This is just one demonstration of the enormous significance and relevance that golf represents in this Caribbean country, where the number of courses – all of a high level – is multiplying and this tourist segment is gaining increasing importance.

According to a study carried out by the IAGTO, golf tourism provided the country with 200 million dollars in 2013, and this figure is expected to rise to 300 million between 2015 and 2016, a period during which the number of golf tourist visits is also forecast to increase. Last year, more than 100,000 golf tourists arrived in the country, and it is expected that this year the total will rise to over 125,000.

The Dominican Republic has 30 golf courses designed by legends of the game and located in the best tourist areas, with 57 holes bordering or offering views of the sea.

Golf and beaches, beaches and golf… this is the perfect pairing which, in this warm Latin American country, seasoned with other major attractions, reaches a level that touches the sublime.

Isabel Vásquez, manager of the Dominican Republic Tourism Office for Spain and Portugal, is enthusiastic about the great prominence enjoyed by golf in her country and its promising future.

“We have courses of great international prestige,” she notes, “such as Diente de Perro, in La Romana, Punta Espada, in Cap Cana, where the PGA Tour’s Championship Tour has been played, La Cana, which received an award from Golf Digest magazine as the most spectacular and best-maintained in the Caribbean… Hard Rock Golf Club, Corales Golf Course, Barceló Lakes Golf Course... In addition, our courses have the signatures of some of golf’s most prestigious designers and architects: Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Tom Fazio, Pete Dye, P.B. Dye, Nick Faldo, etc.

“Golf is becoming increasingly popular throughout the world, and for us the sport is intimately linked to tourism. We place key importance on the segment because golfers are keen travellers, with high earning power, who move around wherever they want to, where there’s a new course or experience, where there’s a new incentive, where a friend says there’s a challenging course… that’s where they go. And we can offer all of that: novelties, magnificent courses, perfect maintenance and unique settings.

- In the Dominican Republic there are courses in paradisiacal places: Playa Grande, La Romana, Samaná, Puerto Plata, Cap Cana...

- We have always ensured that in our country golf is integrated into nature and the tourism industry, at the major hotel and real estate resorts. We take great care in protecting the environment and natural surroundings. We are in a privileged area of the world, 350 kilometres south of the Tropic of Cancer, where the average annual temperature is 26 or 27 degrees, where it does rain but it immediately clears up, the sun comes out and nature seems to be re-born every day.

That’s why our courses are always so green and in unique areas. You can find a course bordering the sea or another inland or near huge gorges such as Altos del Chavón, located on steep cliffs that rise above the river, where Francis Ford Coppola filmed a large part of his movie Apocalypse Now.

- One of the good things about the Dominican Republic, apart from the golf courses, is that you can play 365 days a year...

- That’s true. You can play the whole year, and the days begin very early. Watching the sunrise at a golf course in the Republic is an incredible spectacle, especially if you are on the seashore. Our courses really invite you to play. They are paradisiacal places that entice you, envelop you. Luxury for all the senses, in a special atmosphere...


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