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Bahamas Golf

by Ron Waterson

Once again my golf siren of a wife has lured me down the path to an incredible golf vacation. She really out did herself on this one. A couple months back she says to me, "I won a trip for two to Our Lucaya Resort in the Bahamas through work"...I said that's great, lets get some flights and go. She says the flights are taken care of too. "So all we need is spending money" I queried?. Nope, it's all inclusive, including a round of golf. I pinch myself to conclude that I am indeed awake and not just deep into some luscious golf dream. It turns out that Merial is sponsor of my dream, so I owe them a big thanks too. Off to the Bahamas for golf, white sand beaches and casinos. Ain't she great!!!!

The first hole at Our Lucaya...Raised greens, heavily bunkered!

The Merial sponsored round was to take place on Saturday at the Robert Trent Jones Jr. designed Reef Course located within the 450 acre Our Lucaya resort. I felt like getting another round in, so I headed out to The Lucayan Course located just a couple blocks from the resort on Friday.

The Lucayan course, built in 1962 seemed to carry a slight stigma with some of the tourist golfers as the lessor course to the newer and more modern designed Reef Course. I didn't see it that way. In fact, I found the Dick Wilson designed Lucayan Course to have more character. Age frequently does that. You get to use a good assortment of clubs at Lucayan. The heavily bunkered, raised greens, make approach shots more interesting while giving you a good visual target on what is otherwise a pretty flat place. They have bermuda greens...I don't know if age has anything to do with it, but the greens at Lucaya were much grainier than those at The Reef Course. Not long, in fact they were cut tight and quite fast. Very tough to putt for this first time visitor. I struggled with speed all day, as the grain significance continued to fool me green after green.

At 6,824 yards, you might not think of Lucaya as long, but lets not forget we are on an Island in the middle of the Caribbean and that means consistent trade winds. Wind is indeed an intricate part of golf here. Here's why...You wouldn't think of a golf course on an island as being tree lined. Guess what, this one is. Well sort of...Scrub lined might be more accurate. Whatever you want to call the vegetation, combined with the wind, it does something to an extreme that I have never encountered before.

The 10th at Our Lucaya

We all see the PGA pros staring off into the sky as though lost in some day dream. Those of us that care enough to think about it, realize they are checking the winds aloft by looking at the tree tops. Well, on Lucaya you need to be aware of the winds aloft, but the scrub doesn't flutter much. It was amazing. You could hit a ball and watch it go perfectly along your target line and then boom! Once above the scrub, the ball was overtaken by the trade winds like a butterfly in a hurricane. I've seen wind affected shots before, but this was different. You can't feel the intensity of the wind on the ground, so it's tough to trust the fact that it is up there above the trees. Its a great mental challenge.

I like the Lucayan Course. I met Chris from Michigan while playing Lucaya. We practically had the place to ourselves. Chris plays a lot of very nice designs in his home state and he thought highly of the course as well.

I'm not sure I have ever played a Dick Wilson course before, but I will be on the lookout for his work in the future. He has designed courses like "The Blue Course" at Doral, "The Golf Club", "Bay Hill" and "Laural Valley", so he's not tough to find, but he might be expensive. It was $100 to play Lucaya. That's about twice what we pay for a nice course in Kentucky, but well worth it for a great day on vacation in the Bahamas.

Next up, the Robert Trent Jones Jr. "Reef Course".

The second hole at the "Reef Course"

Although I have already let on that I preferred the Dick Wilson design, I want to make it clear that these are both very nice courses. Neither are sissy resort length, or easy in the least if you want to play from the back tees. The Reef Course has a lot of water in play and you get the traditional "links course" feel........

Water water every where at the Reef Course!

...Well...except it's not likely to be cold and rainy...just damn windy. We played 8 holes in a moderate wind of about 15 mph. And then, as though someone flipped a switch we were faced with 25-30 mph winds for the rest of the round. Brutal and consistent! No gust. Just straight line winds on a wide open, flat piece of island near the sea. I should have been sailing!

The course is itself is typical links style golf with a bit more undulation on greens than expected. The grain of the bermuda here did not have nearly the influence on putting that I found at Our Lucaya, but gravity played a good part. The Reef Course is a must play as well. To have two courses of this quality on a small island in the Caribbean is almost too much to expect. But there you have it!

Nice Cape hole to finish at the "Reef Course"

This is a good resort for a serious golfer or a casual golfer. They keep the courses in good shape and on my visit, it was easy to get around in 3 - 4 hours. You can check out the place on the internet at http://www.ourlucaya.com/ They have lots of other activities too.

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