Golfweek’s Best Courses of Caribbean & Mexico 2013
1. Cap Cana (Punta Espada)
Cap Cana, Dominican Republic, 2008
Jack Nicklaus
Avg. rating: 7.84
2. Querencia
San Jose del Cabo, Mexico, 2000
Tom Fazio
Avg. rating: 7.69
3. Casa de Campo (Teeth of the Dog)
La Romana, Dominican Republic, 1970
Pete Dye
Avg. rating: 7.51
4. Mid Ocean Club
Tucker’s Town, Bermuda, 1923
Charles Blair Macdonald, Seth Raynor
Avg. rating: 7.40
5. Vista Vallarta Golf Club (Nicklaus)
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, 2001
Jack Nicklaus
Avg. rating: 7.20
6. Dunes Course at Diamante
Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, 2009
Davis Love III
Avg. rating: 7.11
7. Cabo del Sol (Ocean)
Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, 1994
Jack Nicklaus
Avg. rating: 7.07
8. Playa Grande
Rio San Juan, Dominican Republic, 1996
Robert Trent Jones Sr.
Avg. rating: 7.05
9. Royal Westmoreland
St. James, Barbados, 1994
Robert Trent Jones Jr.
Avg. rating: 7.03
10. Sandy Lane (Green Monkey)
St. James, Barbados, 2004
Tom Fazio
Avg. rating: 7.00
11. Apes Hill Club
St. James, Barbados, 2009
Chris Cole, Jeff Potts
Avg. rating: 6.96
12. Corales Golf Club
Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, 2010
Tom Fazio
Avg. rating: 6.92
13. Four Seasons Resort
Punta Mita ...
Tip of the Cap
Cap Cana, Dominican Republic, 2008
Jack Nicklaus
Avg. rating: 7.81
San Jose del Cabo, Mexico, 2000
Tom Fazio
Avg. rating: 7.71
3. Casa de Campo (Teeth of the Dog)
La Romana, Dominican Republic, 1970
Pete Dye
Avg. rating: 7.51
4. Mid Ocean Club
Tucker’s Town, Bermuda, 1923
Charles Blair Macdonald
Avg. rating: 7.42
5. Royal Westmoreland
St. James, Barbados, 1994
Robert Trent Jones Jr.
Avg. rating: 7.40
6. Cabo del Sol (Ocean)
Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, 1994
Jack Nicklaus
Avg. rating: 7.31
7. Vista Vallarata Golf Club (Nicklaus)
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, 2001
Jack Nicklaus
Avg. rating: 7.20
8. Playa Grande
Rio San Juan, Dominican Republic, 1996
Robert Trent Jones Sr.
Avg. rating: 7.00
9. Corales Golf Club
Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, 2010
Tom Fazio
Avg. rating: 6.81
10. Trump International Golf Club (International)
Rio Grande, Puerto Rico, 2005
Tom Kite
Avg. rating: 6.80
11. Sandy Lane (Green Monkey)
St. James, Barbados, 2004
Tom Fazio
Avg. rating: 6.80
12. Apes Hill Club
St. James, Barbados, 2009
Chris Cole, Jeff Potts
Avg. rating: 6.67
13. Dunes Course at Diamante
Cabo San Lucas ...
2011 Golfweek’s Best Courses of the Caribbean ...
2011 Golfweek’s Best Courses of the Caribbean & Mexico
Cap Cana, Dominican Republic
Jack Nicklaus
2008
San José del Cabo, Mexico
Tom Fazio
2000
3) Casa de Campo (Teeth of the Dog)
La Romana, Dominican Republic
Pete Dye
1970
4) Mid Ocean Club
Tucker’s Town, Bermuda
Charles Blair Macdonald & Seth Raynor
1921
5) Royal Westmoreland
St. James, Barbados
Robert Trent Jones Jr.
1994
6) Corales Golf Club
Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
Tom Fazio
2010*
7) Vista Vallarta Golf Club (Nicklaus)
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Jack Nicklaus
2001
Los Cabos, Mexico
Jack Nicklaus
1994
9) Trump International Golf Club Puerto Rico (International)
Río Grande, Puerto Rico
Tom Kite
2005
10) Apes Hill Club
St. James, Barbados
Chris Cole & Jeff Potts
2009*
11) Diamante (Dunes)
Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
Davis Love III
2009*
12) Mayakoba (El Camaleón)
Riviera Maya, Mexico
Greg Norman
2006
13) The Abaco Club on Winding Bay
Abaco, Bahamas
Donald Steel & Tom Mackenzie
2006
14) Playa Grande
Río San Juan, Dominican Republic
Robert Trent Jones Sr. & Roger Rulewich
1996
15) El Dorado Golf & Beach Club
San José del Cabo, Mexico
Jack Nicklaus
1999
16) Sandy Lane (The ...
2006: Color burst
The Madrid Chile Festival is the perfect start to any New Mexico vacation. Green chile is why the Land of Enchantment has such a distinctive cuisine. And Madrid, a 400-person artists’ enclave located about 30 miles south of Santa Fe, represents the flavor – in taste and the less-definable New World tone – that locals and visitors have come to know so well.
Problem is, there is no such celebration. The signs are props for a John Travolta movie being shot in the town, one of several recently filmed in the area.
“If you’re not from around here, it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s not,” said Suzy Kelly, owner of Color & Light art gallery. (The signs advertising volunteer fire department meetings every Tuesday at 7 p.m. are authentic.)
That sentiment holds true about a lot of things in New Mexico. Jerry Rightman, my guide on a walking tour through Santa Fe, advised our group to spend modestly for any jewelry that caught the eye, but not to empty pocketbooks for fear of fakes.
This is one of the poorest states in the country, owing in part to New Mexico’s large Native American population. But ...
2004: Quintero reaches new frontier
Peoria, Ariz.
How far out in the Sonoran Desert do you have to go to be a pioneer these days? With Quintero Golf and Country Club, the answer is clear – 40 miles northwest of downtown Phoenix, halfway on the road to Wickenburg. That’s about as remote as Desert Forest Golf Club in Carefree, Ariz., was when that innovative tract opened in 1962, and now burgeoning development north of Scottsdale is nipping at its heels.
Quintero’s owner and visionary, Gary McClung, is counting on the same thing happening to his property. He acquired a remote, 800-acre former mining site in the middle of an area under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Bureau of Land and Mines. McClung then had to lay miles of internal roads, put up his own generators and run a pipeline 35 miles to tap into the Central Arizona Project for (recycled) irrigation water. Along the way, he hired Rees Jones and had the good sense to leave him and design associate Steve Weisser alone to do their work.
Build it and they will come? That’s apparently the hope here for Quintero, where plans include 350 homesites. A second course, designed by Greg Norman ...
2003: More than reggae
The day starts at 6 a.m. when Maxine lets herself into the whitewashed villa and begins to prepare breakfast. I sleepily lift my head, tired from a week’s worth of golf, tennis and coconut rum, and look out the French doors in my bedroom and across a balcony taking on its first bits of sunlight. Below, I see pieces of the Tryall golf course as well as lush hills, a sliver of beach and then the lights of Montego Bay, flicking off one by one in the distance as the moon sets and the birds began to sing.
I want to get up, but my tee time is still two hours away. So I close my eyes and fall back to sleep.
It is 7 a.m. when I next wake, only this time my room is filled with the smell of freshly made coffee from the famed Blue Mountains. Maxine hands me a mug of the tasty brew and serves papaya, toast and orange juice on a terrace overlooking the cerulean waters of the Caribbean Sea. Then I hop into my golf cart and motor down to the pro shop, where I meet my caddie, a personable ...
2002: Destination - Colors of Cozumel
Once a year, at the start of their birthing season, Cozumel’s 10,000 crabs migrate across the full width of the island, from its raw, unpeopled Atlantic coast to their nesting sites on its calmer western shores. • The journey isn’t easy. Skittering sideways, as crabs do, they traverse 10 miles of dense tropical jungle before arriving at the beach hotels that face the Mexican mainland. Cautiously, they make their way past the bellmen and through the lobbies, marching their armored bodies past the sandaled feet of the astonished tourists – crabs with their claws raised in the air, in defensive position, like little crustacean Power Rangers.
This year their cross-island itinerary was slightly different. Neither the hotels nor the tourists budged. But 350 acres of the jungle had been cleared to make way for the Cozumel Country Club, the island’s first golf course.
Traversing the fairways mostly at night, the crabs witnessed few, if any, golf shots. The island’s other shelled denizens, on the other hand, watched plenty. Indeed, they seem to have developed a certain fondness for the game – and even a tendency to dispense golf tips to visiting duffers. Playing the course, you’re likely ...
