By Design – Issue 53, Summer 2021

6 R on Kirby, ASGCA Fellow, is overseeing a renovation of the golf course at Apes Hill Club in Barbados, with nine holes expected to open this year and the full eighteen in early 2022. The golf course first opened in 2008, part of a development by Landmark Land Company on an old sugar plantation close to the island’s highest point. It closed in 2017 before the club and residential community was bought in 2019 by Glenn Chamandy, founder of Montreal-based clothing firm Gildan Activewear. A reported $60 million investment followed, half of which would be spent on the golf course, and renovation work began in late 2019. Roddy Carr, who is coordinating the golf project, said: “The key focus is to make golf at Apes Hill the most enjoyable golfing experience in the Caribbean. This means softening the golf course considerably by reducing the slopes on greens, eliminating unplayable bunkers and accentuating all the natural assets of the 450-acre site. “The goal was to get a minimum of 10 ‘wow’ holes from the finished product, which I believe we will accomplish.” The four par three holes in particular are expected to stand out. Substantial clearance of vegetation has been undertaken on both the fifth – where the green site is set among ledges of exposed rock – and the twelfth, which now has views of both the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean. Carr also highlighted more than 15 acres of land in out-of-play pockets around the golf course will be used to grow produce for the resort. Ron Kirby renovation gives Apes Hill the ‘wow’ factor DIGEST