On two occasions, 2009 and 2013, the Dominican Republic has been named “best golf destination” in the Caribbean and Latin America by IAGTO (International Association of Golf Tour Operators), beating countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica and Jamaica.
This is just a sample of the enormous transcendence and relevance that golf is representing in this Caribbean country, where golf courses are multiplying, all of them of high level, and this tourist segment is becoming more and more important every day.
According to a study carried out by IAGTO, golf tourism contributed 200 million dollars to the Caribbean country in 2013 and is expected to reach 300 million dollars between 2015 and 2016, a period in which tourist visits for the purpose of practicing this sport will also increase. Last year, more than 100,000 golf tourists came to the country and this year that figure is expected to exceed 125,000.
The Dominican Republic has some thirty golf courses designed by golf legends and located in the best tourist areas, with 57 of their holes bordering or overlooking the sea.
Golf and beaches, beaches and golf, are a perfect binomial that in this warm American country, combined with other important attractions, acquires a level that borders on the sublime.
Isabel Vásquez, director of the Dominican Republic Tourism Office for Spain and Portugal, is enthusiastic about the high profile of her country’s golf offer and the promising future that lies ahead.
“We have,” he says, “courses of great international prestige, 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 the award from Golf Digest magazine as the most spectacular and best maintained course in the Caribbean? Hard Rock Golf Club, Corales Golf Course, Barceló Lakes Golf Course… In short, our courses, in addition, have the signature of the most prestigious golf designers and architects: Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Tom Fazio, Pete Dye, P.B. Dye or Nick Faldo etc.”.
“Golf,” he continues, “is a growing hobby all over the world, and for us the practice of this sport is intimately linked to tourism. It is a segment to which we attach vital importance because the golf player is an enthusiastic traveler, with high purchasing power, who goes wherever there is a new course, wherever there is a new incentive, wherever a friend tells him there is a challenging course… there he goes. And we can offer all this: novelties, magnificent courses, perfect maintenance and unique enclaves”.
-In the Dominican Republic there are fields in paradisiacal places: Playa Grande, La Romana, Samaná, Puerto Plata, Cap Cana…
-We have always tried to integrate golf in our country with nature and the tourism industry that welcomes it, in large hotel resorts or real estate.
We take great care to preserve the environment and the natural surroundings. We are in a privileged area of the world, about 350 kilometers south of the Tropic of Cancer, where the average annual temperature is 26 or 27 degrees Celsius, where it rains but soon it rains, the sun comes out and nature seems to revive every day.
That’s why our fields are always very green and in unique locations. You can find courses by the sea as well as a little inland or in large gorges such as Altos del Chavón, located on the huge cliffs formed by this river, where Francis Ford Coppola filmed much of his movie Apocalypse Now.
-The good thing about golf in the Dominican Republic is that you can play 365 days a year?
-You can play all year round, and the days start very early. Watching the sunrise on a golf course in the Republic is an incredible spectacle, especially if you are by the sea. The truth is that our courses invite you to play. They are paradisiacal places that provoke you, that envelop you? A luxury for all the senses in a special atmosphere.
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