Casa de Campo: The definition of oceanside golf in the Dominican Republic

Not so easy is that tee shot on No. 5 of Teeth of the Dog, especially for first-timers. From the regular tees, the hole plays only a little over 150 yards, but the green is small. The wind blows. The scene distracts. The pulse races. Pete Dye is most famous for having built the island par 3 at TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course, but this one-shotter at Casa de Campo is in a prettier setting, and longer, to a tighter green. 

I certainly fell victim on my most recent go-round of Teeth of the Dog. I’m supposedly a reasonably capable golfer — emphasis on supposedly these days — but in a state of anticipatory bliss, my attempt to hit a high 8-iron into that green was laughable. Contact came via el hosel – that’s certainly one way to avoid the water, just shank it almost onto the fourth green. (I defended what was left of my honor by getting up and down from behind a palm tree.) 

No. 6 at Casa de Campo’s Teeth of the Dog in the Dominican Republic (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)

The audacity of that hole is stunning, especially considering original plans for the course didn’t include this stretch of shoreline. Dye was shepherded around other sites along the coast near Santa Domingo, but after laying eyes on the parcel just east of La Romano, he demanded it was the best place for a world-class course. After meeting initial reluctance, he won the argument and the right to build the course that opened in 1971. 

He shaped seven holes directly atop the beachhead, four on the front and three on the back. The term “signature hole” is a cliché best avoided, but to be fair, each of these holes could be exactly that at just about any other course. The inland holes of Teeth of the Dog are classic Pete Dye, full of angles and devious bounces, but it’s his oceanside holes that lure golfers onto airplanes for the trip. 

Dye went so far as to buy a house on the property, and he continued to tinker with the course for years before his death in 2020. 

“The thing with Pete, he never stopped,” said Gilles Gagnon, the resort’s former director of golf who was lured out of retirement to return as senior sales golf director and who saw Dye in action for decades. “He always wanted to improve. He was a visionary, and he was so passionate about what he was doing. … We became great friends, and the thing about Pete Dye, the love and passion he felt for this place, you could feel that.”

That passion extended to the later designs of Dye Fore, a 27-hole layout on cliffs some 200 feet above the Chavon River on the northeast side of the resort, and Dye Links, an 18-hole layout that meanders through the residential internal section of the property. He also built the private La Romana Country Club within the confines of the resort property. 

It all makes for a vast golfing landscape that invites players from as far as the U.S., Canada, Europe and Latin America. Nowhere else are there so many holes designed by the esteemed architect, with Teeth of the Dog ranked No. 3 among Golfweek’s Best courses in Mexico, the Caribbean, the Atlantic islands and Central America for 2022. Teeth of the Dog also ranks No. 17 on Golfweek’s Best list of international modern courses built in or after 1960. 

Dye Fore, with its river cliffs and long views across the marina to the sea, ranks No. 23 on that list of best courses in Mexico, the Caribbean, the Atlantic islands and Central America. La Romano Country Club is No. 33 on that list. 

No. 8 at Casa de Campo’s Teeth of the Dog in the Dominican Republic (Gabe Gudgel/Golfweek)

Dye – famous for wanting to brutally test the best players – in 1995 published a book titled “Bury Me in a Pot Bunker,” and even now his legacy lives on in that regard. The eighth hole on Teeth of the Dog, a par 4 curving alongside the ocean near his former home, features a deep grass depression to the right of the oceanside green. A plaque pays tribute from behind the green, and some of Dye’s ashes were spread in that grassy swale. 

It’s a ceremony that might have been necessary years before, when the architect took a bad step while designing Dye Fore. The dramatic and incredibly scenic layout features three nines, and Dye absent-mindedly tumbled backward off what would become the first tee of the Chavon nine. It’s a nearly vertical drop some 200 feet to the river through dense jungle.

“The back tee is right back there by the ravine,” said Gagnon, who joined the resort staff in 1980. “One day he’s looking … and he’s backing up, and he goes right over that tee. Thank God there were these stick trees out there, and he hit that. … When he came out of there, he was all bloody, and he actually hurt his back a little bit. He was just trying to get an angle, and he was backing up, and he just went right over. It’s a long way down. He didn’t go all the way down. He probably went about 20 feet, hit all the things, hit all the rocks.”

Dye had one thought after being pulled back up by construction workers: Don’t let his wife, Alice, find out. A creative mind, Dye frequently committed acts that made Alice – an accomplished player who helped steer many of his noteworthy course designs – shake her head in disbelief, Gagnon said. 

“He didn’t want to tell Alice,” Gagnon remembered. “He said, ‘I’m going to have to stay here a couple more days,’ because he didn’t want Alice to find out. I said, ‘Pete, you’re gonna have to stay here a month for all those things to heal up.’ ”

The Dye Fore course at Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic (Courtesy of Casa de Campo)

It was just Dye being himself, so focused on what he was trying to build that he paid little attention to anything else. Golfers everywhere should be thankful for the results – even as they face all the challenges that Dye laid out. 

Especially on Teeth of the Dog. 

“Every time you go play Teeth is beyond special,” Birtel said. “We pinch ourselves. You get out there on five or seven or eight tee, and you take a moment to just look at what’s going on. It’s absolutely spectacular. You don’t take that for granted.”