Synopsis
São Vicente in the West African Cape Verde Islands has the honour of being home to what is undoubtedly the most bizarre golf course in the world. For on the entire eighteen-hole course which lies at the gates of the pretty harbour city of Mindelo, not a single blade of grass is to be found. Here every shot is accompanied by a dust cloud of sand. And when the ball flies toward 'the green' it doesn't land on fertilized, watered saturated grass, but rather on a laboriously produced layer of sand mixed with old oil. Here, 'the black' is what they call ‘the green’. The first African Golf team 'The Black Lords’ fought for the right to play Golf in colonial Africa, which at that time could only be played by the Portuguese colonial masters and the English Telegraph Engineers. Today in Sao Vicente, almost 80 years later, the formerly elite sport changed into ‘golfo poplular’ which could be said to mean ‘golf of the people’. But the national sport is endangered, because the hardly obtained golf course is becoming part of global property speculation. The 92 year old Antero Barros is now fighting for the second time for the historical golf course. But it is doubtful wether this fight can be won again.
