“New” Golf Resort Offering 50 Percent off Luxury Bahamas Golf Vacations

Sandals is offering Bahamas golf vacations discounted 50 percent...in high season.

How do you get Four Seasons luxury on a Bahamas golf vacation…at discounted prices?

Well, it helps when a barely six-year-old Four Seasons resort goes out of business and it is snapped up by a more value-driven hotel chain.

That’s exactly what happened last month, when the Four Seasons Resort Great Exuma in the Bahamas, with its wonderful Greg Norman-designed golf course, was purchased by Sandals Resorts International.

Over at the Perrin Post, I learned that Sandals will re-open the golf resort on January 22, 2010 with a new name, Sandals Emerald Bay, Great Exuma, Bahamas, and with introductory rates discounted 50 percent. 

Every room at the “new” property (which is getting a new pool complex and additional restaurants) will be a butler suite, and nightly rates start at about $350 per person, inclusive of transfers, taxes, tips, meals, drinks, and all resort activities except for spa treatments and — wouldn’t you know it — golf.

Golf fees haven’t been set yet, but a golf manager I spoke to said they’ll probably fall in the $150-$200 range. Not surprising given that the Four Seasons was getting $175 from hotel guests. Well, that’s what it was charging, anyway.

That’s pricey, to be sure, but take comfort knowing that with the resort’s introductory prices, you’ll save about $350 per day on nearly everything else. And, by the way, the course is one of the better ones in the Bahamas, if not the entire Caribbean.

Here’s what the editors of Golf Odyssey had to say about it:

With its stretch of six oceanfront holes that wrap around a narrow peninsula, this Greg Norman-designed golf course is one you will want to play again and again. While the gorgeous views, slow greens, and resort pampering embody the resort golf experience, the course is much harder than the typical resort links. Much of the difficulty comes from the tight fairways, and since none of them are parallel, you have very little room to spray the ball around. The round is thrilling, however, as dramatic shots played over the ocean and the bracing breezes and mist from the sea define the experience.

If that sounds like a course you’d like to play on a Bahamas golf vacation, you may want to consider making reservations sooner rather than later. As the Perrin Post points out, the strategy of waiting for last-minute deals can backfire when it comes to smaller or less-frequented islands like Exuma, which typically have fewer flights in and out.

Did you know? Golf Vacation Insider and Golf Odyssey are the world’s only golf publications that conduct “secret shopper” site inspections and do not accept advertising from golf courses, resorts or restaurants in order to provide you with expert, unbiased, and trusted advice.

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