I am standing on the seventh tee of the Teeth of the Dog, facing one of the great par threes in the world, 188 yards of carry over an angry Caribbean. A twenty-knot wind is blowing right to left out to sea, eager to send my ball to a watery grave. The surging waves occasionally blind me with a stinging mist.
Overlooking the seventh green is the thatched-roof home of famed course designer Pete Dye, the patron saint of the Teeth and its accompanying resort, Casa de Campo. To dump a ball in the ocean in plain view of the Dye household would, I feel, somehow dishonor all that he has accomplished in this sleepy corner of the Dominican Republic. My caddie, Cesar—who by the fourth hole had stopped giving me yardages and started simply handing me clubs—optimistically lays a four-iron in my sweaty palm.
"Aim right," he says in accented English, unable to suppress a gap-toothed grin. Improbably, I bank a hard draw off the breeze to within twelve feet, inducing Cesar to pound his thigh with his cap and shout "Bueno!" through the wind. I float toward the green, propelled by the timeless, immutable glory of Casa de Campo . . .
I am now standing on what will be the fourth tee of the new golf course that, upon its completion in early spring 2003, will be the fourth Dye track at Casa de Campo. There is no grass here—only graded dirt plunging toward the horizon, twisted into the shape of a sinister fairway. Wild goats can be seen scampering through the native coconut and mango trees that have yet to be cleared on what will be the back nine. Below me the powerful Chavon River empties into the turquoise sea. Behind me the mountains of Cordillera Oriental create a sawtooth horizon.
And from this aerie, even more evidence of progress can be seen. A new Gianfranco Fini-designed marina opened in December 2001, where the mouth of the river meets the Caribbean, boasting 183 boat slips, upscale boutiques, world-class dining and a private yacht club. Ten minutes from the resort a new international airport has been carved from the earth, its concrete runway stretching 9,678 feet past a giant terminal modeled after a sugar mill. Last year the world began enjoying the new infrastructure en masse.
For more than a quarter century Casa de Campo has been cherished for spectacular golf and its sleepy, relaxed charm, built on the ethos of mañana—as in enjoy today because life's complications can be dealt with mañana. But these days, mañana is arriving in a hurry.
