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Mauritius, Anahita
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FOUR SEASONS GOLF CLUB AT MAURITIUS Anahita
Number of holes: 18, par 72.
Length: 6,741 metres
Design: Ernie Els, 2008.
Green fees: www.fourseasons.com/mauritius/golf.html
Rating: Excellent resort course with wonderful location, excellent quality, inviting fairways and educational green areas. Trivia: The course is long from 'Ernie El’s' tee, but four other options are available on each hole. This is the first course on Mauritius that is built according to USGA standards.
Mauritius, Anahita - Ernie golf gem
Big Easy has created the perfect resort course, with just the right blend of sweet and salty. The Four Seasons Golf Club on the east coast of Mauritius’ east opens up for long drives and striking views.
As the only Scandinavian media representative Golfresan was, thanks to the tour operator First Class Escape, on-site during the inauguration of the new Ernie Els golf course in Mauritius. The course was surreptitiously opened a while back, but now it was time for the official inauguration of the 18 holes, as well as the entire "Anahita The Resort", here on the east coast of Mauritius. It was pomp and circumstance, with both the Prime Minister and a whole lot of potentates and investors, and Ernie Els course.
The course is located about a five minute ferry ride from Le Tuessrok, the super-demanding Bernhard Langer-creation on the island of Ile aux Cerf that we wrote about earlier. I don’t know whether it’s the proximity to it and the memory of all the balls hit away there or if it’s Ernie El’s personality, but I can disclose now that Anahita is a very different treat.
I suspect that the originators wanted a resort course that was sufficiently challenging and spectacular, without scaring the short pants off of guests as Le Tuessrok can do. If that was the case they can now do a high five. Ernie ( or Big Easy as he is known ) in fact has a wonderful golf course with the right balance of challenges, beauty and laid-back holiday golf.
First of all, the landing surfaces are usually (there are some delightful exceptions) well-groomed and wide. It is in fact hard to hit the ball away, something that means that the driver is brought along on almost every tee. Then you come to the approach and it immediately gets trickier. Not that the greens are surrounded by knee-high rough, broken rocks and birch shoots as so often in Sweden, no, here it’s the exquisitely designed green areas that punishes a bad approach.
The greens are not huge, but all are more or less elevated, and also slippery. Around them are splendid bunker systems, and especially large (and fast!) run-off surfaces.
An excellent example is the fourth hole, the course’s signature hole. The tee is elevated (like most) and you face an unparalleled view of the turquoise blue sea. Bring out the driver and wind up, you won’t miss the fairway - unless you hit an extremely bad slice or hook.
Six of the holes face the Indian Ocean and all is magically beautiful, but of these it is perhaps the eighteenth that is the most striking. Par five, dogleg right and then full speed towards the clubhouse. The problem is that the ocean curls along the left side, and to the right there are both old walls and a lot of dense vegetation. The highlight of the hole however is nevertheless that you still have the entire resort’s beach to the left of the green which gives the last ball contact a very special setting.
The course has been built on what is called Anahita World Class Sanctuary - a 213 hectare area on the east of Mauritius which has developed into one of the island's most exciting areas.
The above mentioned "Anahita The Resort", is a new concept of privately owned apartments, where owners can choose to hire them out during parts of the year. They are hired out with full hotel service, the difference being that you have a fully furnished apartment with a large kitchen and all imaginable facilities. You hire on a B & B basis with your own butler who fixes breakfast in your apartment.
Also in the area is the wonderful, low-built "Four Seasons Resort Mauritius at Anahita", where the architect has really made use of the surrounding mangrove vegetation and the beautiful small inlets to create an irresistible environment.
The architecture is hyper-modern glass, steel and a lot of wood, that is weighed out against the Mauritian saltwater ponds and the bit more rough lava stone which is so typical of the area.
Whether you want to be pampered in a five star-plus hotel environment, or rent a beautiful apartment, there are two options here on the east coast of Mauritius. Within half an hour there is also the Le Tuessrok course and two additional courses at Belle Mare Plage, a top-notch diversified golf vacation.
Text and photo Mikael Andersson
The course is located about a five minute ferry ride from Le Tuessrok, the super-demanding Bernhard Langer-creation on the island of Ile aux Cerf that we wrote about earlier. I don’t know whether it’s the proximity to it and the memory of all the balls hit away there or if it’s Ernie El’s personality, but I can disclose now that Anahita is a very different treat.
I suspect that the originators wanted a resort course that was sufficiently challenging and spectacular, without scaring the short pants off of guests as Le Tuessrok can do. If that was the case they can now do a high five. Ernie ( or Big Easy as he is known ) in fact has a wonderful golf course with the right balance of challenges, beauty and laid-back holiday golf.
First of all, the landing surfaces are usually (there are some delightful exceptions) well-groomed and wide. It is in fact hard to hit the ball away, something that means that the driver is brought along on almost every tee. Then you come to the approach and it immediately gets trickier. Not that the greens are surrounded by knee-high rough, broken rocks and birch shoots as so often in Sweden, no, here it’s the exquisitely designed green areas that punishes a bad approach.
The greens are not huge, but all are more or less elevated, and also slippery. Around them are splendid bunker systems, and especially large (and fast!) run-off surfaces.
An excellent example is the fourth hole, the course’s signature hole. The tee is elevated (like most) and you face an unparalleled view of the turquoise blue sea. Bring out the driver and wind up, you won’t miss the fairway - unless you hit an extremely bad slice or hook.
Six of the holes face the Indian Ocean and all is magically beautiful, but of these it is perhaps the eighteenth that is the most striking. Par five, dogleg right and then full speed towards the clubhouse. The problem is that the ocean curls along the left side, and to the right there are both old walls and a lot of dense vegetation. The highlight of the hole however is nevertheless that you still have the entire resort’s beach to the left of the green which gives the last ball contact a very special setting.
The course has been built on what is called Anahita World Class Sanctuary - a 213 hectare area on the east of Mauritius which has developed into one of the island's most exciting areas.
The above mentioned "Anahita The Resort", is a new concept of privately owned apartments, where owners can choose to hire them out during parts of the year. They are hired out with full hotel service, the difference being that you have a fully furnished apartment with a large kitchen and all imaginable facilities. You hire on a B & B basis with your own butler who fixes breakfast in your apartment.
Also in the area is the wonderful, low-built "Four Seasons Resort Mauritius at Anahita", where the architect has really made use of the surrounding mangrove vegetation and the beautiful small inlets to create an irresistible environment.
The architecture is hyper-modern glass, steel and a lot of wood, that is weighed out against the Mauritian saltwater ponds and the bit more rough lava stone which is so typical of the area.
Whether you want to be pampered in a five star-plus hotel environment, or rent a beautiful apartment, there are two options here on the east coast of Mauritius. Within half an hour there is also the Le Tuessrok course and two additional courses at Belle Mare Plage, a top-notch diversified golf vacation.
Text and photo Mikael Andersson
Web editor Emma Lindén
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