The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
GOLF–CUBASTYLE
Kevin Pilley travels to the Caribbean where he discovers a push to put Cuba on the global golfing map
Fidel Castro loathed golf. But he lived on a golf course designed by a man from Dornoch.
“El Jefe’s” (The Chief’s) and the Castro family’s private, high-security residential compound “Punto Cero” (Point Zero) isn’t far from the Donald Rossdesigned 1928 “Biltmore Golf And Yacht Club” in the beach district of west Havana.
Now called Club Habana and, although only the first hole is still partially visible, the course has morphed into a luxurious members-only gated residential complex.
And it is as bourgeois as any location in Cuba can be. It therefore represents everything Castro claimed he couldn’t stand.
Castro banned golf because he considered it elitist. At one stage there were as many as 10 courses in Cuba. Most were built in the 1920s. Some were only three holes and some six. One of the earliest was probably in Hershey. Hershey was built as a sugar refinery by American multimillionaire and philanthropist Milton S Hershey. The sugar was sent back to Pennsylvania to make his iconic “Hershey” chocolate bars.
Castro saw golf as shameless capitalist decadence. The epitome of social exclusiveness. He dug up the country’s golf courses, converting them into art schools, barracks and social housing. The state land seizures he saw as part of a utopian dream of social progress.
Ironically, one of his sons, Antonio, an orthopaedic surgeon, is a very keen golfer, and won Cuba’s Montecristo Cup tournament in 2013.
There is now a golfing revolution under way in Cuba. Golf is seen as crucial to the tourism industry. New golf clubs and “real estate associated with golf” projects are planned around the island. Even in Castro’s home province of Oriente and the “Isle of Youth” where he and his brother Raul were imprisoned.
Seen as golf’s last frontier, Cuba hopes to be a major golfing destination within 30 years. Ex-British Open and US Open champion Tony Jacklin has been involved with one project. Chinese, German, Spanish, UAE and British investors are all reportedly involved.
Castro, the man who faced down 10 US presidents, brought the world to the brink of nuclear war and thought golf “a hobby of the idle rich” played just one round of golf in his life.
In 1961, six months before the Bay of Pigs, he played Che Guevara at the now-no-more “Colinas (Hills) de Villareal” course. Che won. The guerilla could play a bit, having caddied as a child in Argentina. He suffered badly from asthma and the golf course was his cure.
When it was reported that the Communist Party leader and great revolutionary hero had failed to break 150, the journalist responsible was summarily sacked. And fled the country.
The match – a propaganda stunt mocking Kennedy and also Eisenhower who, years earlier, had had a well-publicised hole-in-one which Castro saw as some kind of PR coup he wanted to better – was captured by party photographer Alberto Korda. He was also responsible for all the iconic – uncopyrighted – images of Che. He and his estate has never received any of the famous photographs.
Fidel’s stance never changed. He drove right-handed and putted left, using a large, hand-rolled “Cohiba” cigar to line up the putts.
He didn’t care for collared shirts, tailored shorts or spikes, preferring his own on-course dress etiquette of beret, combat jackboots and surplus hospital orderly wear passing as military fatigues. The caddies all wore holsters and pistols.
Cuba has one of the highest adult literacy rates in the world. It has more doctors per person than anywhere. But the largest island in the Caribbean now has just two golf courses and, out of a population of 11million, only 40 registered golfers. And two pros. And one scratch golfer, Alexei Castallanos, who has just returned from Italy after competing in a prestigious pitch ‘n’ putt tournament. Annia Blanco is the top lady player.
“Maradona has a tattoo of Castro on his leg. He came to Cuba to recover from his cocaine addiction,” Jorge Vega said as he practised his putting on the 18th green of Havana Golf Club where he is the professional. His father worked as a greenkeeper.
“The course is always quiet. We have trouble with ant hills on some fairways.”
“Cuba has one of the highest adult literacy rates in the world. It has more doctors per person than anywhere”
The nine-hole Donald Ross designed Havana Golf Club was founded by the English in 1911. Moving to the international airport road in Capdevile in 1953, it somehow survived the collectivisation and quite literal upheavals that followed the 1959 revolution. Castro became the committee following Cuba’s nationalisation in 1980, and often held meetings standing in the middle of the putting green.
It is a fairly uninspiring, up-and down course. Flags are tatty red rags on bamboo poles. Yardages are painted on tree trunks. There are 35 members and 20 regular players. All foreign, mostly embassy officials, with 18 holes costing £39. The club boasts a Basque basketball court, bowling alley, swimming pool and electric game consoles.
Vega gives lessons but they are not in high demand. The club hosted professional tournaments and attracted big names like Snead, Sarazan, Casper and Palmer. It still holds an annual Commonwealth and Canada Cup.
The close link between Cuban golf and Canada is revealed on the greens at Varadero Golf Club, two hours from Havana. The golf markers have the Canadian flag on one side and the Cuban on the other. All the rental clubs come from Canada.
Henrik Stenson won a European Tour Challenge Grand final there in 2000.
The course is attached to the allinclusive Melia Las Americas Hotel. Its golf specialist Reynaldo Leon Diaz trained in British Columbia. “We have regular showcase tournaments. Like the Melia Las Americas Cup in May, Varadero golf tournament in September and Cuba Golf Cup in October. We opened the first golf academy in Cuba. Canadian pros came over every year. Not any more.”
Green fees are 100 CUC (£77). Which is, if you count club and cart rental, three times more than a Cuban earns in three months.
Xanadu is the place to stay. Irenee Dupont’s “stately pleasure dome” on the Gulf of Mexico is currently undergoing a long overdue 940000 CUC (£700,000) makeover.
The 1927 four-storey, eight-bedroom beachfront Xanadu Mansion on the San Bernardino bluff overlooking the Gulf of Mexico was built by French-American chemical magnate Irenee Dupont de Nemours. He retired to Cuba, buying himself 180 hectares of the Hicacos Peninsula. This included 8km of beach.
Precious dark hard woods and marble were imported. The gardens were planted with coconut, banana, avocado and papaya trees. Parrots and cockatoos were imported to make the Cuban version of Xanadu more tropically enchanting.
At £200 a night, half board, you can stay in the six second-floor rooms and enjoy the view of the sea and scaffolding.
Its restaurant menu offers £32 lobster Dupont-style and Canadian/Uruguayan Chateaubriand (£27). Chef Lima’s signature desserts are chocolate fondant and apple pie, and Xanadu has its own extensive cigar menu where a Cohiba Betika 54 costs £32. You have to smoke it outside on one of the two putting greens.