POINT HARDY AT CABOT SAINT LUCIA - 17 POINTS

The Cabot Collection is one of the growth stories in modern golf development. From their origins in Nova Scotia and the original Cabot Links, they have grown an enviable portfolio of properties. The acquisition of Castle Stuart in Scotland, and the launch of the Cabot Highlands resort, really brought them into the UK golfing consciousness.

Of all of their recent projects, perhaps the most ambitious came about following their purchase of a 375 acre parcel of land on the north coast of Saint Lucia, in the Caribbean. The vision was bold: to build a world class golf course and create a new holiday destination, including almost 300 property lots for sale.

If you take on such an ambitious project you want to stack the odds in your favour and three particular factors helped them with that.

Firstly, the setting is quite something. As you drive towards the property, you reach the crest of a hill and an incredible view appears from the golf course to the cliffs and the ocean behind. It’s hard to think of a more spectacular setting in the world. Lofoten Links, Cape Wickham and South Cape Owners Club would compare, but that’s about it.

So they had the land, then came the architect. Who would you trust to build a golf course that could do battle with the very best? The owners had a strong desire to build a top 100 golf course and there are only a couple of firms with a history of achieving that level consistently. So Coore and Crenshaw were selected for the job. And they liked what they saw. Bill Coore said of the land, ‘It’s very possible that Cabot Saint Lucia is the most visually stunning piece of land we have ever worked with’.

Finally, if you’re going to make the project a success you need to have a professional owner who knows how to do things properly. Ben Cowan-Dewar’s Cabot group exudes quality and class. There may not be a permanent clubhouse yet, but the portacabin and F&B offerings are done brilliantly (more about the comfort stations later!). And the staff are all incredibly pleasant and obliging and certainly put the customer first.

When it comes to marketing they clearly know what they’re doing. The number of articles in the US magazines and all over my social media feeds before the course opened was impressive. Top it off with a debut in GOLF Magazine’s world top 100, straight in at number 76, and the Cabot launch was a triumph.

So, it’s safe to say my anticipation levels were high when I arrived for a couple of days at Cabot Saint Lucia.

The par 71 course isn’t ridiculously long - from the back tees it comes in at 6,650 yards, and from the middle (green) tees (which will be the most used I suspect) it’s only 6,245 yards. Many of the holes are downhill, but don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security. Some truly heroic shots are required on this course.

I don’t often do hole-by-hole guides to courses but, given the interest around the newly-opened Cabot Saint Lucia course, I will try to do so here. You can skip down to the end if you just want to read my overall impressions.

There’s a lot of elevation on the property. The first hole is a par 5 which takes you elegantly up a pretty steep hill. You start to get a good taste of what’s to come with undulating, sloping fairways and a blind approach to an interesting green.

There are several blind shots around the course, either from the tee, or on approach to the green. As always with blind shots, they can be discomfiting the first time round but a shot is only blind once and you can relax a little more the second time round.

The first fairway is wide, as many are at Point Hardy, but if you miss them, you can usually expect to be in very thick stuff. I donated more balls to this club than I normally do! The wind was really blowing when I visited, so anything with a bit of spin, and the wind behind, was just sailing away.

The second and third holes play parallel to each other along a plateau. While they may not be as spectacular as what is yet to come, I still enjoyed them. They aren’t on the coast but you do get great views over the rest of the course, with the ocean behind.

There are five par 3s at Point Hardy and the fourth is the only one that doesn’t have the ocean in play. Instead you hit inland on a 190 yard hole playing fairly steeply downhill. With the prevailing wind behind, and the drop, it plays a lot shorter than the yardage. I found that out the hard way when I sailed a 5 iron over the back bunker by a couple of feet. Long grass - and a lost ball - awaited.

However, others have more success, including a gentleman in the group in front who had a hole in one. It’s the perfect hole to do that on because, off to the right of the green, is one of two ‘comfort stations’, the second coming at the 13th.

I will pause briefly from the golf descriptions here as the comfort stations were quite something! We don’t really have this concept in the UK. We might have a pie available at a halfway house sometimes, but this was on a different level. At Cabot St Lucia there are full bars, stocked with pretty much every drink you can think of. There’s a choice of many different fine wines, local and international beers, every kind of liquor you could imagine, pina coladas and daiquiris and a barman to mix you whatever you want. Oh yes, and all kinds of sweets and treats to take with you. It’s all free - I was literally like a kid in a sweetshop. That guy who got the hole in one may still be there!

Anyway, back to the golf. The next two par 4s take you back down to the ocean. The fifth is around 400 yards long. It plays shorter, down a steep slope, but you may need to hold back to avoid the trench that runs across the fairway from the tee. Everything moved from left to right and then the green is cut into a bank off to the left. It’s an elegant hole and has shades of the first hole at Kawana.

The sixth again plays towards the water, but this time you will need to approach the false-fronted green from below and there are no prizes for being short. There are decisions to be made from the tee. Long hitters may be able to get over the bunker on the left from the tee, but the rest of us need to decide whether to lay back, leading to a long approach, or try to split the bunker on the left and the creek on the right.

Fortune may favour the bold here. With bunkers both left and right there are definite advantages to going in with a short iron.

The seventh is a short par 3 - when I played it for the first time, the 130 yards was playing more like 170 due to the prevailing headwind. I was told that the force of the wind on that round was on the stronger side of usual, but that the average wind strength is 1½ to 2 clubs. This is a windy site meaning that even holes which look fairly benign on a course plan or scorecard will test you. I took a 5 iron, started it over the ocean and watched it blow back onto the green. Thrilling stuff!

The eighth is maybe the first iconic hole at Point Hardy. The tee is on the clifftop jutting out behind the seventh green and it is a thrilling setting. The hole is only 325 yards and the carry really isn’t too long - maybe 180 yards, I’d guess - but stick a crashing ocean between you and the fairway and something weird happens!

With the wind whipping everything left to right I started my tee shot on the left-hand side of the fairway, watched it land on the middle of the fairway, and finish in the deep rough on the right. I guess a strong draw into the wind was the play, but it wasn’t in my armoury on the day. The uphill approach to the blind green means you need to keep concentrating on this hole to the end, but I imagine longer hitters will have fun trying to get up to the green from the tee. I was happy just to get it over the water!!

I’ve spoken to a few others who have played Point Hardy, and shorter hitters have sometimes struggled to make some of the carries. There is a good selection of tees, so you can absolutely choose to play a shorter course without the big carries, though you would miss out on some of the spectacular views.

The ninth is another par 3 along the coast. It’s only a bit over 130 yards long, but if the wind is up then, yet again, you will need all your guile to make and hold the green. It’s hard to overstate just how much of a factor the wind can be here - even relatively straightforward-looking holes like this one can be a real challenge.

Like the front nine, the back nine starts with an uphill hole. The tenth is possibly the steepest uphill par 4 I’ve ever played. It’s a short par 4, only 324 yards from the green tees, but it’s definitely quite a climb.

Everyone here plays in carts (more about that later) so you could question whether the slope really matters, although my caddie did tell me stories of balls not making the green and rolling a long way back down the hill. Coore and Crenshaw built some terraces into the fairways but they appear not to be enough!

Radical surgery is already underway. The fairway and green are being moved to the left so the hole will play next to the eighteenth fairway, on flatter ground.

It’s unusual to see a change like this so soon after a course opening, but they have obviously decided it’s needed. It’s already a pretty long ride up the hill to the eleventh tee after the tenth green, but now it will be a good 4-500 yards away. You’ll be in a cart and you would not want to get there any other way!

On the card the next three holes are pretty terrifying. They are all par 4s and, from the green tees, measure 493, 454 and 451 yards respectively.

But it turns out Coore and Crenshaw knew what they were doing. The prevailing wind means that both the eleventh and twelfth play down wind. Furthermore, the eleventh is one of the holes that really does reward playing in on the ground. It’s a blind shot but my caddie went up to have a look and witnessed my 6 iron landing 50 yards short on a right-hand bank, then running down to 6 foot. I suspect it’s the longest par 4 I’ve ever birdied.

The thirteenth is probably the toughest of these holes. You need a strong tee shot over the crest of the hill to hit the slope, but even then I was left hitting 180 yards in to a well-bunkered green.

As you drive to the fourteenth you will be encouraged to stop at another wonderful comfort station. I would advise you don’t go too hard on the bar unless you are looking for a bit of Dutch courage, because the next few holes make up one of the most spectacular closing stretches anywhere in the world.

I still haven’t played Cypress Point (despite constantly dropping hints!) but it will be interesting to see to what extent the closing stretch at Point Hardy gives it a run for its money visually.

At 590 yards from the middle tees, the fourteenth is one heck of a par 5. The drive is blind, up the hill, and your second shot is a blind downhill, which was unusual! Assuming you have successfully navigated those two shots, you will then have an uphill approach that will need to be accurate and have good distance control.

The epic final four holes all call for heroic shots. On every hole you need to carry the ball over water at some stage. On every hole you will be worried about a card wrecker. On every hole you will certainly be reaching for your camera.

First up is the fifteenth, and one of the most confounding par 4s I have seen in a long time.

Point Hardy is a cart only course, though you take a caddie too. In reality, they have little other option. The routing means it would be a very hard course to walk, especially in the year-round heat. But zooming around in a cart rather than walking a course does impact on the experience a little.

The fifteenth is a good example of that. From the tee you require a heroic tee shot over the water, on a slightly discomfiting line, but then you drive into thick bush before popping out near the green to look back down the steeply-cambered fairway for your ball.

In a course full of Instagram moments, the sixteenth might be the best of the lot. This par 3 may only be 148 yards but hitting into the prevailing winds means it can play much longer. If you don’t hit the green you would probably rather be short in the bunker than long in the gunch where, if you find your ball, you will be faced with a virtually impossible shot out - it’s really horrible stuff.

The seventeenth is another par 3 but this one is quite a different challenge. From the tee you are hitting over a rock cliff and then up the hill to a blind green. It’s 170 yards to the pin but was playing a lot longer. The wind is a factor and only a perfectly struck shot will make the green.

There is a tiny ‘members’ tee’ perched on top of a rocky pinnacle to the right of the tee, which gives a very different outlook to the hole. From there you can see the green and the challenge ahead, but the carry across the water is significantly longer from this tee so it is no less intimidating a task.

The closing par 5 is another risk-and-reward hole. After an OK, but not amazing, tee shot I was left with just under 200 yards into the green. You need to carry a cove short of the green, with ocean to the right. It would have been possible to lay up to the left to have a shorter approach over the water, but I managed to get a rescue club onto the green for a closing birdie.

Coore and Crenshaw have created a course which requires exemplary execution to score well. Generally, the ball has to be played through the air - there aren’t many holes where you will be running the ball along the ground. And you will often need to hit your ball to a precise number, especially over those final holes.

Throw in the punishing nature of the rough and the oft-present wind and you have a real challenge on your hands. It may be a resort course but you can easily see your score get away from you if you aren’t able to stay on the short stuff.

It’s understandable that it’s a cart course - that was a compromise required to build on this land and make the most of the spectacular moments - but it does feel a shame at times. I prefer a course where you can easily walk and take the time to enjoy the views.

The conditioning of the course was phenomenal. I played it just 6 weeks after its official opening and you could easily have believed the course had been there for 10 years, such was the quality of the greenkeeping. Everything grows very fast in this climate and the rough next to the fairway and around the greens was pretty brutal in places. Some thinning out in the years to come would probably be appreciated by the errant hitters amongst us!

It is jaw-droppingly spectacular at times and you will be reaching for you camera again and again. If the objective was to build a course with the wow factor then there can be no doubt that Point Hardy at Cabot Saint Lucia delivers.

BOOKING THE COURSE/TOUR TIPS

Over time, I believe the plan is that Cabot Saint Lucia will be a members only course. However, they are currently allowing some visitor play if the course isn’t too busy on a given day. It will cost several hundred dollars, plus a mandatory caddie and cart, but this does include use of those wonderful comfort stations!

To get in contact, your best bet is to use the ‘contact us’ form at the bottom of their web page and submit a general enquiry - https://cabotsaintlucia.com/about

The course is in the northern part of Saint Lucia. I flew into the international airport and hired a car. Now I consider myself fairly well-travelled, and don’t mind a but of adventure, but the drive was quite something. The island isn’t very big but the roads were really bad in places - huge potholes, steep drops to the sides. It took me almost two hours to drive the 39 miles from the airport to where I was staying in Rodney Bay. The traffic was awful and the roads twisty and very, very slow. Many people get a helicopter up to Cabot and I can see why!

I stayed about 15 minutes away from the course, in Rodney Bay which had a good selection of value hotels and nice restaurants. But I suspect that many visitors will be staying in one of the luxury hotels on the island and they should be able to help you with transfers to the course.

CONTACT DETAILS

Cabot Saint Lucia
Cap Estate
Saint Lucia

Website: www.cabotsaintlucia.com​