Île aux Cerfs: a round that begins with a boat

Most rounds begin in a car park. This one begins on a jetty at Trou d'Eau Douce, with your bag carried aboard a boat.

Fifteen minutes

The crossing takes a quarter of an hour. It sounds like transport and it is not — it is the part of the day that makes the round feel different before it has begun. You sit still, watch the island come closer, and have time to change gear.

The boat transfer both ways is included in the price, as is a buggy on the island. Your own car is not allowed. Everything runs on the course’s own boats and buggies, which sounds restrictive and in practice is liberating: there is nothing to organise once you are there.

One piece of advice we give everyone: book an early crossing. A queue builds at the jetty in the middle of the day, and half an hour waiting in the sun is a dull way to start.

The course

Bernhard Langer designed it, and it was renovated in 2014–15. Par 72, laid through old sugar-cane land with volcanic rock formations, mangroves and lakes. The Indian Ocean is visible from almost every hole.

What makes it memorable is not the difficulty — although the water is in play more often than one would like — but the variety. Few courses change character so many times in eighteen holes. You go from rock to mangrove to open cane land and back, and no hole resembles the one before it.

Not being able to leave

Here is what genuinely separates it from everything else on the island: you cannot leave. The next boat goes when it goes. There is no car in the car park, no possibility of slipping away after nine, no reason to look at your watch.

We have seen what that does to a group. The round becomes slower in the head even when it is not slower on the clock. People stay on the jetty afterwards. It is the round that comes up most often when guests talk about the week afterwards, and rarely because of the score.

Practical notes

Bring more water than you think. There is nowhere to refill in the middle of the round, and the combination of the boat, the sun and high humidity means you fall behind before you notice.

Sun cream before you board, not on the first tee — fifteen minutes on open water counts.

And do not leave it until the end of the week. It is a round that deserves a rested player, and it is a poor choice the morning after a late prize-giving dinner.