Over spring break my family and I had the opportunity to spend 7 nights aboard Carnival Liberty sailing the Eastern Caribbean. The Golf Aficionado took full advantage of this opportunity and booked a tee time at each port. This will be the first of 3 course reviews starting with our first port of call; Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos Islands in the British West Indies.
If you have ever been to Grand Turk you are probably asking yourself is there a golf course there? Why yes there is, you just have to know where to look. The Waterloo Golf Club is an 18 hole, par 55 course built on the grounds of the Office of the Governor. The course which officially opened on January 3, 1998 has since fallen on hard times. A kitchen fire in 2008 caused major damage to the uninsured Waterloo Clubhouse. What was left in the wake of the fire was further damaged by Hurricane Ike only a few months later.
With no clubhouse, the membership dwindled and as the money dried up so did the course. In 2012 the Waterloo Golf Society regrouped and started doing their best to maintain the course. Society members decided to get their hands dirty and spend their own money to make the course playable. Their hearts had grown lonely for the small spot on the island where they could play the game they love. Suffering from a lack of water, what’s left of Waterloo’s greens and tee boxes is a mix of grass, dirt, sand, and rocks. As I walked the course with members of the golf society it was a real pleasure to hear their tales about how vibrant the club was before the fire and all the work they’ve done to make the course playable again.
Overall the experience was great, I had a wonderful time and so did my 11 year old daughter who played the course with me and 2 members of the golf society. We actually had 2 foursomes out on the course; heck the Governor’s wife even joined us. I know I said it was an 18 hole Par 55, but the original design was for a 9 hole course. The society members prefer 18 hole holes and repeat holes using multiple tee boxes. If it wasn’t for the members guiding me around the course I would have never figured it out, even with the guided tour I still aimed for the wrong green once.
I brought my range finder on the trip and the society members were happy I did, I was able to verify a lot of their yardages and give them the yardages from the tee boxes they were missing. The whole time I was playing Waterloo I couldn’t help but feel like a kid playing golf in a sandlot, it was a surreal experience.
I was glad to share the experience with my daughter who has been spoiled by the country club life at Heathrow. I think the experience of playing the course and hearing the stories form the society members about how they’ve fought to keep the course playable was a real eye opener.
The true love for golf that the Waterloo Golf Society displayed far outweighed my above average round highlighted by a birdie on number 11!
The members of the Waterloo Golf Society have plans for the course like possibly adding artificial greens and tee boxes or switching to sand greens. The cost of water is extremely high in Grand Turk so trying to maintain grass is extremely difficult. The course has great potential and I think it could easily be made into something along the lines of the TaylorMade Golf Experience in Las Vegas. All hopes for course renovations depend on the Waterloo Golf Society being able to raise funds. Anyone interested in playing the course while visiting Grand Turk or donating to the Waterloo Golf Society should contact Waterloo Golf Society Treasurer Estelle Watts.
