Dominican Republic, East Coast golf courses

[Roadking2003]

I'm planning a golf trip to the east coast of the Dominican and am interested in your rankings. We've played Teeth on a previous trip so will not be driving to Casa de Campo.

 

Here are the courses I have found. For those of you who have played all or most of these courses, how do you rank them?

 

Cocotal

Roco Ki

Corales

La Cana

Punta Espada

Punta Blanca

Hard Rock at Cana Bay

Iberostar Bavaro

Barcelo Lakes

[ThunderBuzzworth]

Just played La Cana yesterday. It is a great course, very good condition and we got an amazing rate through our resort. Although I played really well, rentals there are kind of garbage (especially lefty) but there are some really good holes out there and a handful that are on the ocean. I can’t speak on any of the other courses in the list. Once I get back home I will upload some photos 

[ThunderBuzzworth]

I played with 9 other people from our vacation group and many are not good players so we played white tees and it was extremely short from there but the views were outstanding at La Cana especially on the 19-27 holes. 

 

 

[bok006]

1. Corales or Punta Espada. Both great championship courses with stunning views (expensive though)

2. La Cana (make sure you play all 27, I find the Hacienda 9 to be better golf holes, just no sea view like the Tortuga Bay 9 and Arrecife 9)

3. Hard Rock

4. Iberostar

5. The Lakes

6. Punta Blanca

7. Cocotal

 

Roco Ki was closed for play last I checked. Only a skeleton green keeper crew to keep it from overgrowing until new investors pick up the tab.

[Roadking2003]

Bok, thanks for your comments. The top three are pretty obvious and we will play all three. Punta Blanca is ranked by some higher than your list. Can you comment on the ones you listed as #3 - #7?

[Gunsynd]

I would agree with bok's ratings, however I haven't played Punta Blanca. I do have friends that live there, and we don't go to Punta Blanca as they prefer the courses above it?

- Cana Bay is a Jack Nicklaus design course built around 2011 that is set inland. It is a decent course and you can get good rates on teeoff.com. It can be long from the tips! Fairly generous off the tee.

- Iberostar - recently renovated their back nine (which I have seen). Good course with some interesting features. They typically have great on course service with a beverage cart that will follow you around almost, assuming you tip a little. Also generous off the tee.

- Barcelo Lakes - a shorter golf course, but much tighter in places. Off the three above, this one has been the busiest in my experience.

- My neighbour was their for March break and only played Cocotal as part of his resort package -- average golf in his opinion. (I have never played it -- too much good golf to waste time on avg golf)

 

I love the DR as a golf destination and find all the courses from Teeth Of The Dog down to Punta Blanca to be solid tests of golf with good conditions.

[Roadking2003]

Here is my tentative plan.

Day 1 Cocotal

Day 2 Cana Bay Hard Rock

Day 3 Corales

Day 4 La Cana

Day 5 Punta Espada

Day 6 Punta Blanca

 

Our house is on the Cocotal course. Is there a better option than Cocotal?

 

 

 

 

 

[Roadking2003]

The revised plan. I'm trying to decide if we should eliminate Punta Blanca and play Punta Espada twice.

 

1 Cana Bay Golf Course

2 Punta Blanca

3 La Cana

4 Teeth of the Dog

5 Corales

6 Punta Espada

[Roadking2003]

Does anybody have current info about Roco Ki? Do they have any plans to reopen the course?

[eboettne]

I am heading to the Dominican Friday and my wife and I are debating whether or not to play La Cana for approximately $315 including club rentals or Punta Espada which is closer to the $500-600 range all in if we play twilight. Can anyone comment on if Punta Espada vs La Cana is worth the additional cost(in other words is it a bucket list course)? Also, anyone have any luck booking last minute and getting cheaper rates than posted on their website? TIA!

[Roadking2003]

We (eight golfers) just returned from a seven-day, five golf courses trip to The Dominican Republic. We played 18 per day. We walked with caddies on Teeth of the Dog. We had forecaddies on Punta Espada, La Cana, and Corales. We had no caddies on Hard Rock at Cana Bay

Weather was in the low eighties every day and quite windy. It rained three days for a very short time.

Here is a summary of our observations.

We ranked the courses using whatever criteria we individually chose. So, this isn't a Golf Digest ranking; it's a ranking by eight golfers who have played all over the world. Our indexes range from 4.5 to 19.3.

Teeth of the Dog, Punta Espada, and Corales are in a league of their own and all of us ranked them in the top three. Overall, the group ranked Teeth first with Punta Espada and Corales tied for second.

All the courses had perfect greens and most also had very good fairways. The top ranked courses had very good sand bunkers.

 All the green fees are very expensive.

Notes in the order we played;

Punta Espada (played two days)

·        Fun to play with many spectacular ocean holes

·        Very wide fairways

·        Huge greens

·        Perfect greens grass, but slow

·        Fairways perfect

·        Caddies were mixed, some good, others not so good

·        The wind and soft fairways made the course play very long

·        Ocean views are spectacular

·        Our two highest scoring days were on Punta Espada probably due to the high wind

·        Wonderful practice area

·        Very nice 19th hole

 

Hard Rock at Cana Bay

·        Inland course with no ocean views

·        Some holes were narrow, but most were easy driving holes

·        Large greens

·        No caddies

·        Sand bunkers were terrible

·        Greens were very smooth but slow

·        Interesting course layout with a variety of holes

 

La Cana

·        Fun and interesting course with beautiful views

·        Greens were very smooth, but slow

·        Fairways were only fair on Tortuga but very good on Hacienda

·        We played Tortuga / Hacienda and Hacienda was in much better condition

·        Caddies were OK to very good

 

Teeth of the Dog

·        Spectacular ocean views with six holes along the ocean

·        We walked and had good caddies

·        Windy, but less than Punta Espada and Corales

·        Greens were in perfect condition and ran at a good speed

·        Many greens were of the inverted bowl style which made approaches challenging

Corales

·        Wide variety of holes

·        Spectacular ocean view holes

·        The three finishing holes are into, by and around the ocean are spectacular

·        Greens were perfect but a little slow

·        Fairways were perfect

·        Caddies were good

·        19th hole is very nice

·        Practice area is very nice

[Boogeyman]

I'm most likely heading out to DR at the end of November and am looking to fit 5-6 rounds of golf to my trip. We're staying somewhere in the Bavaro region and I was thinking of playing three rounds there and 2-3 rounds a bit further away. Corales and Punta Espada are most likely a lock with Teeth of the Dog being a possibility if the trip down there doesn't pose any issues. Out of the Bavaro region courses it seems that Cocotal and Barcelo Lakes are the weakest ones leaving me with Iberostar Bavaro, Hard Rock at Cana Bay and Punta Blanca. Woud that be a safe assumption to make?

 

This will be my first trip to DR and I also don't have many golf trips under my belt yet, either. Therefore I have a few questions I was hoping more seasoned golf travelers could answer:

 

- Is there a better and/or cheaper way of booking rounds than through golfpuntacana.com?

- If I book a round through golfpuntacana.com, how are the offered free transportations? Can I schedule it for whenever I want to (I like to warm up for roughly an hour before my rounds) and have they worked fine overall?

- Is it generally better to book well in advance or could there be a possibility for savings if booking last minute?

- Are there any fees that are not included in the prices that I need to prepare for? If I've understood correctly I at least need to tip the caddie.

- The twilight rate seem a lot cheaper than regular ones. Have you found the saving worth it and what are the downsides besides running low on daylight?

- Is end of November a busy season in DR?

 

I'm very grateful if someone can answer even some of my questions. 🙏

[Simp]

I'm in Punta Cana now and I'm playing Espada tomorrow morning, w was supposed to play Teeth of the Dog Wednesday but it's closed for maintenance and Corales Thursday so far. We'll see how the conditions are. 

[Simp]

Conditions at all of the courses that I played,  Punta Espada, Corales and LA Cana were incredible. All really nice courses. 

[chipa]

I live in the DR and would love to play some of the courses mentioned, however I have two daughters in college. My home course in in Santiago and is much different than the oceanside courses, it's more of a "mountain" course.

[eboettne]

I played La Cana last time I was in DR instead of spending a little extra for Corales or Punta Espada and was a little disappointed. It's a fine course but the rental clubs were really bad(should've brought my own).  As far as getting prices cheaper, I got really good deals booking through our butler we had at our hotel. He called the courses directly and saved us a $150 or so. 

[dmay73]

Hard Rock is nice.  Great conditions and generous fairways.

[Bandy1080]

Random question -  We are flying into Punta Cana and renting a car and driving down the Casa De Campo next month.  We will be driving in the early afternoon.  Just curious on how safe it is to be driving?  Everyone seems to be pushing for us to get a driver but no one has given me a straight answer as to why.  

 

 

[nutmegchoi]

We just got back from Casa de Campo yesterday.

We flew into Santo Domingo and hired a shuttle both ways.

I don't know where you are staying in Casa de Campo but if you are staying at the resort, you'll have a golf cart to get around.

If you don't plan to leave the resort, you really don't need a rental.

Just hire a shuttle.