Even billionaires have bucket lists. Richard M. Schulze, founder of retail giant Best Buy, wants the International Course at his Aurora Anguilla Beach Resort & Golf Club to achieve Top 100 status in the next two years. One way to achieve that goal, Schulze figured shortly after he acquired the 300-acre Caribbean resort, was to build a short course.
A keen observer of such revered places as Augusta National Golf Club and Pebble Beach Resort (where he was among 110 owners until three years ago), Schulze knows that short courses – par-3 courses and layouts in general less than 18 holes and holes no greater than 300 yards – are a growing common denominator among the world’s elite courses.
Schulze acquired the former CuisinArt Resort in December 2020 from the estate of Conair Co.
Basically unwanted and unkept by Rizzuto’s heirs, Schulze saw unlimited potential among the overgrown brush and trees that grew unchecked on the property and blocked views of the blue/green waters of Rendezvous Bay on Anguilla’s southwest side.
In early 2021, on a private plane flight with golf star Greg Norman to look over the latter’s original layout of the International Course, which opened as Temenos Golf Club in 2006, Schulze popped the question about a short course along a 19-acre piece of land between the International’s sixth and seventh holes.
Thus began, for all practical purposes, the story of two golf courses – the renovated Norman Signature International and the new Avalon Links short course – each being rebuilt and built, respectively at essentially the same time as the world was recovering from the Covid pandemic.
The renovated International (7,165 yards, par 72) fully opened this past April, complete with new bunkering, and Latitude 36 bermudagrass and TifEagle greens, fully opened this past April. The nine-hole Avalon Links (1,315 yards, par 28) opened this past November with Sculze hitting the inaugural 95-yard tee shot high into the Caribbean Ocean backdrop.
A pure walking course, players can carry their bags or use pull carts. There are no powered golf cars.
“We‘re pulling a cart or carrying a bag. That’s really the way the game was made to be played,’’ said Schulze. “I’m excited to be able to play just that way.’’
The name “Avalon Links,’’ Schulze said, was chosen to represent a place to rest and rejuvenate.
“Avalon is the king’s playground,’’ he said.
As much as Avalon Links – and Aurora – is a playground, Schulze wants them to be so much more. Enter the Schulze Family Foundation, which has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to medical, education and human services, primarily in Minnesota and Southwest Florida, since its beginning in 2004.
Schulze wants to do the same for the citizens of Anguilla, more than 560 of whom work at Aurora Beach Resort & Golf Club, which is managed by Sheila Johnson’s Salamander Hotels & Resorts.
“The secret sauce (at the resort) is our people,’’ said Schulze, an energetic and approachable 81-year-old billionaire. “I just love every one of them.’’
