Golf In The Wild
By Turk Pipkin

From Golf Magazine January 2004

Costa Rica is a, fantasyland for nature lovers and golfers, too.

Recipe for a golfer's paradise: Start with volcanoes, rain forests, water falls and miles of perfect beaches. Add exotic animals, spice with adventures like surfing, fishing and white-water rafting, then top off with five fine golf courses, including Arnold Palmers stunning, new Peninsula Papagayo. Thousands of years in the making, your feast is now ready; its time for the first course.

Most trips to Costa Rica start in the Central American nation's capital, San Jose. Perched at 4,000 feet, the city boasts wonderfully cool weather year-round and is a surprisingly easy three-hour flight from Houston or Miami. Five minutes from the airport you'll find the Melia Cariari Conference Center & Golf Resort, whose course was designed by George Fazio and built in 1974 by his now-famous nephew, Tom. Cariari is a 6,590-yard alpine track with tight fairways lined by towering pines. The downhill, down-wind 149-yard 4th hole over water is testy—a little local knowledge helps, so hire a caddie.

The rapidly developing heart of Costa Rican golf is in the province of Guanacaste. Many golfers take a half-hour commuter flight from San Jose, but driving is often the most enthralling part of the trip, despite roads that can be charitably described as bumpy. (A four-wheel-drive vehicle is a must, and driving at night is a must-not. Beyond that, safety need not be a pressing concern for tourists.)

Motoring along with my wife and 8- and 12-year-old daughters a few miles from the beach town of Tamarindo, I skidded to a halt beneath an entwined canopy of huge trees full of howler monkeys. Scrambling for a better view, we watched them swing from limb to limb. As my wife raised her camera to snap a picture, a baby monkey ran down a drooping limb and reached curiously for the lens, thereby redefining our idea of a Kodak moment.

On my first journey to Costa Rica four years ago, I stayed at the Paradisus Playa Conchal Beach & Golf Resort, an all-suite, all-inclusive resort with a fine beach and Robert Trent Jones Jr.'s lush Garra de Leon Golf Course. Winding in two big loops from hilltop to seashore and back, this 7,080-yard track is as green as any course in Ireland, made all the more colorful by a veritable rainbow of birds and iguanas. The 420-yard, par-4 12th is a gem, dropping 100 feet from tee to fairway, then doglegging right and climbing to an elevated green.

This time, I opted to set up the family in Tamarindo, one of the world's great surf spots. At the serene Cala Luna Hotel & Villas, our two-bedroom villa with full kitchen and a private pool cost $237 per night, and our surfing instructor had the lot of us vertical within an hour. Best of all, Tamarindo is about 20 minutes from the Hacienda Pinilla golf course, a 7,274-yard Mike Young design. Built on a former cattle ranch, the layout calls to mind an African savannah. Surrounded by mountains and ocean, the course is dotted with huge matapalo trees. Two of the trees resemble lovers, their trunks growing together into one and reaching to the sky. Creatures that call Hacienda Pinilla home—toucans, iguanas, deer, monkeys and the occasional black panther—are less menacing than Hacienda Pinilla's chest-high rough. My favorite hole here was the 353-yard, par-4 10th, a dogleg left to a steeply banked, three-tiered green in the shape of a crescent moon. The course was far from crowded the day I was there, so, with a flock of parrots chattering noisily, seemingly egging me on, I fired up a Cuban Monte Cristo cigar (a legal purchase in Costa Rica and available in the pro shop) and played till dark.

Life should always be this good.

And it will get even better in Costa Rica in February with the opening of the Four Seasons Golf Club Costa Rica at Peninsula Papagayo and Palmer's $25 million Peninsula Papagayo Golf Club. This gorgeous, oceanside track will play approximately 6,800 yards, with views of the Pacific Ocean from 14 holes. Elevation changes will include a 20-story drop from the tee on the 446-yard, par-4 6th hole. The ensuing approach to a cliffside green perched at ocean's edge is equally dramatic. The sparkling hotel and breathtaking setting above and between two pristine beaches may well make Papagayo one of the upscale hotel chain's finest resorts.

Continuing our driving adventure, we set our course to my favorite Costa Rican destination, the Hotel Punta Islita, an intimate resort with a dynamite restaurant and an infinity-edge swimming pool, all on a steep hillside overlooking a wide, curved beach. Getting there is half the fun. It's a five-hour trek from San Jose, including a half-hour ferry ride across the Tempisque River and a heart-pounding hour of four-wheeling over a mountaintop. There is a shorter route across a knee-deep river about a lob wedge wide. Either way, it's cheap thrills in my book.

Once at Punta Islita, we spent our days lounging in hammocks, as the grown-ups sipped pina coladas and everyone noshed on grilled shrimp. We explored tide pools and boogie-boarded for hours on end. As for the golf, well, the hotel's driving range is the only golf at Punta Islita. I fully intended to hit buckets of balls but found myself sidetracked—deeply ensconced in, and thoroughly enchanted by, la pura vida.