 Hero World Challenge, the first time the Tiger Woods hosted event moved to the Bahamas, would be driven past each day, but saw the sad sight of a closed golf course with overgrown grass and not a golfer in sight.
The course was then named TPC Baha Mar, after the majestic-looking Baha Mar Hotel/Casino resort laid-out on along the blue Caribbean at close-by Cable Beach.
The golf course itself had been due to open in May 2015 however, with the 1,000-acre project almost complete, the resort declared bankruptcy, leaving both the hotels and the golf course in limbo.
Both were sadly still in limbo a year later when we returned for the 2016 Hero World Challenge, but fortunately, a team had been employed in order to preserve the greens.
It was not all despair as there was then a double dose of good news when the resort came under new ownership and the Scottsdale-based OB Sports took over management of the golf course and immediately invested half-a-million dollars, redoing every bunker and ridding the course of a disease that had crept onto the fairways during bankruptcy.
Then, in May 2017, both the Grand Hyatt Baha Mar resort and now-named Royal Blue Golf Course were officially opened.
You could imagine our surprise on the 15-minute drive from Nassau International Airport, when we were greeted by a now fully operational $4.2m Baha Mar Hotel/Casino Resort and right across the road, the now very much-alive picture postcard Royal Blue Golf Club.
Within the complex, the resort also boasts the Baha Mar Convention, Art and Entertainment Center; Peter Burwash International tennis courts and facilities; multiple restaurants, bars and lounges; even a Starbucks, as well a gastropub called the ‘Swimming Pig’; select ESPA spa experiences; the resort’s extensive pool and beach areas and the entry show lakes and fountain shows choreographed to music, film and lights.
On the Tuesday night ahead of the 2017 Hero World Challenge, Royal Blue very generously welcomed members of the visiting media as they hosted a superb cocktail function within the stunning clubhouse.
We were very warmly greeted by Director of Golf Sean Cracraft, a former Senior VP of Operations at OB Sports, and Sean’s fellow OB colleague, Andy Deiro who’d been appointed Head Golf Professional.
The visiting Hero World Challenge media were spoiled rotten and didn’t have to ask if we could possibly play Royal Blue, as Andy directly posed the question: “When would you like come to play?”
To spend the week in the comfort of the Baha Mar hotel was remarkable. To stroll down to the beach, dip your toes into the turquoise Caribbean and relax on the golden sands sipping a Bahamas Mama was to die for. But to tee-up on the immaculately-presented Royal Blue course was nearly akin to having died and gone to golf course heaven.
The course had been rejuvenated from near lifeless, and we received a very warm greeting upon arrival at the clubhouse ahead of stepping onto absolutely pristine tees, with carpet-like fairways awaiting your drive, preferably avoiding the golden sand bunkering to moonscape-like features. It also featured a stunning signature hole complete with island green and the putting surfaces were first-class.
What is unique at Royal Blue is that it presents two very contrasting nine hole loops and there is just one tee box in play on each of the 18 holes. Unlike most golf clubs, Andy and his team will assess the weather and move the lone tee on each hole accordingly, so that on some days you could be playing near the back or on another, up front.
From the very tips the course plays to 7,068-yards, with two pairs of par-5s and par-3s on each half.
The opening nine is relatively flat where tropical palm trees abound, and with water coming into play on all but one hole, while the inward half is the complete opposite, very undulating, and with for the most part dense jungle-like lined fairways and water will capture an errant shot on just two holes – the downhill par-4 10th hole and the spectacular par-3 16th.
The 10th, measuring 377-yards off the back, is a downhill, slightly dog-leg-left hole to a green guarded by marshland on the right and ready to catch any tee-shot long and the green is surrounded by bunkers, while there’s what the club describes as ‘moonlike’ features at the back of the green, and there is a pathway carved out of the rock where you make you way after parking your cart to walk onto the green.
There’s a great photograph to be taken on leaving the green, presenting a view back up the 10th hole, the adjoining par-3 12th, and in the distance the stunning Baha Mar Hotels dominating the sunshine-splashed skyline
After tackling the 12th, the cart path then leads you past the entrance to the club and under the roadway to complete your round by playing the closing half-a-dozen holes.
The uphill, and very well bunker-guarded par-4 14th is the No. 1 index hole, while the adjoining and now downhill par-4 15th is an unsung hero with a par or better here putting you in right mind to face the 16th.
Just make sure your phone has plenty of battery life as the 16th, very much akin to the famed 17th at TPC Sawgrass, is a ‘must-take’ photograph hole. The 16th measures 165-yards from the back to a narrow at first, but then widening green surrounded almost entirely by the waters of Lake Cunningham. Here, there’s no future in being either short or long. It’s a daunting shot but then what joy if you walk off with a humble par. Better still, a birdie!
When you play any Nicklaus-designed course, you know that Jack certainly never designs by half-measures.
“The allure of those clubs is the fact that they’re very expensive,” Deiro says of the Itobori sets in the club’s rental program. “You hit them for two reasons: One, you’re a very good player, and you like the feel of a more traditional, forged golf club. Or, you’re the person who says, ‘They’re $12,000 a set, and I’m going to play with them, and I don’t care how I hit ’em because I’ve never done it before.’”
In summation, I cannot thank Sean, Andy, Georgette and the team enough for their welcome, their hospitality and the opportunity to play the crown jewel in Bahamas golf.
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