Golf in the Cape Verdes

Ernie Els plans several courses

Golf was played on Sal by South Africans from the airline, but the course fell into decline. There is a Golf Club with18 holes outside Mindelo on Sao Vicente. This held an international golf championship in1906. The club was founded in 1893 by British merchants and was the first sporting club of any kind in Cape Verde.There are a lot of proposals with somewhat undefined plans to build new courses on Sal, Santiago and Sao Vicente, with associated villa developments. These will require large-scale desalination and very special grasses to survive in the arid and saline conditions.

South African Golfer Ernie Els has been invited to design two golf courses at a reputed cost of £2.4m per hole. One is for the shoreline at Baia Das Gatas on Sao Vicente. The other is for Sal near Murdeira Bay. British-based PGA Golf Management will help to develop, market and operate the golf courses once built.

Ernie Els has said:

"We're very excited. The Cape Verde Islands are a gem - a beautiful area - and I think it will be the next great destination for holidaymakers around the world, especially from Europe. Each course will be different and each one will present a different challenge and adventure. But we will keep in mind that the amateur player must have a great golfing experience. There's a lot of natural, rocky landscape to work with and we'll work with that. If there's an opportunity to do a lighthouse Turnberry hole, we'll do that but I don't think you need to go with the mindset to create a hole that I saw at Pebble Beach, or Spyglass Hill, or Augusta.

Our head of design Greg Letsche has made preliminary site visits, returning with glowing reports about its potential. This is very much a long-term golf course design project. There will be 36 holes on each of two sites."

But more recently he has taken all information about the Cape Verdes off his golf design website. His assistant Mike Kelly in Florida will not disclose the names of current backers, suggesting that one or more of the original partners, Cape Verde Development, Turim and Editur may have failed to come up with the required funding. Let us wait and see.

Cesaria Dubai Golf scheme

Investors led by Hanif Mohammed Khoda`s Profile Group of Dubai plan a golf course at the Cesaria Resort on Praia da Calhete Grande in the south of the island of Sao Vicente. It would cover 1300 hectares and include 2,200 apartments and 1,700 villas eventually. Dubai may be one place where there is enough money and expertise to build a speculative golf course based on desalination plants. The Minister of the Economy Jaoa Pereira Silva has approved the scheme.

Santiago Golf Resort with Nick Faldo

This does not have a golf course at present.Nick Faldo has been asked to design it. But the site has not progressed in ten years, It looks increasingly as though it may not have 36 holes for quite a while as time passes by without any sign of building or land preparation of any kind.

Cotton Bay Golf Course

Mariani the developer of Porto Antigoo on Sal also proposes a golf course at Cotton Bay resort, which has plents of land on the West Coast of Sal. Play will be restricted to property owners in the resort. There is no sign as yet of green or bunkers, although there is plenty of sand on site. But the company is now trying to grow grass, experimentally.

The best place actually to play golf is Porto Santo.

capeverdeinfo.org.uk