Casa de Campo
You stand at the perilous edge of
expectation and wonder if the
reality will meet the anticipation.
You will learn, shortly, that it most
certainly does.
Your heart palpitates, your eyes
telescope past ocean cliffs to blue-water
horizons, a frisson of excitement
jump-starts your golfing endorphins,
your hands-in Pavlovian response-
begin to twitch reflexively and lock
into a golf-grip, and you begin to salivate.
Golf.
This is the Teeth of the Dog, Casa
de Campo's first and formidable golf
creation, and it is a sensation.
It has brio, bravura and patrimony.
Originally constructed in 1971,
this Pete Dye beauty is the centerpiece
of his four (and, now, a half )
golf courses that serenade the stately
7,000-acre mega-resort that was the
precursor of golf in the Caribbean and
is now its spiritual soul.
The inland Links course followed in 1974 and the private La Romana Country Club was assembled by Pete Dye in 1990. In 2003, Dye almost outdid himself with the swaggering and majestic Dye Fore, a 7,700 (this is no typo) cliff-top track that rumbles and tumbles over an inland bluff 500 feet above the Chavon River, which spills out into the Caribbean Sea. It offers views of both the ocean and the historic edge of Altos de Chavon, the meticulously created artisan village that sits like a dignified prow-ornament on the top of the Chavon cliff.
Casa de Campo was just designated as one of the Top 10 international golf resorts by Golf Digest (February 2007) and it has rated Teeth of the Dog as #20 in their list of Top 100 courses outside the US.
