|  Being
a golfer, however, you will dutifully board the boat bound for another
island, out
of sight on the far side of IlotMangénie. Make that The Far Side.
There you will spend the day rather differently – launching tee
shots across breathtaking mangrovefilled canyons; tacking along carpets
of emerald fairways flanked by dark lagoons and menacing lines of lava;
and pitching to inexorable plateau greens, some with dastardly drop-offs
on all sides. It’s too late to turn back as your golf bag is slid
into the boat’s especially moulded compartments and you glide
through a lagoon spiced with a mini Everglades network of marshy inlets.
If you prefer, a speed boat will deliver a short, Live and Let Die-style
adrenalin rush, as depicted in the resort’s glossy advertisements.
Certainly if 007 himself was to play another golf match in his immortal
screen career, the One&Only Le Touessrok Golf Course would be the
perfect venue. Most disarming is the sense of mystery and anticipation
as the boat approaches its destination from the leeward side. Dense
mangrove forests guard the coast, keeping the island’s secrets
fascinatingly out of reach, with an unassuming wooden jetty the sole
sign of civilisation.
Your first impression is of a tropical hideaway for a super villain,
perhaps a combination of Dr No’s Crab Key in the Caribbean or
Dr Shatterhand’s sensual Japanese garden of death in You Only
Live Twice.
|
But if you hear a Patois-Creole inflected “we’ve
been expecting you,” it will only be the golf-cart driver to take
you up the hill to the traditionally thatched clubhouse that finally
brings the first glorious glimpses of the golf course. Starting with
a par-four of extraordinary beauty and subtle drama, the super-villain
is soon revealed as Langer himself, who clearly let his imagination
off the leash to conjure a fiendish test of golf within this hypnotically
aesthetic landscape.
The PR blurb assures us that we can see the sea from every hole. And
so we can. But while most seaside courses would kill for this selling
point, here it is a mere distraction from the true task at hand.
You’re advised to choose carefully from the four (sometimes six)
tee boxes, and with an extra shot of
humility as your eyes feast on the opening drive, one of several daunting
carries over treacherous canyons from which there is no escape. From
the back tees, the course runs to 7,082 yards, making it the longest
in Mauritius. The scorecard cryptically refers to these black boxes
simply as ‘Langer’, presumably because only the architect
himself (or someone else with at least a couple of Masters jackets in
the closet) would be daft enough to tee it up from the tips. |
