At this seaside golf resort, dogs play a surprising (and lovable) role

The 9th hole on the Bay Course at Costa Navarino in Greece is a highlight of the property’s Robert Trent Jones Jr. design. Sweeping down from the foothills along a rugged stretch of the Peloponnesian Peninsula, the 389-yard par-4 leads you to the turn and a modern clubhouse overlooking Navarino Bay.

Veterans of the former European Tour play that hole when the Costa Navarino Legends Tour Trophy rolls around each June. Taking it on myself would have been an opportunity to see how I stacked up against the likes of Cabrera, Jimenez, Bjørn and Lawrie.

Instead, I blew that off and let my partners play through because I wanted to goof around with a pack of mutts on the 8th green. I’ll play a lot of 9th holes in my life, but this was my one chance to meet the famed dogs of Costa Navarino.

One of the most prominent golf destinations in Europe, and the largest in Greece, Costa Navarino is home to four championship courses. The International Olympic Academy Golf Course, designed by José Marίa Olazábal, is the crown jewel. It sits alongside the Hills Course (also by Olazábal). Closer to the sea, Bernhard Langer’s Dunes runs near the destination’s Romanos and Mandarin Oriental Hotels. Finally, RTJ Jr.’s Bay track ranks among the finest work of his long career.

The Bay opened in 2011 alongside a family farm with no affiliation to the resort. Its predictable menagerie of creatures includes donkeys, goats, a pig or two and a pack of any Greek man’s best friends. Sometime over the last decade or so, these canines found their way onto the Bay and decided to call it home.

No one knows the exact timing of the canine invasion. Alkinoi Kostakis of the Costa Navarino golf marketing team says the dogs were just there one morning, sunning themselves between the 8th green and 9th tee. There are between four to six pooches on the course on any given day, with Costa Navarino colleagues providing food and water daily. The onsite crew, which deworms the pack when needed, also neuters and vaccinate the dogs, “to make certain they’re in good health and not contributing to the stray community,” Kostakis says.

The four-legged spectators in the Bay’s gallery do more than lounge; they earn their keep by keeping gulls, geese gophers and other pests at bay.

The clubhouse crew advised me not to approach the dogs, insisting they would only run away. Vasilis begged to differ, while also begging for whatever treats I might be hiding in my golf bag. The leader of the pack on the Bay’s front nine, Vasilis fathered three sets of puppies this past spring. The females want nothing to do with him these days as they’re busy nursing their litters, so Vasilis interrupted his sunbathing to approach me cautiously after I bogeyed the par-3 8th. Unlike playing partners, dogs don’t judge us on how many strokes we take.

Sandy brown with gray hair ringing his eyes and snout, Vasilis is a mixed breed. His exact pedigree is anyone’s guess. There’s some Labrador in there — maybe with a skosh of German Shepherd and a smidge of hound. He wolfed down the half of granola bar I wasn’t supposed to give him before laying down and showing his belly. As any proper dog might, he’d just met me and now loved me forever.

There’s no saying how many dogs have come and gone from Costa Navarino over the years, but the property conducts multiple programs to look after them and adopt out their progeny. Every autumn, the resort’s Hills course hosts the Navarino Pet Community Charity Trophy to raise funds for those efforts.

Proceeds from the €15 entry fee go directly to a local initiative providing veterinary care, shelter and adoption for stray animals, including the dogs born on the Bay Course. The project homed more than 250 pets across Greece and Europe, while providing animal education, vet care and community outreach.

Costa Navarino also helped launch “Messinia Without Strays,” which supports the protection and management of additional stray animals in the region.

The partnership of golf staff, property associates and members of the Navarino Pet Community maintain food and water stations for the animals around the property. The resort itself pitched in by donating more than two tons of pet food. In addition, the Pet Community manages a neutering program to provide the free service for the pets of Costa employees and strays from surrounding villages.

How my new friend Vasilis avoided the neutering blade, I cannot say. But his puppies will be cared for, too. Once they’re weened, the Costa Navarino team will collect them and prepare them for adoption. The last litter was snatched up for new homes by Costa Navarino employees, while a few more found new owners via a shelter in the nearby town of Kalamata.

When adults like Vasilis age out of their careers as course guardians, they also enter the adoption program. Kostakis says that a sick and hungry stray named Binoo was recently brought into the Navarino Pet Community and is now a beloved fixture with the destination’s staff.

Costa Navarino’s latest pro-pooch initiative kicked off in 2024 with “Stray Hope” — an animal-welfare association bringing together residents and volunteers of the neighboring towns of Pylos-Nestor and Trifilia to protect strays beyond the confines of the golf courses and Costa Navarino’s four hotels.

Back between 8 and 9 on the Bay, I came to that moment every dog lover dreads. After coming halfway around the world to play four first-rate courses, I stumbled upon a new friend that decided to adore me forever in return for belly rubs and what amounted to half of a cookie. Vasilis would’ve gladly spent the rest of the day — if not the rest of his life — sitting with me on the grass (at least until the cookies stopped coming). But the back nine and an 11-hour flight home would separate us.

With one last pat on the back, I motioned Vasilis to return to his pack and bid him farewell. I can’t remember what I shot. But I won’t soon forget the over-the-shoulder sight of my furry friend watching me drive away. 

I take comfort in knowing, though, that the folks at Costa Navarino are looking out for him and his kin.