First-class service at a premier golf course

CUT OUT of 600 acres in the famous Rose Hall Plantation the White Witch Golf Course and The Ritz-Carlton hotel have combined a breath-taking golf course with first world, first-class service.

"This is a golf ball." This simple statement was the start of what has become one of the most famous caddie programmes worldwide.

Employees at the White Witch Golf Course at the Ritz-Carlton Rose Hall.

At the famed White Witch Golf Course, the ladies and gentlemen who came well trained from Jamaica's Human Eemployment And Resource Training (HEART) academies, were versed in hospitality but knew nothing about golf.

For four months, free golf was granted to persons if they agreed to play while their golf concierge or caddie was being trained. The caddies were soon regarded as some of the best on the island, and in 2004, Conde Nast Traveler's Golf Survey named the White Witch Golf staff the best of all 'Top 100 Golf Resorts' of the Western Hemisphere.

PGA Professional Dennis Clark said, "In over 40 years of playing golf, I've never felt so special as when I played the White Witch."

Director of Golf, Kenn Depew, who interviewed many of the original golf concierges states, "ladies and gentlemen with hospitality skills, trained in the Ritz-Carlton service philosophy working as caddies or, as we call them, golf concierges, are a combination we knew would work, but the golf knowledge was a hindering factor. Once our ladies and gentlemen gained knowledge in the game of golf and combined that with their natural Jamaican warmth and friendliness we knew we had a winner."

The White Witch Golf Course has also received many accolades. Conde Nast Traveller selected it the #1 Golf Course Design in the Caribbean in each of the last two years.

Named for the infamous Annie Palmer, the white witch of Rose Hall, the golf course has spectacular vistas rolling over 600 acres of mountainous terrain that allow for views of the Caribbean on 16 of 18 holes.

The 6,758-yard par 71 masterpiece has hosted Shell's Wonderful World of Golf event, which Notah Begay III and PGA Champion Hal Sutton played to an even par draw. The course has also hosted the International Federation of Junior Golf World Championship in 2000, along with a celebrity tour event that will be returning this November for its third year.