Aurora Anguilla booming with a new owner, a renovated course and a perfect Caribbean scene

Keep your planes, trains and automobiles. I’ve been the beneficiary of all three when arriving at various golf destinations in far-flung locales, but there’s a better way.

A boat is best, I decided as I sat dockside on Saint Martin, surveying a Caribbean marina with an icy Presidente beer in hand. Mountains behind me and blue water ahead, I was thrilled to board a 40-something-foot charter boat bound for Anguilla, just a 5-mile channel crossing away. It had been a day of window seats, airport trams, Lyft and even a short hop in an island taxi.

Resting my feet on a railing flaked with blue paint overlooking the harbor, this was what has become too rare an opportunity to imbibe the salt air on a warm breeze. Nowhere in particular to be on this sunny afternoon, the boat a few minutes behind schedule, all the time in the world for an all-too-brief moment. There are faster and more flamboyant ways to island hop than catching a charter boat, but this close to the finish line, it would prove counterintuitive to expend much energy to hurry up and chill. This was an afternoon to savor, to chat with a few locals, to soak in the scene.

Such island-inspired timelessness was only part of the reason I set off to Aurora Anguilla, an expansive Forbes Four-Star property nestled tight to the idyllic Rendezvous Bay with the peaks of Saint Martin staring back across Anguilla Channel. Twenty-seven holes of golf awaited, as did gourmet meals, walks on several beaches, probably a few too many rum punches and the kind of sleep that only comes with the sound of waves as backdrop.

I visited the resort for the golf, to see a course that has been revived with capital supplied by a deep-pocketed and enthusiastic new owner. His initial golf plans had turned into a full turnaround of the 300-acre property, and to focus only on the golf would be to miss so much.

Island lifestyle at Aurora Anguilla

Scott DeLong arrived at Aurora Anguilla a decade ago, when the property was named CuisinArt Golf Resort & Spa. After playing college golf and trying his hand on the mini-tours, he had worked as a club pro at a handful of clubs in Missouri and Florida. He heard about an opportunity at a club in the Caribbean, and he jumped at the chance to try something different.

The move to Anguilla changed his life. He, his wife and two children – both under the age of 10 – have embraced the island lifestyle as his career has progressed from club pro to now being general manager of golf operations at Aurora Anguilla.

“With our kids, we kind of laugh about it. Their idea of what reality is, is completely different than ours,” DeLong said. “They run the beach, and when we walk into the supermarket they say hi to everybody because they know them. It’s little things like that that you can just never really put a price tag on. I wouldn’t change their upbringing for anything. ...

“We’ve got a lot of expressions on the island, but one of them is that the little things can be harder here, but the big things are a lot easier. For me, it is paradise because my day off is what everybody goes on vacation to do. Our days off, you know, some people would spend $20,000 to do that for a day. That’s just part of our lifestyle down here. Obviously there are no fast food restaurants, there are no malls, no bowling alleys. It’s a very slower pace of life, and it’s very easy living here coming from the States, to be honest.”

That doesn’t mean everything was perfect all the time. The resort was somewhat neglected for years in the wake of Hurricane Irma in 2017, the same year in which previous owner Leandro Rizzuto died after a cancer battle.

The Greg Norman-designed golf course, in particular, was overgrown with native foliage. Ocean views were blocked, playability suffered and golfers spent too much of most rounds searching for lost golf balls.

“When you’re looking down for a golf ball, you’re not looking up at Saint Martin or looking at the ocean,” DeLong said.

As with much of the resort, there was much unfulfilled promise.

Aurora Anguilla ownership

Enter Richard Schulze.

The billionaire founder and former CEO of Best Buy had dabbled in golf and hospitality for years. Schulze once owned a stake in Pebble Beach Golf Resort in California as part of a much larger group that included Arnold Palmer and Clint Eastwood, and he also bought the Westin Edina Galleria hotel in Minnesota just before Covid struck in 2020 – Schulze paid to keep the entire staff of that hotel on payroll despite the initial upheaval to the travel industry caused by the pandemic.

There were two things Schulze wanted: his own golf course, and a steak house. He was unfamiliar with Anguilla in 2020 when his search led him to CuisinArt Golf Resort & Spa and its golf course, which began life as Temenos Golf Club in 2006.

Like DeLong, Schulze could see the promise. His search for a golf course and steak house turned into his ownership of a full resort packed with development opportunities. DeLong said Schulze has installed a wide-angled view in which anything is possible.

“You know, when you’re around the same property for the length of time I was, you kind of take it for what it is,” DeLong said. “And then it takes somebody special to come in and bring the teams that he did to recreate and revisualize what it could be, instead.”

No part of the resort has gone untouched in the four years since. Schulze has been involved in the rethinking of every space, including the more than 170 guest rooms and suites spread across two beach areas adjacent to Rendezvous Bay and Merrywing Bay. Luxurious and expansive beachfront villas are also available, as are residences both completed and under construction.

Development doesn’t stop at the sleeping quarters. Schulze has added so much it’s difficult for DeLong to recap each addition without a pause to think. There’s a new reverse-osmosis desalinization plant that produces all the potable water the resort might need with enough surplus to be sold around the typically dry island, and a solar array was added for power.

Beyond those sustainability and sufficiency additions, an activity center with tennis and pickleball was added, as was an expansive water park complete with jumbo slides to make the resort a true family destination. Dining options have expanded to six restaurants including everything from sushi at Tokyo Bay to meatier fare at the new D Richard’s steak house, with each menu augmented by produce from the resort’s new hydroponic farm. A wide range of amenities include bars, water sports, fitness classes, plenty of pools and the world-class Sorana Spa.

At the center of it all is what first attracted Schulze to this flattish limestone island in the middle of the sea: the golf course now named International.

The International Course at Aurora Anguilla

Shortly after purchasing the resort, Schulze and his team sat down with DeLong to discuss the future of the golf course. As DeLong puts it, Schulze wants Augusta National conditioning with Pebble Beach views.

The existing 18-hole course was nowhere close to that at the time. The Norman design suffered from lack of financial support. Playing surfaces weren’t great, and most of the ocean views were obscured.

“We had a lot of overgrown vegetation encroaching right next to the fairways and rough,” DeLong said. “If you missed a shot, you lost a ball. So we used to sell a lot of golf balls, which was great for merchandising but it wasn’t that much fun as a golfer when you thought you hit a good shot and then you couldn’t find it.”

Schulze played an early round, then asked DeLong for his thoughts. DeLong didn’t hold back.

“We all sat down around the table and I didn’t want to be a little bit gun-shy; everybody kind of was supposed to say what they thought,” DeLong said. “Right away, I didn’t hesitate in saying what we needed to do. It was our opportunity.

“You know, we had a great layout. Greg did an amazing layout to start with, and it folds right into the island perfectly, and we have beautiful rock walls through our entire back nine. So all of us agreed that the layout was really good. We just needed to really enhance it.”

Replacement of all the playing surfaces was a must, but why stop there? DeLong also wanted to open the views, repair the playability issues and basically attack the overgrown brush.

DeLong said the clearing work started on the fifth hole, a par 4 near the entrance to the property. Crews started peeling back the brush that encircled the hole, giving resort guests an early view of the golf hole along the main road. The more brush they peeled away, the better things looked and played, and the golf grasses finally stood a fighting chance. DeLong was inspired.

“When we started the process, we would go out to each hole and the guys would turn around and say, ‘Well, what do you think?’ ” DeLong said. “I just told them, ‘Clear it. Clear it all out.’ You’re going to get better playability. You’re going to get better views of Saint Martin. People come to the Caribbean for the ocean, the sand, the palm trees, the breeze and a rum punch. Let’s give them what they want.”

Norman returned to provide direction to the project, as all the tees, fairways and greens were re-grassed and bunkers were renovated. With acres of intruding scrub removed, the Bermuda grass fairways and roughs are now flourishing. The TifEagle Bermuda greens are fantastic, faster and smoother than you might imagine for most Caribbean courses. Any reasonable golf shot is now findable.

Best of all, you can see the water. The routing begins through a slightly downhill breezeway for Nos. 1, 2 and 10, with the Anguilla Channel and the mountains of Saint Martin beyond. The holes previously were segregated by blinding vegetation, but now there’s a long scenic view from No. 1 tee all the way to the double green that services Nos. 2 and 10 at the edge of the beach. Instead of gnarly scrub between the holes, there is a wide sandy expanse dotted with specimen trees and a thin ribbon of creek that flows into a pond. It’s a beautifully wide-open expanse of golf that permits free swings instead of the previous claustrophobia, and the motif of open air and manicured sandy waste areas has been repeated throughout the course.

From the beach, the front nine turns inland through widened corridors before encircling another new addition to the resort: a nine-hole, 1,315-yard, par-28 layout that Schulze hired Norman to design. Named Avalon Links, the short course features creative greens set at fun lengths from the tees, giving players a great option for quick golf on arrival or departures days, or for when 18 holes on the main course simply isn’t enough.

The par-4 ninth returns to the clubhouse before players again swing out to the beach, back inland, then near the bay for more ocean views, finally returning to the clubhouse via a trio of testy par 4s.

All the work has paid off with a quick jump on Golfweek’s Best ranking of courses in the Caribbean, Mexico, the Atlantic islands and Central America. Aurora Anguilla was tied for 34th on that list in 2023 and has jumped to No. 18 this year following the renovation, with a good chance to keep rising as more course raters visit.

“It’s an incredible championship 18 holes that rivals any golf course, I would say, in this region,” DeLong said. “Impeccable conditioning, incredible views. ... We want this to be one of the best courses in the world. I think we’re doing everything we can to make it so.”

DeLong said the response to the renovations by longtime guests and newcomers alike has been overwhelmingly positive. Who wouldn’t want better views, superior conditioning and a focus on playability?

“Everybody likes making birdies, and everybody likes shooting a good score,” DeLong said. “We’ve got enough wind and enough bunkers and enough stuff to mess with you for it to not be a cakewalk. But if you hit a good shot, you need to be rewarded for hitting a good shot.

“At the end of the day, we are a resort course, and you’ve got resorts out there that try to build the hardest golf course possible. People come and play that kind of course, and they walk off four and a half hours later completely exhausted. They go buy a shirt so that they can say they played there, and they never come back. We didn’t want that. We wanted it to be playable. We wanted it to be fair. We wanted it to be beautiful.”

It’s all part of a major turnaround for this resort that now promises something for everyone.

“I think you’re going to get the same if not a better golfing experience than you’ll find at some of the better-known spots, but you also have a resort on two of the most beautiful beaches in the world,” DeLong said. “We’ve got a world-class culinary scene. We’ve got a new, world-class entertainment park and water park for the family.

“A lot of people make decisions based off maybe one or two criteria on a list of five when deciding where to go. We’ve got all five. We’ve got everything here.”

Getting there

• Anguilla’s Clayton J. Lloyd International Airport is serviced by American Airlines with direct flights from Miami. In season (winter) there are two weekly flights, plus three more flights on Saturdays.

• There are roughly half-hour flights from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Anguilla on Charter Air Direct. This new route takes advantage of San Juan’s many connectors to major U.S. cities and is the only jet service from San Juan to Anguilla. Charter Air Direct flies Embraer 170 jets with 64 seats and ample legroom.

• Guests can fly multiple airlines from many U.S. and international cities to Saint Martin, which is five miles across open water from Anguilla. Quick boat rides and short flights are available to finish the trip to Anguilla.

• Contact Aurora Anguilla for more information on these options and more.

About Anguilla

The island nation is a British Overseas Territory. The low-lying island is 16 miles long, 3 miles wide at the most and encompasses a total of 35 square miles with a population of just under 16,000. The highest point of the island is 240 feet. English is the official language, and many Anguillans speak a Creole distinct to the island – with a large range of guests from  around the world, many languages are heard. The official currency is the East Caribbean dollar, though American dollars are widely accepted.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Deep investments and a course renovation turned around Aurora Anguilla