Pete Dye’s Black Pearl Golf Course, Roatan, Honduras is scheduled to open toward the end of 2010 at the Pristine Bay Resort Oceanside property, a 400+ acre luxury development that includes a five-star resort hotel, villas, custom homes, a beach club and a deep water marina.
Roatan is one of the Bay Island, situated about 30 miles offshore from mainland Honduras. Black Pearl is situated on the island’s scenic north side, and is being built snug against the azure waters of this unsung tropical paradise. It will feature one of Dye’s signature island greens, and 14 of the 18 holes will treat golfers to stunning views of the Caribbean and the barrier reef flanking Roatan (the second largest in the world).
The course starts at the ocean’s doorstep, trapezes into the rolling, trademark foothills of Roatan, and then takes golfers on a wild ride home back toward the seaside clubhouse. Black Pearl will be a “resort” course, according to Pristine Bay Resort officials, playing to around 7,000 yards with ample landing areas and gently undulating greens.
Roatan, the largest (35 miles long, five miles wide) and most developed of the four Bay Islands, is home to a handful of “modern” resorts and quaint, boutique inns with all the traditional creature comforts of their U.S. counterparts. Pristine Bay Resort and Black Pearl will be the first on-island golf course.
U.S.-based golf travelers will find it surprisingly easy to get to Roatan. Direct flights are available on Continental from Houston twice a week and Newark on Saturdays, Delta flies direct from Atlanta on Saturdays, and TACA flies direct from Miami and Houston.
Flight times will make a golf trip to Roatan particularly enticing: two hours from Houston, an hour and a half from Miami, and five hours from New York. Pristine Bay Resort is six miles from the airport, so golfers will be able to tee it up within an hour of landing.
For more information, visit the Pristine Bay Resort website.
