Direct Flight

DIRECT FLIGHT Flossing the Teeth of The Dog

A brush with a golf superstar, and a nearly broken bar, in Pete Dye’s Dominican dreamscape

BY MIKE DOJC

IF YOU NEED CONFIRMATION that you’re playing on one of the planet’s top golf courses, you could ask for few tells more obvious than bumping into Miguel Ángel Jiménez at the bar during a rain delay.

Fresh o a PGA Tour Champions victory the week before, the 21-time European Tour winner smokes a cigar and sips what looks to me like whiskey, his graying blond locks pulled into a ponytail behind a Ping cap that shields one of the most recognizable mugs in professional golf. The rain that interrupted his round did the same to me and my golf buddies, and we’re all taking shelter. Jiménez graciously acknowledges every starstruck golfer who approaches. My friends and I, on vacation here in the Dominican Republic, try to play it L.A.-cool for a couple of minutes—like this kind of thing happens every day—before we surrender to our fanboy impulses and dive in for backslaps and sel es.

The moment passes, the rain abates, the warm Caribbean sun—even in October—quickly erases all vestiges of the downpour, and we get back to what we came here for. We clamber into our carts and join our forecaddie, Juan, on the back nine of El Diente de Perro—Teeth of the Dog.

The course is a jewel among the more than 100 designed by Pete Dye, the renowned American course designer and architect who died in January at 94. El Diente opened in 1971 a er teams had used oxcarts to move soil and pickaxes, chisels, and other rudimentary hand tools to tame the rugged landscape, which includes jagged seaside rocks that workers thought looked like canine teeth.

Starting in the early ’70s, Dye and his wife kept a home at the Casa de Campo resort while Dye developed three other courses on the property. El Diente, ranked 32nd in the world in Golf Digest’s latest biennial ranking, remains the standout, though. Holes 5 through 8 and 15 through 17 unfurl alongside the azure Caribbean, o en with just 20 feet of elevation separating the immaculately groomed fairways from the lapping waves below. The course is packed with diabolical par-four holes that force golfers to think deeply about risk and reward before they attack the greens.

Dye considered El Diente his best design. “I created 11 holes,” he famously said, “and God created seven.”

While travelling golfers tend to xate on 5, 7, and 16, a trio of water’s-edge par-threes, there’s an extra,

Hole 15 on El Diente de Perro, one of the renowned Pete Dye course’s seaside holes.

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just-for-fun setup o the 16th hole—a ag-bearing pin on a rock 100 feet o shore. You can challenge someone to a closestsplash-to-the-pin contest that doesn’t count on your scorecard.

I try it from behind the tee box, and a swirling trade wind snatches my overzealously executed wedge shot and plops it into a nearby Olympic-sized swimming pool. My playing partner then proceeds to plunk a quixotic, low- ying breezebeater a mere pool table’s length from the apping ag. Thankfully, it was a low-stakes wager: Loser buys the next round of Presidente Lights.

A er I play El Diente a couple of times, I learn that the key to a good score is to minimize your shots on the more forgiving inland holes to o set the penalty strokes you incur when your shots decide to go for a swim at the tougher, seaside holes. I also learn that when a caddie who has been looping these fairways for decades tells you that you’re using too much club, heed his words.

On No. 18, lying in the rst cut some 120 yards from the cup, I pass my pitching wedge back to Juan and grab my nine iron. This harebrained decision creates an even bigger scene than the one Jiménez generated an hour earlier. My approach shot ies over the dance oor and ricochets o the cart path onto the open-air, second- oor balcony of the crowded clubhouse bar. A quick-witted cocktail slinger snatches my errant ball one-handed before it can shatter any of the bottles behind him.

“That was some trick shot,” jokes a patron as I walk over, meekly, to retrieve my ball.

(Top) Casa de Campo Villa. (Bottom) The pool at Image Minitas Beach Club.

Casa de Campo Resort & Villas

This 7,000-acre resort at the southeastern end of the island has lured former U.S. presidents (Bill Clinton, both George Bushes, and Jimmy Carter), marquee athletes (Michael Jordan, Derek Jeter), and the famous-forbeing-famous set (the Kardashians). But whether you choose to mimic the A-list experience, with a villa overlooking the Caribbean and decked out with a private in nity pool and butler service, or bed down in an elegant and well-appointed casita, you’re only a short golf cart ride away from the marina, stables, shooting center, beaches, and a trio of Pete Dye courses. La Romana-Higüey Highway, La Romana 22000, casadecampo.com.do

EAT

Minitas Beach Club & Restaurant

Watch the waves lap against the shore while you nibble on stone crabs, scarlet prawns, and charcoal-grilled octopus, topped o by guava cobbler garnished with vanilla chantilly cream or (my choice) roasted coconut crème brûlée served in an actual coconut. Minitas Beach, Casa de Campo

DO

See a Baseball Game

This is a baseball-obsessed island, and there’s a esta feel in the grandstands during Dominican Winter League play, as drummers pound on snares and fans dance in the bleachers. The stadium of La Romana’s club, Los Toros del Este (the Eastern Bulls), is just a 20-minute shuttle ride from the gates of Casa de Campo. The regular season runs from mid-October through December. Cheer “Vamos Toros” and moo, moo, moo for the home team. Estadio Francisco A. Micheli, La Romana

PLAY MORE GOLF

Casa de Campo has three other courses. Dye Fore, a 27-hole, cli -top roller coaster on a plateau 300 feet above the Chavón River, where some scenes from Apocalypse Now were lmed. The Links is the kindest of the three but still a challenge—players still have to shape their shots to navigate bends, and inland lagoons and greenside bunkers stymie those whose approach kers stymie those whose approach game needs work. La Romana, which game needs work. La Romana, which opened in 1990, is members-only. opened in 1990, is members-only.