Mahogany Run - Closed

Brothers Jim and Robert Armour commissioned the uncle and nephew team of George and Tom Fazio to lay out the Mahogany Run golf course and it opened for play in 1980 with tight, winding fairways shoehorned into a compact site on the north side of St Thomas island, near Magen’s Bay.

When it debuted, one of the leading golf magazines described it as “more of an engineering marvel than an architectural one as the course had to be carved and blasted into an area of land just less than 110 acres” and the steep hills and tumbling valleys were certainly difficult to tame.

Accuracy is the watchword here. The layout measures a fraction over 6,000 yards so it’s relatively short but when you take into consideration the dense rainforest adjacent to all fairways and the fact that the total putting surface area of all the greens is a mere 77,000 square feet then you can understand why such a premium is placed on precision play.

The course revolves around a tantalizing “Devil’s Triangle” of holes where the club will present any golfer with a suitably inscribed certificate on completion of their round if they manage to negotiate their way around holes 13, 14 and 15 without marking a bogey on the scorecard.

The first of these holes, a drive and pitch par four, plays to a narrow fairway that doglegs left down to a tiny green perched high above a craggy cove. A wonderful par three follows along the cliff top and its long, narrow putting surface just about clings to the coastline above the Atlantic Ocean. The 564-yard 15th completes the trio, heading back inland, and the pond in front of the green catches many a golfer who tries to go for glory with their second shot.

Florida-based resort developer The Ginn Company took control of the business in 2004 and the property, both on and off the course, has undergone a multi-million dollar upgrade since then.

Mahogany Run Update: Sadly the property was impacted by the 2017 hurricanes named Irma and Maria and the course never recovered and has gradually deteriorated. The property is for sale and awaiting a buyer who has the wherewithal to resurrect the Fazio course, which closed in 2018.