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In the late 1960's Alvara Carta, a Cuban exile to the U.S. took over a La Romana sugar mill owned by Gulf & Western. The mill soon became the world’s leading producer of sugar, and Carta wanted to plow the profits back into island industries including tourism.

Dye originally proposed a 9-hole course for mill executives on a site close to the mill, but that idea was scrapped after Dye explored in a motorboat the rocky coastline further south and found "The most beautiful seaside location for a golf course I had ever seen" and persuaded Carta an 18-hole championship course could be built there. Gulf & Western had amassed some 40,000 acres but Dye’s site for the course lay outside that property until the company acquired it.

As Dye vividly describes, course construction was literally a hands-on experience, as some 300 selected Dominican workers cleared out the underbrush with machetes and chopped up the rock with pick-axes, sledgehammers and chisels. The site was barren of good soil, Dye notes, but studies showed that cachaza, an organic material like peat moss that is used in sugarcane production, would make an excellent topsoil when combined with sand and red dirt.

Dye tells how the cachaza was brought down from the cane fields, invoking images of how the rock for the ancient pyramids must have been transported. "As incredible as it may seem," he writes, "oxen-drawn carts brought the soil one square yard at a time. I can still see the long line of cane carts strewn across the countryside as load after load was pulled by oxen to the course site."

As with all phases of construction, the cachaza experiment succeeded, proving to be a fertile topsoil for the Bermuda 419 fairways and tif dwarf greens. The experiment, as well as the entire project, also proved something else to Dye, who writes, "Patience can be a great virtue and I learned firsthand that land responds more positively to the raw-boned hands of the laborer than to the steel-faced jolt of heavy machinery."

However, there is one area--turf--where advances in technology since those early days are irresistible. Today, Dye is testing a new Bermuda hybrid called paspalum which appears to hold up well under salt water exposure. Salt water tends to yellow the existing turf grasses, and if the tests are conclusive, the course will be replanted with paspalum, lowering maintenance costs and offering a superior playing surface.

As for improvements to the resort golf club, a new airport is being constructed on the north side of the resort. When finished, the existing airport and runway will be eliminated, freeing up land for golf club expansion including a state-of-the-art practice facility.

While that should please the hardened golfers here, their widows and widowers need not worry. There is plenty to do for them as well at Casa de Campo. You can start with an excellent tennis center of 13 Har-Tru courts. If guests need a partner, the center will provide one, as well as ball boys for a small fee. I had lunch one day with a man I played golf with and his tennis-playing wife. "We don’t like the other resorts we’ve been to," she said, "I usually don’t get much chance to play because I can’t find a partner. But this is ideal for me because I can always find someone to hit with, and the ball boys are great."

Aside from tennis, the resort includes most water sports, skeet and trap shooting, horseback riding and polo, a fitness center, and a dude ranch. In addition, tours to the capital of Santa Domingo are offered to guests interested in shopping and visiting the old part of the city that was first settled by Columbus. Not to leave out the youngsters, all the above activities are available, as well as instruction in arts and crafts and archeology.

The resort has 300 hotel rooms in two-story casita-style units and 150 2-4 bedroom villas, some with their own spas and pools. The villas are ideal for families or groups. Villas with maid and butler service are also available through the Excel Club. The accommodations feature all the amenities you would expect of a world-class resort including cable TV.

The resort has turned the wreckage of Hurricane Gorges into an opportunity to completely gut and remodel its units. As of March 1999, the resort was operating at one-third capacity, but with an accelerated rebuilding program, full capacity was only months away. At right is one of the new luxury rooms at Casa de Campo.

Transportation around this sprawling property is provided by regular shuttle service, and if guests prefer, they can rent by the day (or stay) golf carts that zip along at a breezy clip. As the beach/swimming area is about a mile from the hotel complex, these carts come in handy.

The resort has 10 restaurants including an open air beachfront restaurant, the Tropicana in the hotel complex specializing in terrific seafood and steak, and gourmet international restaurants at Altos de Chavon, a recreated 16th century Italian village perched high on a cliff 200 feet over the Chavon River in the uplands some three miles from the main hotel.

As I was entering the Tropicana one night, I was met by a couple from Connecticut just coming out. Frequent guests of the resort, they highly recommended La Piazzetta, one of four resort restaurants in the village. I ate there the next night and can attest to its superb menu.

This village of quaint cobblestone streets also includes a church, gift shops, a design school, and a 5000-seat open air amphitheatre that was inaugurated in 1982 with Frank Sinatra’s Concert of the Americas. Other stars, including Julio Iglesias and Gloria Estefan, have been scheduled there. In the village square, merengue music and dancing entertain alfresco audiences.

Next year (2000), Dye’s fourth course on the property will open near the village. The new layout looks out over the river and offers spectacular views of the sea to the south and the peaks of the Cordillera Central mountain range to the north.

Visitors used to cookie cutter resorts where the landscaping seems "antiseptic" and the service contrived will find a welcome change at Casa de Campo. Here, the tempo is relaxed, though the personal service is anything but impersonal. One morning my wake-up call failed to go off, and a staff person came over at once to see if I was ok. I was impressed.

As for value, Casa de Campo is in a league of its own. I played golf with two women from Lancaster, Pa. Back at Casa for their fourth visit, they raved about the rate, $330 per person double occupancy. This included the room, all meals, unlimited golf and range balls, bag storage and unlimited drinks. "Where else can you get all that for that kind of money" they said.

For reservations, call 1-800- 877-3643.

Photos courtesy of Casa de Campo.

Note: The Dominican Republic is a world leader in cigar production, with such standout brands as Arturo Fuente and H. Upman. The main tobacco growing region is in Santiago but there is a cigar production facility in the industrial free zone in La Romana. I wanted to see the facility but was told tours are no longer available.