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| Resort Boom in the Dominican Republic -- Golfweek, September 2008 | |||
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Senior Writer, Golfweek PUNTA CANA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC – Course architect Tom Marzolf normally is an understated fellow. But here on the 18th tee of Corales Golf Club, perched on the Caribbean shore, the senior design associate of Tom Fazio is not even pretending to contain himself. “This could be one of the great holes anywhere,” Marzolf gushes. As he and his entourage survey the scene, a large passenger plane crosses above them on its descent into nearby Punta Cana International Airport. It’s the world’s only privately owned international airport – built and operated by the same Dominican consortium that developed Punta Cana Resort and Corales GC. The airport handles scheduled flights from Charlotte, Philadelphia, Newark and Chicago as well as Montreal, Madrid, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and London, bringing nearly 1 million passengers annually. Here in the Dominican Republic, golf development and tourism are booming. The weather’s great, except for the occasional hurricane. The labor force is abundant and diligent. The waterfront settings are ideal. It helps that the federal government has made a major push for tourism, including road construction linking the airport to resort areas. For decades, this Caribbean country – about twice the size of New Hampshire – primarily was tied to the world economy through sugar production. The country broke into the international golf scene in 1970, when Gulf & Western handed Pete Dye a map of its 500,000 acres (780 square miles) and told him to build anywhere. The result was the Teeth of the Dog course, and it set tails wagging among golf aficionados as a worthy, if exotic, destination. Today, Casa de Campo sports four highly regarded Dye courses, with a fifth on the way. Sixty miles to the east along the coast, Punta Cana is booming, too. A bunker-splashed course along the Caribbean by P.B. Dye, Pete’s youngest son, opened six years ago. The resort community now spans 15,000 acres, with three 18-hole courses to be completed by 2010, along with 1,500 homes and 355 upscale hotel rooms. The target market for Dominican golf and golf-resort communities is as multinational as the list of incoming flights to the airport. Luis Migoya, estates sales manager for Punta Cana, breaks down the homebuyers: 43 percent U.S., 38 percent European, 10 percent Canada and South America and 9 percent Dominican. While federally funded roads linking airports and towns are crucial, much of the local infrastructure has to be developed through private investment. Punta Cana, for example, built schools, water-treatment plants, electrical generation and an aqueduct. “We also have our own security task force,” Migoya says, “as well as shopping malls, restaurants, a church and a village for our employees.” Golf plays a leading role in the promotion of resort development. That’s why Cap Cana, a sprawling resort and residential golf community six miles west of Punta Cana, spent $7.5 million to bring the Champions Tour’s Cap Cana Championship to its Jack Nicklaus-designed layout, Punta Espada Golf Course, in April. The Scottsdale, Ariz.-based firm of Troon Golf oversees golf operations at Cap Cana. Besides cultivating an upscale, service-oriented approach to the game, Troon’s job is to ensure quality turf conditions. That job has been made easier by the development of salt-tolerant Seashore Paspalum – turfgrass that has revolutionized course operations throughout the Caribbean basin because of its adaptability to poor-quality irrigation water that’s widely available here. At Cap Cana, Nicklaus is well under way on a second course, Las Iguanas Golf Club, and has a third on the drawing board. Meanwhile, work has started on a pair of courses on a bluff overlooking the waterfront golf resort. The project, called Trump Cap Cana, involves a licensing arrangement with the New York-based real estate developer and two inland courses designed by Gil Hanse devoted exclusively to property owners. Private initiatives for developing the Dominican coast include the northeast coastline, 20 miles north of the Punta Cana Airport. The newest project there is Roco Ki, a 2,500-acre resort community with 3.2 miles of beachfront along the Atlantic Ocean and two hotels, the Westin and Fairmont. The first of Roco Ki’s four planned layouts, the Nick Faldo Legacy Course, opens this fall. It incorporates environmentally sensitive mangroves and finishes with two holes exposed to howling winds along the Atlantic Ocean. Troon Golf also is managing Roco Ki. Charles Kingsbaker, the firm’s regional director for sales and marketing, sums up the region’s appeal, which investors are banking on. “Where ocean meets land,” Kingsbaker says, “you have something spectacular. The combination of Caribbean blue and fairway green makes golf in the Dominican Republic very special.” | |||
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Further Resources: http://www.golfweek.com/business/coursemanagement/story/dominican-resort-feature-090808 | |||
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Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
Phone: 1.809.731.2824
