Maldives Floats Course Proposal (and Course)

Good news, Aquaman! The Daily Mail reports that a doomed island chain is spending roughly half a billion dollars on a floating golf course.

The Maldives has revealed plans for a radical £320 floating course, which players access by an undersea tunnel. The course is part of a massive plan to replace the sinking islands with a network of man made floating islands. With an average elevation of just five feet above sea level, the Maldives, with its 1,192 islands in the Indian Ocean, is the lowest country in the world.

Being five feet above sea level is a fine thing, particularly if you’re asked to carry a bucket of ice and fresh fish into town. On the other hand, if the sea rises a few feet — well, you do the math. The Maldivian government addressed the Atlantis scenario by hiring a Dutch company to build a series of floating islands onto which the populace can step as their homes disappear under the waves.

The islands will also be designed for swimmers, divers and even private submarines to enter them from below, and the Dutch firm designing the scheme has said visitors will be able to rent private submarines that can surface right in the middle of their living rooms.

The new Maldives course promises ocean views from under every hole.

The golf course, very sensibly, will be the first phase of the project. The islands will be constructed off-site and then floated into position, with grass and landscaping to follow. The underwater tunnels will be wide enough to accommodate beverage carts and long enough, one hopes, to reach another island.

According to the developers, the floating course “should be ready for play by the end of 2013 ahead of the full launch in 2015.”

Did they really say “launch”?”

Anyway, keep your eyes on our sidebar list of top Aqua-ranges. Dolce Chantilly’s long reign as No. 1 may soon be over.

Top 50 on TV: Nothing this week, but sixth-ranked Augusta National announced that a prominent business executive and a former U.S. secretary of state will become members this fall. (Same old, same old.) Meanwhile, the FedEx Cup playoffs get under way with The Barclays at 51st-ranked Bethpage Black, a terrestrial course.