This was supposed to be a casual, late-afternoon round on a pretty little par-3 course so new its seventh hole wasn’t finished. I took a deep breath as magic-hour sunshine spread across the island of Barbados as I stepped into my first tee shot on the Little Apes Golf Course.
But wait. I couldn’t shake the sense I was being watched. Not by a handful of fellow media folks waiting for me to hit, but from the trees facing me some 50 yards away. Yes, Little Apes takes its name from Apes Hill Resort’s most famous (and occasionally problematic) residents—the green monkeys of Barbados.
The nine-hole Little Apes is the new attraction at Apes Hill, about 40 minutes from the Barbados airport—which has direct flights from Atlanta, Miami and New York. Apes Hill boasts a championship-length 18-hole layout designed by the late Ron Kirby, who died right after renovating the big course and building Little Apes. The smaller course is perfect for families and younger players. Resort guests can saunter out of their villas—which range from $2,000 to 7,000 a night—with a couple of clubs and a beverage of choice. More serious golfers can refine their short games on holes that take direct inspiration from the 12th at Augusta, the 17th at Sawgrass and the seventh at Pebble Beach.
The green monkeys will capture every guest’s attention. They’re not predominantly green, rather old-man gray with green just in the face. They reside in the jungles across the island and keep an eye on developments at the resort. They never directly hassle the guests but can prove an irritant if you’re maintaining one elite golf course and building its smaller cousin next door.
I’ve played among primates before—and I’m not referring to certain YouTube golf influencers. The Howler Monkeys of Costa Rica hide in the trees and hoot while you putt. I’ve fed bits of a breakfast burrito to the Coatimundis of southern Mexico.
While their viridian cousins at Apes Hill lack the courage to steal the tortilla from your hand, they are far more active as they swing between branches and race to any edible treasure they spot. Apes Hill’s superintendent Ed Paskins says the monkeys go on doing monkey things regardless of where his crew would prefer they go.
“They’re not dangerous,” Paskins says. “They’re just pests, but they’re never too far away, and the guests love them down here.”
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Previous Next Pause Play false Public Apes Hill Club St. James, Barbados
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Apes Hill has seen a significant recent transformation. The late Ron Kirby, who passed away in 2023, finished up a renovation in 2022 with an emphasis on showcasing and protecting the natural areas around the majestic property.
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The green monkeys, i.e. Chlorocebus sabaeus, are not native to the island, having come over via ocean vessels from West Africa 300 years ago. Now protected and celebrated invaders of the ecosystem, they eat fruit and make little monkeys while trying to figure out what the hairless idiots in colorful shirts are doing with the sticks and little white pellets they knock around the grass.
When the day on the links is over, there’s plenty for a monkey to get into on the property. Paskins oversees a venue that prides itself on sustainability. His Environmental Stewardship team grows the resort’s fruits and vegetables on property, breeds chickens and runs a landscaping farm. To a green monkey, this means fruits and veggies to be raided, chickens to be chased and farm patches to be picked.
“That’s why we refer to (the monkeys) as the resort’s ‘first tasters,’ ” Paskins says.
In primitive ages past, the hairy nuisances would’ve met a quick and decisive end via gunpowder or severe health alteration via chemicals. Today, the green monkeys are the stars of their own wildlife preserves on Barbados and beloved by families. That remains one of the main challenges of having monkeys around your golf resorts. Excited tourists want to interact with them—and, if you feed one monkey, you feed them all.
I speak from experience. While in Africa teaching the basics of golf to Maasai tribesman, I woke up one dawn to find a single monkey waiting outside my tent. I tossed it a cookie saved from the night before and headed back inside to get dressed for a day on the savanna. When I opened the tent flap again, I was surrounded by 20 hairy creatures awaiting my cookie inventory. Negotiations lasted through breakfast.
No one at Apes Hill really wants to do our evolutionary predecessors any harm. The staff just wants them to get lost. While the new Little Apes was under construction, Paskins and company went about their efforts to keep the green gremlins tucked well back in the trees and out of the way.
Still, you can’t fence out a monkey. If monkeys choose to emerge from the trees and admire my tee shot, they will do so. As a few tiny skulls poked out around that first fairway, I settled back down over my ball and proceeded to lift a 52-degree effectively onto the green’s left edge.
I can confirm that the green monkeys of Barbados are not polite to applaud a decent opening shot before sprinting away to raid Haskins’ vegetables. It turns out they’re rude little pests after all.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
