Anahita Golf Club Review

Anahita Golf Club in Mauritius promised more than it delivered

When I played The Els Club in Dubai, I left feeling positive. Ernie Els seems to understand how to create something that caters to a wide range of golfers without dumbing down the design. So, when I was booking a round at Anahita, I thought he put his name on the design, that was a huge selling point. A signature course, tropical location, lagoon views. I thought I would be blown away.

For the most part, I felt bored.

The Journey

Anahita sits just south of Belle Mare and is about 10 minutes from the town. The net worth of the development is staggering. 530 acres of development, The course and the lagoon are in the course. They charge €175 to walk the course which to me, seems excessive. As a guest of the Four Seasons, you can walk the course complimentary. If you are a guest of Constance Belle Mare Plage, you walk the course at a reduced price. Either way, it is a premium.

Opened in 2008, and built to USGA standards, the course has a Par 72, and also a length of 6,828 meters from the back tees. Six tee choices are offered, and quite frankly the championship tees are a huge distance. With the coastal winds in play, even a scratch golfer has to think pretty critically about their choice of tee.

Inland Holes

That said about Anahita, the site did have very good potential. Former sugar plantation, old dry-stone walls still standing, mountain backdrop, and coastline on one side. Els routed two loops of nine through this land, moving between the treelines and the waters. The problem is that probably twelve of the eighteen holes are just… corridors. Wide fairways — quite a lot of room. Certainly more forgiving than anything else on the island, and they simply just don’t ask much of you off the tee, and don’t reward anything beyond a reasonable approach.

Sure, it sounds like a nice attribute. And for a casual holiday golfer, whom simply wants to get some exercise while losing a minimal amount of golf balls, I guess it is a positive thing. However, a round of golf needs some level of challenge in order to keep all of it interesting, and the inland holes here park golf reach almost none of that. Whack it, find it, whack it again. By the 12th I had mentally disengaged from the round and was fixated on what I was going to eat for lunch.

Using the dry stones along the plantation as 'hazards' is a genuinely nice idea in the context of a couple of holes, but they do showcase a sliver of design thinking that is all too rare. I found myself rather wishing they hadn't bothered. 14 is a great example, with a wall that runs along the entire hole and then crosses in front of the green. Actual choices to be made on a hole are a rare thing round here, but I frustratingly wished I would find more than I have.

I understand how the score may seem like an anomaly given the simplicity of the course, but sometimes you cannot stay focused in a round regardless of how easy the course is. The course features large undulating greens that are surrounded by steep and punishing pot bunkers. You can even land on the green and still walk away with a double bogey; I know I did, and more than once. It is not fun in the way that losing to a tough hole is fun. It just feels wrong.

The Water Holes

These sand pits are surrounded by very different experiences, and deserve an exceptionally different tone from me, because they actually evoke different elements of the game. Yes, they are pretty, but they also use the water as a design feature instead of a backdrop, and with all the factors of wind, terrain, shot decision rather than just club selection on an approach. All of it makes a real difference in how the holes play. Then there is hole 17, a par 3, as good as it gets in my books, with an approach over water to a green on the far side of the lagoon. It is visually the best shot I've had in all of my time in Mauritius. That afternoon I played it, and with the trade winds coming in from the ocean, it was a tough hole to tame. The final holes all play back to the clubhouse, and retain all of that energy from the ocean.

These 6 holes have me thinking about what the designer of the water holes could have done with the entire 18 if they were not as restrictive with the interior holes. There is certainly a design spirit with the water holes. It is just not evident enough.

The Anahita Resort Course

I understand what a resort course is supposed to be like. Approachable, scenic, forgiving enough that guests don't finish a round having sworn off the game. Anahita absolutely delivers on that brief. But The Els Club in Dubai is also a resort course, and it manages to be both accessible and interesting. The two things aren't mutually exclusive. What it feels like is a course where the scenic brief was handed in and the design brief was considered optional. Ernie Els, given that land, could have done considerably more with it.

For what it’s worth, the Il Forno restaurant in the clubhouse is very good. Italian-inspired menu, views over the course and the lagoon, proper food. I lingered there longer than planned and didn’t mind at all.

Is it worth it?

For some genuine golf, play the Waterholes. We recommend that hole 17 deserves a spot on your Mauritius itinerary. If you’re picking one serious round between Anahita and Belle Mare Links, then it’s the Links. It’s cheaper, holds your engagement from first to last hole, and the volcanic scenery offers you golf that isn’t just a postcard.

Anahita is a nice way to spend a morning. As a golf course, it could have delivered more.

Anahita Golf

Anahita Golf

Anahita Golf

Anahita Golf