Belle Mare Plage

Where to take golf clubs on holiday? Sorry, let me put that another way. Where to take your golf clubs and wife on holiday? Sorry, one more chance. Where to take your golf clubs, wife and kids on holiday?

South Africa is nice. Florida and Bermuda are even better. There is a hotel in the Algarve in Portugal, which is incredibly kid-friendly, where you can eat a romantic meal with your wife while your kids play in the pool a few yards away. It’s called Pine Cliffs. The only problem is the golf course is fine – but only nine holes long. So no, all of the above are runners-up. Drum roll please…

The winner of the best place to take your family on a holiday/golf vacation is the Constance Belle Mare Plage in Mauritius. Longish flight – true; but it’s usually overnight, so it doesn’t feel like it. Weather – all-year sunshine. Golf – quite apart from the fact that Mauritius has fast become the golf destination, the Constance Belle Mare Plage has two outstanding Championship golf courses on site, the Links and the Legends.

Add to that Ernie Els’ Four Seasons and Bernhard Langer’s Le Touessrok, just around the corner, and there is enough golf to keep you happy for weeks. Kids – the Kakoo Club is a safe, lively kids club which will entertain your rascals for as long or as short as you want. Glass-bottomed boats, hunting for crabs at night; they can do it all.

The Legends was designed by Hugh Baiocchi and opened in 1994. Water comes into play on almost every hole, not least on the par-3 17^th, the signature hole, where you are faced with a terrifying tee shot of 170 yards, all carry.

The Links which opened eight years later, in 2002, provides a perfect foil to the Legends. It was designed by Peter Alliss and Rodney Wright, and is more forgiving, with wider fairways and fewer water hazards. So, depending on how ambitious/brave/good you are feeling, there is a course, right on your doorstep, waiting for you.

But, no one can be expected to relax and shoot under par on the golf course, unless they are certain that the rest of their family is enjoying themselves, and it’s the luxurious surroundings of the Constance Belle Mare Plage which wins the day.

Beautiful pools where you can swim to the poolside bar, and then order (and drink) a rum cocktail, while keeping an eye on the little ones; a private beach, within the hotel grounds, with white, powdery sand and turquoise waters; and restaurants which cater both for the honeymoon couple and the family of four. If this is what heaven is like, then I’m going to be a very good boy from now on…