Golf in Cuba: Is the communist gov't really game?

Golf in Cuba: Is the communist gov't really game?
By Will Weissert, Associated Press Writer
VARADERO, Cuba — The two revolutionary icons were playing the
gentlemen's game in fatigues and combat boots. And they weren't playing
well.

Che Guevara shot a 127, besting Fidel Castro's 150 on a par-70 golf course.

Their 1961 round a month before the Bay of Pigs invasion was the
beginning of the end for golf in Cuba soon the communist government had
eliminated the sport from the island almost entirely.

Only one 18-hole course remains, the Varadero Golf Club in this beach
resort 85 miles east of Havana. On Friday and Saturday it hosted two
one-day pro-am tournaments featuring half a dozen Cuban golfers paired
with wealthy foreigners.

Organizers say the events are small steps in a campaign to bring golf
back to Cuba, a country that is both the best and worst imaginable place
to play.

The Tourism Ministry says it would like to build 10 new courses around
the country and attract high-rollers from Europe, Canada and even the
United States should Washington ease its 48-year trade embargo.
Investors in Europe and Canada have long clamored to build courses,
presenting plans that include luxury hotels, apartments and health spas.

But those proposals have remained stalled for years, with not even one
foreign-financed project having broken ground.

Cuba is "the sand trap from hell," said John Kavulich, senior policy
analyst at the U.S. Economic Trade Council in New York.

"The conflict is imagery versus profit," said Kavulich, whose group
advises U.S. businesses on trade with Cuba. "Concerns about the image of
golfers in the worker's paradise. And, if accepted, how does Granma (the
Communist Party newspaper) explain the obese U.S. golfer with poor
clothing color coordination, running about in their 'Caddyshack' like
golf cart, betting one each hole?"

It does indeed seem hard for Granma to stomach golf, with its refined
decadence. But Antonio Zamora, a Miami attorney and expert on Cuban real
estate, said the government has overcome old ideological concerns and
sees the sport as a way to get foreigners to visit the countryside,
rather than simply staying in Havana and other cities.

The state-run tourism concern Palmares is developing golf, but Zamora
said it has moved slowly because it plans to build courses in clusters
of three or more, enticing players to stay in particular areas long
enough to try all courses.

"There's been a lot of work done. This is not just 'blah, blah, blah,'"
Zamora said.

Among those playing in Saturday's tournament was Canadian Graham Cooke,
a top golf course architect. At a similar event last year, three-time
major winner Ernie Els made an appearance to represent his development
company.

In June 2008, Britain's Esencia Hotels and Resorts announced the Tourism
Ministry had approved construction of the Carbonera Country Club for
around $300 million on a stretch of beach not far from Varadero. In
addition to an 18-hole golf course, the development calls for 800 luxury
apartments and 100 villas.

Cuba does not recognize the right to buy or sell property and prohibits
foreign ownership, but Esencia said it was hammering out a 75-year lease
on the property. Construction was slated to begin in 2009, but has now
been postponed indefinitely.

On Friday, Esencia CEO Andrew Macdonald took a group of investors to the
site where the Carbonera project would be built, offering a tour of a
windy beach amid high reeds that faced a rocky and narrow blue lagoon.

"It's spade ready," he told The Associated Press, offering a map showing
that where he stood could one day be a small wooden pier in front of a
luxury hotel. "We could go tomorrow."

Macdonald said the proposal has been endorsed by Cuba's Tourism and
Foreign Investment Ministries, but that more than 20 other government
ministries have to approve the plan before it can go ahead.

"If you haven't done anything for 50 years, you want to do it right," he
said. "They're totally committed to this. It's just a timing issue."

Macdonald said the golf course and some of the homes could be built in
two years once the project is approved, but he is through speculating on
when exactly that might come.

Gilberto Avila, a Tourism Ministry promotional communications officer,
said Cuba solicited foreign companies for proposals to build 10 golf
courses across the island, and had received at least 11 such proposals
since 2007 though he offered no explanation on why none has moved forward.

Cuba's vacation industry set records for foreign visitors each of the
last two years, despite the deep recession. In 2009, over 2.4 million
tourists came, mostly from Europe and Canada. But many stayed fewer days
than usual, and tour operators offered deep discounts to keep them
coming, meaning revenues slumped nearly 12 percent.

Golf could bring tourists ready to spend regardless of how dire the
world economy looks.

"You've got a cigar and you are playing golf with the beach right
there," said Jose Tovar, general manager of the Varadero Golf Club.
"It's perfect."

There were about a dozen topflight Cuban courses before Castro came to
power on New Year's Day 1959. The PGA Tour hosted an annual Havana
tournament in the 1950s that attracted Arnold Palmer, among others.

Castro and Che's round at Havana's Colinas de Villareal course was meant
to thumb their noses at the Kennedy administration. Many claim Castro
wanted to eradicate the game because he wasn't good at it, something his
son Antonio has denied, saying his father liked trying all sports.

The grounds of the Havana Country Club were converted into a music and
dance academy, and another course, the Havana Biltmore Club, became a
military zone where Castro now is believed to keep one of his many
homes. Colinas de Villareal also became a military camp.

Just one golf course survived in the capital, the nine-hole Havana Golf
Club, located off the road to the airport. The course was originally the
British-owned Rovers Athletic Club and was spared mostly so foreign
diplomats could play, said Johan Vega, the local pro. Sticks and tree
branches are used as flag poles on some holes and an antiquated
irrigation system makes it difficult to keep the grass from turning brown.

Vega was not invited to the Varadero tournaments. He doesn't believe
golf is too capitalist for his country, but said he's not hopeful it
will take off in Cuba because "there's no national golf culture."

Things are far less bleak at Varadero, the only golf course built since
Castro's revolution. It opened in 1999, after more than five years of
construction and with the Cuban government financing all of its $20
million budget, said Tovar, the general manager.

The course's clubhouse, high on a bluff, used to be "Xanadu," an
11-bedroom mansion built by U.S. chemical tycoon Irenee DuPont.

There was a seven-hole golf course on the grounds two holes were
destroyed by a hurricane until the Soviet Union disbanded, ending its
billions of dollars in annual subsidies to Cuba and bringing the
island's economy to its knees. Officials then embraced foreign tourism
and built the full-size course to attract golf-hungry visitors.

Varadero hosted qualifying tournaments for the European Tour in 1999 and
2000, but since has been unable to afford to stage more, and efforts to
promote golf languished until pro-am tournaments this year and last.

But Tovar said Cuba can no longer afford to not build more golf courses,
given the sport's global popularity.

"From a golf course, it's a different view of our country, maybe it's
not so cultural," he said. "But it's still Cuba."

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/golf/2010-04-24-3741522714_x.htm