La Réserve Golf Links is a co-design by Louis Oosthuizen and Peter Matkovich. (Image: Heritage Golf Club)
With headline courses by Ernie Els and Bernhard Langer—and the launch of a DP World Tour venue co-designed by Louis Oosthuizen—the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius is becoming a favourite of well-travelled golfers.
(Last updated January 2024.)
A golf trip to Mauritius is a major undertaking from almost anywhere in the world. But a growing lineup of headline courses—including a new links-style layout co-designed by Louis Oosthuizen and Peter Matkovich—is drawing well-traveled golfers to this lushly tropical island in the Indian Ocean.
Launched in December 2023, La Réserve Golf Links is a sister layout to the highly regarded Le Château Golf Course at Heritage Golf Club Mauritius. The collaboration by 2010 Open Champion Oosthuizen and South African golf architect Matkovich features several elevated tees designed to showcase sweeping views of tropical ocean bays.
“It’s a challenging course and not for the faint-hearted,” says Oosthuizen, who with his design partner created a signature set of back tees to challenge elite players. “We’ve worked with the land to create a strategic, undulating course that plays in the traditional links style, with running fairways, pot bunkers and native grasses.”
La Réserve Golf Links co-architect Louis Oosthuizen focused on building back tees that would challenge elite players. (Image: PGA Tour)
La Réserve Golf Links is set beside a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve that is home to a wide range of bird species and other wildlife. The property’s former sugar cane fields have been cultivated with native island grasses to create animal-friendly grasslands.
Coinciding with its official opening in December, La Réserve hosted the DP World Tour’s 2023 AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open. Happily for both the resort and the course’s co-designer, Oosthuizen emerged triumphant in the showcase event, claiming the AfrAsia title on a course he knew better than anyone else in the field.
The 2023 tournament was the fourth time Heritage Golf Club has hosted the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open. The club’s Le Château Golf Course, a solo design by Matkovich, staged the tourney’s debut outing in 2015, and hosted again in 2017 and 2019.
Heritage Golf Club Mauritius is also home to two five-star beach resorts: Heritage Le Telfair Golf & Wellness Resort, and Awali Golf & Spa Resort. Luxury villas are available, as well as private suites in Le Château, the 19th century plantation house overlooking the original golf course. Access to both golf courses is reserved for club members and guests at the beachside resorts and villas.
Located about 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) off the southeast coast of the African continent, Mauritius is renowned for its picturesque lagoons, dramatically shaped volcanic mountains, grand plantation mansions, Hindu shrines, and a cuisine that fuses Creole and French influences.
There are 12 golf courses in the former British colony, ranging from basic nine-hole designs to 18-hole layouts by leading architects such as Ernie Els (Aniahita Golf Course) and Bernhard Langer (Ile Aux Cerfs Golf Club).
