Casa de Campo: The definition of oceanside golf in the Dominican Republic

You can see the water early. It’s the Caribbean Sea, blue and perfect, and of course there’s no missing it. Visitors likely saw plenty of it on the flight to this island nation.

Before a player ever sets off the first tee of Teeth of the Dog, the sea is seemingly right there in view from the main Casa de Campo clubhouse, down and across the ninth and 18th holes. There are glimpses of blue on the early holes. It’s oh-so-close on the third and fourth holes, just a skosh more than a hundred yards away, providing a taste of salt on the air to make you think you know what it means to play golf alongside the ocean.

But it’s not until you step onto the fifth tee box that you experience the sensory overload of playing golf directly alongside the sea. Salt spray. Trade winds. Palm trees. A tiny green perched above the waves – take one too many steps backward while reading a putt, and you might make a splash. It’s almost too much for the golf-travel obsessed.

No. 5 at Casa de Campo’s Teeth of the Dog in the Dominican Republic (Gabe Gudgel/Golfweek)

Right there on that tee box is where many golfers learn what it means to play tight to the ocean. Not playing near the water with a restricted view through some condo towers or mansions, not on a cliff high above the waves, not on the inland side of a beach dune with the wet stuff a full wedge away. Instead, this fifth tee shot is an incredible introduction to swinging so close to the sea that you might get your socks wet – a real possibility if your approach shot falls short and you go for a bold recovery from the rock-strewn beach.

“I remember the first time I played Teeth of the Dog and I pulled up to No. 5,” said Robert Birtel, director of golf operations at the sprawling Dominican resort, “and I was like ‘Whoa, what’s going on here?’ ”

What’s going on is up to 176 yards of bravado, beauty and visual intimidation. It’s the late Pete Dye at his finest – an unforgettable golf shot set in a postcard.

And it’s just the beginning. No. 5 is only the first of seven holes on Dye’s Teeth of the Dog – so named because the sharp rocks along the shore called to mind a canine’s canines – where it’s not only possible you blast a ball into the sea, it’s frequently surprising if you don’t.

Much more than golf

Minitas Beach at Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic (Courtesy of Casa de Campo)

It’s not just the seaside holes of Teeth of the Dog – site of the Latin America Amateur Championship on Jan. 20-23, 2022, the third time Casa de Campo has hosted the event with a Masters invitation on the line – that boggle the mind. Nor is it only the cliffside holes above a river at its sister course, Dye Fore. It’s much more than golf. The entirety of Casa de Campo stretches the bounds of imagination.

The place is huge, with nearly five miles of Caribbean coastline fronting some 7,000 acres of resort property. There is Minitas, the requisite beach club with one of this author’s favorite beach bars in the world. There is Altos de Chavon, high above a jungle river and styled to look and feel like a Mediterranean village, complete with bars, restaurants, shops, even a 5,000-seat amphitheater that was opened in 1982 by Frank Sinatra. Down the hill is one of the largest marinas in the Caribbean, full of boats so grand as to make Jack Sparrow weep. Catalina Island awaits just a few miles offshore, beckoning guests onto a catamaran for a quick ride over for a day of escapism.

The scale of Casa de Campo almost can’t be appreciated until you arrive on the former sugar mill property. Golf guests are allocated carts for the duration of their stay and are free to roam the property at will – it’s a solid 20-minute cart ride past interior homes and mansions to the marina or skeet range, even longer up to Altos de Chavon. Birtel said most golfers book all-inclusive resort packages, giving them access to six restaurants spread across the property, including unlimited food and drinks. It’s a very easy way to vacation – have what you want, when you want, where you want. Stay in a recently renovated and luxurious hotel room, or book a sea-view mansion complete with personal chef – your call.

All that space is especially appreciated after two years of COVID-19 pandemic. The resort was shuttered briefly at the outset of the pandemic in 2020, reopening in July of that year with safety protocols implemented. Each of the six restaurants available in the all-inclusive plan features patio seating, and golf has proved to be a relatively safe activity around the world. Getting to the Dominican Republic still requires an airline flight for most guests, but the resort itself is an expansive retreat where guests don’t really have to come face-to-face with anyone should they choose not to.

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At the time of this writing, the resort staff was still masked, and Birtel said 99 percent of employees have been vaccinated. Also at the time of this writing, U.S. citizens headed home were required to take a COVID test before reentering the U.S., and the resort takes the sting out of that ? with onsite screening.

“Casa de Campo is a fantastic place to be, pandemic or no pandemic,” said Birtel, a New Orleans native who worked in Puerto Rico before taking his current role at the Dominican property. “All the activities are outside. All the dining is outside. We have so much space, nobody is pushed together and you can social distance. …

“Once you land in the Dominican Republic, we take care of you. It is an easy experience.”

Audacity alongside the Caribbean Sea

The statue of golf architect Pete Dye in front of the main clubhouse at Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)

Not so easy is that tee shot on No. 5 of Teeth of the Dog, especially for first-timers. From the regular tees, the hole plays only a little over 150 yards, but the green is small. The wind blows. The scene distracts. The pulse races. Pete Dye is most famous for having built the island par 3 at TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course, but this one-shotter at Casa de Campo is in a prettier setting, and longer, to a tighter green.

I certainly fell victim on my most recent go-round of Teeth of the Dog. I’m supposedly a reasonably capable golfer — emphasis on supposedly these days — but in a state of anticipatory bliss, my attempt to hit a high 8-iron into that green was laughable. Contact came via el hosel – that’s certainly one way to avoid the water, just shank it almost onto the fourth green. (I defended what was left of my honor by getting up and down from behind a palm tree.)

No. 6 at Casa de Campo’s Teeth of the Dog in the Dominican Republic (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)

The audacity of that hole is stunning, especially considering original plans for the course didn’t include this stretch of shoreline. Dye was shepherded around other sites along the coast near Santa Domingo, but after laying eyes on the parcel just east of La Romano, he demanded it was the best place for a world-class course. After meeting initial reluctance, he won the argument and the right to build the course that opened in 1971.

He shaped seven holes directly atop the beachhead, four on the front and three on the back. The term “signature hole” is a cliché best avoided, but to be fair, each of these holes could be exactly that at just about any other course. The inland holes of Teeth of the Dog are classic Pete Dye, full of angles and devious bounces, but it’s his oceanside holes that lure golfers onto airplanes for the trip.

Dye went so far as to buy a house on the property, and he continued to tinker with the course for years before his death in 2020.

“The thing with Pete, he never stopped,” said Gilles Gagnon, the resort’s former director of golf who was lured out of retirement to return as senior sales golf director and who saw Dye in action for decades. “He always wanted to improve. He was a visionary, and he was so passionate about what he was doing. … We became great friends, and the thing about Pete Dye, the love and passion he felt for this place, you could feel that.”

That passion extended to the later designs of Dye Fore, a 27-hole layout on cliffs some 200 feet above the Chavon River on the northeast side of the resort, and Dye Links, an 18-hole layout that meanders through the residential internal section of the property. He also built the private La Romana Country Club within the confines of the resort property.

It all makes for a vast golfing landscape that invites players from as far as the U.S., Canada, Europe and Latin America. Nowhere else are there so many holes designed by the esteemed architect, with Teeth of the Dog ranked No. 3 among Golfweek’s Best courses in Mexico, the Caribbean, the Atlantic islands and Central America for 2022. Teeth of the Dog also ranks No. 17 on Golfweek’s Best list of international modern courses built in or after 1960.

Dye Fore, with its river cliffs and long views across the marina to the sea, ranks No. 23 on that list of best courses in Mexico, the Caribbean, the Atlantic islands and Central America. La Romano Country Club is No. 33 on that list.

No. 8 at Casa de Campo’s Teeth of the Dog in the Dominican Republic (Gabe Gudgel/Golfweek)

Dye – famous for wanting to brutally test the best players – in 1995 published a book titled “Bury Me in a Pot Bunker,” and even now his legacy lives on in that regard. The eighth hole on Teeth of the Dog, a par 4 curving alongside the ocean near his former home, features a deep grass depression to the right of the oceanside green. A plaque pays tribute from behind the green, and some of Dye’s ashes were spread in that grassy swale.

It’s a ceremony that might have been necessary years before, when the architect took a bad step while designing Dye Fore. The dramatic and incredibly scenic layout features three nines, and Dye absent-mindedly tumbled backward off what would become the first tee of the Chavon nine. It’s a nearly vertical drop some 200 feet to the river through dense jungle.

“The back tee is right back there by the ravine,” said Gagnon, who joined the resort staff in 1980. “One day he’s looking … and he’s backing up, and he goes right over that tee. Thank God there were these stick trees out there, and he hit that. … When he came out of there, he was all bloody, and he actually hurt his back a little bit. He was just trying to get an angle, and he was backing up, and he just went right over. It’s a long way down. He didn’t go all the way down. He probably went about 20 feet, hit all the things, hit all the rocks.”

Dye had one thought after being pulled back up by construction workers: Don’t let his wife, Alice, find out. A creative mind, Dye frequently committed acts that made Alice – an accomplished player who helped steer many of his noteworthy course designs – shake her head in disbelief, Gagnon said.

“He didn’t want to tell Alice,” Gagnon remembered. “He said, ‘I’m going to have to stay here a couple more days,’ because he didn’t want Alice to find out. I said, ‘Pete, you’re gonna have to stay here a month for all those things to heal up.’ ”

The Dye Fore course at Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic (Courtesy of Casa de Campo)

It was just Dye being himself, so focused on what he was trying to build that he paid little attention to anything else. Golfers everywhere should be thankful for the results – even as they face all the challenges that Dye laid out.

Especially on Teeth of the Dog.

“Every time you go play Teeth is beyond special,” Birtel said. “We pinch ourselves. You get out there on five or seven or eight tee, and you take a moment to just look at what’s going on. It’s absolutely spectacular. You don’t take that for granted.”

More Dominican courses

Cap Cana’s Punta Espada in the Dominican Republic (Courtesy of Cap Cana/Evan Schiller)

The Dominican Republic is home to several highly ranked courses within an hour of Casa de Campo.

Cap Cana’s Punta Espada is 35 miles east of Casa de Campo in Punta Cana, and that seaside Jack Nicklaus layout ranks No. 1 on Golfweek’s Best list of courses in Mexico, the Caribbean, the Atlantic islands and Central America.

In the same resort town is Puntacana Resort and Club, whose Corales course by Tom Fazio ranks No. 8 on that list of top courses. Puntacana’s La Cana course (Hacienda and Arrecife nines) ranks No. 46 on that Golfweek’s Best list.

The private Playa Grande Golf and Ocean Club on the northern side of the island also features a coastal layout that has drawn raves, but the Rees Jones design has not received enough votes by Golfweek’s Best raters to qualify for the list.

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