Opened in 1991, the Plantation showcases the design ingenuity of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, who must have puzzled over dozens of different routings before deciding on one that ladled 18 holes onto four steeply pitched lava fingers creased by deep verdant ravines.

Players get a taste of what’s to come at the very first hole, a downwind par 4 that introduces the character, scale and drama of the layout. From the Resort tees (we played a Combo of the Resort and Regular markers, totaling 6,330 yards, par 73), this immensely proportioned hole tumbles downhill, the fairway bunkers on the left side of the hole replicating the waves splashing against the peninsula in the far distance. The target is a huge, tilted green sited on the far side of a chasm. There is plenty of bail-out room to the left, but the speed and contour of the green is, despite the friendly warnings  from our hosts, truly alarming.

I played here 21 years ago shortly after the course opened with former director of golf Gary Planos and Mark Rolfing, the well-known golf telecaster. I frankly had forgotten that the Plantation Course is the antithesis of target golf. Davis Love III, a former champion here and an ardent fan of the course, said, “You can throw away the yardage book on the Plantation. It’s all about feel and playing the slope and the trade winds.”

Is it ever. It’s also about hitting blind tee shots over hilltop markers (as at the par-4 fourth and 10th holes), or aiming 50 feet to the right or left of a pin to gain access to it, and putting (not chipping) the ball from off the greens for best results, as is done on a firm Scottish links. Imagination and creativity are required to score.

However, Coore and Crenshaw weren’t interested in building a course that only the pros could play. The average player armed with a wind-cheater can find his way around the Plantation from the Resort tees without undo difficulty. Keeping one’s ego in check is mandatory, of course. Big gambles rarely pay off on the Plantation, which by turns reveals itself a vast playground tilted to the Pacific, its array of unique, one-of-a-kind holes lying gently on the sloping terrain. You hear a lot about “grand-scale” courses, places like Bethpage Black and Oakmont, but the Plantation could slip each and every one into its back pocket with room to spare.

The biggest course in the world? The Plantation fits the bill.

To what the designers called an “untraditional” site, traditional design concepts were applied, including those pioneered by C.B. Macdonald at the National Golf Links of America in Southampton on Long Island, New York, the nation’s first great layout. That may be so, but the Plantation and the National are as different as Mars and Venus.

“It’s about golf, but it’s also about art, texture, lines, composition and angles,” Coore said after the course opened. “A golf hole has to look comfortable in its surroundings, as if it belonged there for generations.” The Plantation makes the grade. Tall native grasses frame the fairways, with a few stands of Norfolk pines scattered around the perimeter. No water comes into play. Golfers can drink up the views by gazing at the wave-capped Pailolo Channel, the island of Molokai rising from its depths like a King Kong playground.

Crenshaw, renowned for his putting prowess, co-authored enormous greens that are every bit as contoured and racy as those at Augusta National. As on all classic courses, these putting surfaces were left open in front. Bump-and-run approach shots are essential. An aerial attack is doomed here.

What I noticed during the round is that the Plantation is both a strategic and aesthetic triumph. For example, at the 11th, the back nine’s lone par 3, the green mirrors the sea cliffs a mile down the slope, with ant-sized surfers bobbing in the swells of Honolua Bay far to the north. The shot itself must cut through a crosswind and use the slope of the green to funnel the ball to the pin. It’s a familiar theme on a course that has as many natural defenses as any I’ve played.

For me, the back-to-back par 4’s at Nos. 13 and 14 perfectly encapsulate the Plantation’s personality. The 13^th, which we played at 333 yards (it’s 407 yards from the tips), plays uphill and into the wind, with a big target bunker up the right side. The green, nearly 40 yards deep, is your basic herd of buried elephants. Phil Mickelson has not returned to the Hyandai Tournament of Champions since he putted off this surface into a greenside bunker.

The 14^th, a petite 275 yards from the Combo tees, is very deceptive. The fairway swings uphill and to the right around a phalanx of bunkers to a tiny plateau green, the smallest on the course. On the heels of the previous hole, this green in laughably tiny and very slippery. Ben Hongo, director of instruction at Kapalua Golf Academy and a serene witness to our many blunders, termed it the fastest green on the course.

A typical gravity-defying moment on the Plantation

Like every great venue, the Plantation finishes with a flourish. With a following wind, the 17^th, a mighty par 4, drops over 100 feet to a wide, sloping fairway, with the approach played over the corner of a bottomless gorge.

The famed par 5 18^th, 663 yards at full stretch, is familiar to viewers of the PGA Tour’s season-opening event. It is also the hole around which the rest of the course was formulated, according to the designers. With the assisting winds and favorable slope, the Plantation’s home hole can be reached with two powerful blows, and I’m proud to report that fellow warrior and noted muscleman Tom Bedell was able to accomplish this feat. Like many before him, he was happy to get down in three from 50 feet for par.

With an open hole behind us, I stood on the 18^th green for a moment to digest the round and contemplate the vastness all around me. Damn the score—armed with local knowledge, I know I could do better next time on a course that occupies its own special place in the Splendor and Challenge departments.

The Golf Road Warriors were privileged to enjoy some exceptional dining experiences during our week-long sojourn through Maui. My favorite among them was dinner at The Terrace, The Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua’s new “concept” restaurant.

A bright, spare, multi-level room with a plantation-inspired design, The Terrace’s green, gold, and textured fabrics, coupled with its floor-to-ceiling windows, serve to connect diners with the landscape. The room is low-key and understated by Ritz-Carlton standards, but the resort wanted a casual, family-friendly room that nevertheless aspired to top culinary standards.

Built around chef-crafted regional cuisine, the restaurant strikes a balance between sophistication and rusticity. The menus, created by Executive Chef John Zaner, are inspired by seasonal, organic, and sustainable ingredients drawn from local farms and coastlines. Each dish is brilliantly flavored, mainly because Zaner has the imagination and prowess to mix and match ingredients to enhance the flavor profile of each dish. His artistry is exceptional.

The Terrace: A room with a view + superb regional cuisine

While we skipped the crafted flatbreads, each one of the appetizers was ordered for our table, and they were excellent, notably the Local Snapper Ceviche (with coconut, calamansi, Hawaiian chiles, crispy moloka’i chips); and Ahi Poke (with kukui nut inamona jus, avocado, tobiko caviar, wonton chips).  I ordered the Surfing Goat Dairy Cheese Salad (with fig-maui onion panini, lavender, lehua honey vinaigrette), followed by the Lamb Burger, which had a dollop of surfing goat dairy cheese (do goats surf?) and mint-pineapple marmalade to go with the lean, juicy meat.

I might add that the art of mixology is alive and well at The Terrace. I ordered a Mai Tai, the rum-based Hawaiian specialty drink that I use as a benchmark cocktail throughout the islands (The Terrace scores high for its version), though had I allowed my eyes to roam the menu, I might have decided on a 1944 Pineapple Cream (10 cane rum, myer’s dark rum, dry curacao, orgeat syrup, press pressed pineapple, lime juice, house-made falernum pineapple foam, infused pineapple ice cubes). For a resort that occupies a former pineapple plantation, that might have been a logical choice. Then again, the Deconstructed Mojito, made with old lahaina rum and ginger liqueur, among other ingredients, also sounded very appealing.

Good food, good drinks, and dazzling views of the deep blue Pacific is a tough combo to beat. Especially in a comfortable, beautifully lit room with nary a sport jacket in sight. In Manhattan, a sleek suit, pressed shirt, and cuff links are de rigeur. But in Maui? An untucked flowered shirt, casual slacks, no socks, and a pair of loafers will do just fine at The Terrace, a fine-dining room disguised as a casual eatery that in my opinion perfectly matches a vacationing guest’s expectations.

Located a few miles north of Lahaina, the former capital of Hawaii and 19^th-century whaling port now populated by seaside grog shops and T-shirt emporiums, Kaanapali is a sprawling complex set between sugarcane fields and the sea. According to legend, the Royal Chiefs of Maui, each a single-digit handicapper, used these sacred lands as a personal vacation retreat back in the day.

Developed in 1960, a time when most of Maui was devoted to agriculture, Kaanapali was the state’s first master-planned vacation community. The region today attracts nearly one million visitors per year to its 11 hotels, its Whalers Village shopping complex, and its three-mile stretch of white sand beach. Kaanapali is Hawaii’s second-largest visitor destination, after Waikiki in Honolulu.

Kaanapali Golf Resort hangs its hat on Royal Kaanapali, an excellent course built over 50 years ago by Robert Trent Jones, Sr.. A second course, Kaanapali Kai, is a short, sporty layout patronized by vacationers seeking “holiday golf.” Since this was to be our final round on Maui, a serious test of golf was the only option for the spirited but somnolent Golf Road Warriors. Even from the white tees at 6,267 yards (par 71), Royal Kaanapali proved to be a very thorough examination of our skills, what was left of them. If golf is a battle of wits between player and architect, Jones beat the Warriors, 2 up.

Much is made of Trent Jones’s famed credo, “Hard par, easy bogey.” Royal Kaanapali, a former World Cup and Champions Skins Game venue, exemplifies perfectly the old master’s philosophy.  Landing areas are generous, but huge bunkers, deepened during a recent makeover, are there to gobble offline drives. More than half the greens are of the pedestal variety, and well defended by sand. There is no way to dribble an approach onto them–a first-class shot must be played to find and hold these large, undulating surfaces. There are no tricks at Royal Kaanapali. Everything is in plain view.

Rerouted since its debut in 1962, Royal Kaanapali opens tamely on flattish land in a bustling corner of the resort complex. Climbing to higher ground, the layout eventually crosses a busy highway and railroad tracks on which a restored sugarcane train runs. Holes seven through 15 crisscross sloping mountain foothills framed in places by Cook pines and Chinese banyan trees. The views of the offshore islands of Molokai and Lanai from these upcountry holes are fantastic, as is the sense of quietude.

Royal Kaanapali is an open, breezy test for the best

Among the layout’s feature holes is the first, a solid par 5 at sea level that’s flanked from tee to green on the right by a canal-like water hazard. Game on. The fifth, a long par 4, is a majestic hole that swings to the left around a massive fairway bunker and parallels a walkway favored by beachgoers. The beach itself, a beautiful strand, sits directly opposite the large, sloping green.

The point-counterpoint climax at Royal Kaanapali is classic Jones. No. 17 is a petite par 3 that calls for an unerring shot over a pond to a generous target guarded by bunkers to the right and behind the green. The par-4 eighteenth, 440 yards at full stretch, was singled out by Arnold Palmer as one of the most challenging finishing holes he had ever played. Water runs in front of the tee and along the right side of the fairway. Water also cuts in front of the right corner of the green. There is bail-out room to the left, but as is true throughout the course, the safe, conservative play generally yields a bogey, not a par. No risk, no reward.

Even our host, head pro Sutee Nitakorn, a brilliant young player with a storehouse of local knowledge (he’s a native Cincinnatian of Thai descent), failed to match par here.

Scores were tallied in Roy’s, the superb Hawaiian fusion cuisine restaurant on the upstairs floor of the clubhouse overlooking the practice putting green. Appetizers, from pot-stickers to spring rolls, are served in a long canoe-like dish.

There are better-known and more glamorous places for a game in Maui, but Royal Kaanapali, one of only two Robert Trent Jones, Sr. courses in Hawaii (the other is Mauna Kea), is a gingerbread-free test with genuine championship pedigree. As we found out, it was designed for well-rested purists, not road-weary Warriors.

When I last visited Maui 21 years ago, the all-suite Kea Lani Hotel was under construction. Kea Lani, I was told, translated as “Heavenly White” in Hawaiian. True to form, white was the dominant color throughout the oceanfront property, which then as now has spectacular views of the West Maui Mountains and the offshore islands of Lanai and Kahoolawe.

In marked contrast to other Hawaiian hotels, Kea Lani had Mediterranean-style touches, with distinctive bleached-white domes and minarets. Jose Luis Esquerra, best known for his work at Las Hadas resort in Manzanilla, Mexico, was the architect. The look was eclectic, but I wasn’t quite sure what a hotel like this was doing in Hawaii.

The curved walls, arched entryways and wrap-around balconies remain, but nearly everything else has been transformed at Kea Lani since Fairmont re-flagged Maui’s only all-suite resort hotel in 2001. Part of the initial upgrade at The Fairmont Kea Lani, the brand’s first hotel in the Pacific, was to redo the all-white guest rooms to include more Hawaiian colors, a welcome change. The hotel now offers a full-service spa and fitness center, three swimming pools, a 140-foot water slide for kids of all ages, and a year-round children’s program.

Curved arches remain from The Fairmont Kea Lani's original design

Under the guiding hand of general manager Charles Head, an affable Englishman whose previous post was at Fairmont’s property in St. Andrews, Scotland, more than $28 million has spent over the past three years to enliven and refresh the resort. And because more and more travelers are seeking an experience that provides a deeper connection to the place they are visiting, the hotel has responded by hiring a full-time “Cultural Coach,” Jonelle Kamai, who curates authentic Hawaiian experiences ranging from educational classes and musical celebrations to outrigger canoe paddling and Hawaiian language classes. Guests can volunteer to restore ancient fish ponds or plant native species, or explore Maui’s leading historic sites, such as Lahaina, Haleakala Crater and Iao Valley. The Fairmont has also forged a partnership with University of Hawaii Maui College in order to harness the talent of the island’s top culinary and music students.

Speaking of culinary: The debut last April of Ko following a $5 million renovation has raised the profile of the hotel significantly. Under the guidance of chef Tylun Pang, the restaurant reaches back to the roots of Hawaiian cuisine, when Filipino, Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese immigrants came to work alongside Hawaiians, Tahitians and Fijians. The result: an incredibly varied style of multi-cultural cuisine that Pang has revived and perfected.

Pang, who grew up exploring the Chinatown markets of Honolulu, learned the ins and outs of fish, game and produce from every corner of the Asia-Pacific region. After countless hours of experimenting with flavor profiles and refining his techniques, he took a look around his kitchen and realized that his staff was descended from the plantation workers who arrived in Hawaii generations ago. Taking inspiration from them, and gleaning family recipes that had been handed down through the years, Pang was given the freedom to replace the hotel’s Italian restaurant with a beautiful room that celebrates the islands’ plantation past. As we discovered, Pang has evolved a menu at Ko (Hawaiian for sugarcane) that is a complete mash-up of Asian cuisine styles. In other words, classically Hawaiian, culturally relevant–and completely delicious.

The Golf Road Warriors Maui extravaganza is officially underway, a.k.a. Hackers in Paradise!

On a warm, sultry day, the Kona winds chasing the clouds across the sky, we played our first round on the Gold Course at Wailea Golf Club. Former home of the Seniors Skins Game, among other competitions, the Gold Course is a solid, championship-caliber test, its holes terraced at different levels into volcanic foothills.

Shielded from inclement weather by the looming mass of 10,023-foot Mt. Haleakala, Wailea receives less than 10 inches of rain per year. You see and feel the aridity on the Gold Course: ancient lava rock walls, non-irrigated native grasses, thick groves of kiawe and wiliwili trees, nearly 100 strategically-placed bunkers. Of course the deep blue Pacific, in view from nearly every tee and green, provides plenty of visual refreshment.

We were fortunate to have head pro Rusty Hathaway in our group. Rusty, an Alaskan native who’s been on the job at Wailea for over 35 years, was here when the Gold and Emerald courses were built in the mid-1990s. He characterized the Gold as a masculine course, an austere, rugged layout with no frills or window dressing. (The Emerald, by contrast, he described as feminine in nature, with more flowers and fewer bunkers).

A classic, low-key design with excellent pace and variety, the Gold drops 200 feet from top to bottom and has plenty of built-in drama. The opening tee shot is very inviting. This superb par 4 drops sharply to a sloping fairway that swings to the left around a nest of bunkers in the corner of the dogleg. I laid back with a 3-wood, which left me a testing shot from a downhill lie to a large, sloping green. I hit a good shot, grabbed my putter and decided to walk to the green. To the right side of the fairway near the putting surface is an impressive lava rock formation that once served as a lookout for fishermen. Hand-built centuries ago, it’s an enduring landmark that, like the sinuous papohaku (lava rock walls) throughout the course, were expertly woven by Jones into his design.

The fifth hole at Wailea Gold

Maybe because he understands that golfers like to have fun, Jones built a pleasant short par 4 at No. 6 that measures an inviting 241 yards from the white tees. Driveable? Yes, but large bunkers are strewn across the line of play. As on No. 1, I laid back for safety and was rewarded with a straightforward 90-yard shot to a green sloped from back to front.

I respectfully salute the brawny par-5 seventh, which the locals call Huaka’i Loihi, or Long Journey. Jones likes double-dogleg par 5’s, and No. 7 is a doozy. This uphill hole, by far the longest on the course at 590 yards from the tips, will test anyone’s muscles and high-tech gear, but it’s a strategic gem, not just a long slog.

The par-3 eighth hole is a glossy Maui postcard. From an elevated tee, players are treated  to a beautiful tableau of a lava rock wall in the foreground, the target a sizable green staked out by swaying palm trees and a trio of large deep bunkers. The Pacific floods the horizon beyond the putting surface, with the crescent rim of Molokini, a submerged volcano, peaking above the waves. Into the wind, which is how we played it, the eighth calls for an unerring tee shot.

The Gold’s slightly longer back nine was every bit the equal of the front. The 11^th, only 135 yards from the whites, looks pretty simple, but I managed to find one of the five bunkers that protects the putting surface. The two par 5’s on the back nine, Nos. 13 and 15, both measured under 500 yards from the white markers and presented scoring opportunities. And the par-4 18^th, which bends to the left and drops sharply to a green tucked in a hollow, is a fun driving hole that favors a draw. The green, set below the sleek, flower-decked clubhouse, is backdropped by the sea. It’s among the prettiest finishing holes I’ve played in Hawaii.

There’s something else that’s very appealing about the golf experience at Wailea. The Gold and Emerald courses were both purpose-built layouts. There are no roads or houses or other reminders of civilization to detract from the golf experience.

I also like the fact that the Gold, while it has championship credentials, functions as a delightful resort course from the forward tees. Smart shots are rewarded, but in the event of a mishap, the penalties aren’t too severe. The landing areas are generous, the rough is kept short, out-of-bounds is rare and water comes into play on only two holes. The Gold rewards strategy and finesse, but it won’t turn rusty snowbirds upside down and shake the daylights out of them.

They say emeralds are more precious than gold, but Wailea’s Gold Course will be a tough act to follow.

Like any jaded New Yorker with a few stamps in his passport, I traveled to Maui under the impression that the Valley Isle’s reputation as a barefoot paradise had long since faded.. I figured beautiful Maui had morphed into overbuilt MOW-ee. At the time, this storied atoll in the North Pacific had more millionaires per capita than Palm Springs, as many art galleries in Lahaina as humpback whales in its offshore waters, and more ritzy hotels along its Kaanapali strip than anyplace east of Waikiki Beach.

The hubris of youth was expunged the moment I stepped foot on Maui. What I didn’t expect was a dazzling amalgam of fuzzy green mountains, verdant gorges, desert savannahs, splendid beaches and ocean views from everywhere. The biggest surprise were the happy-to-be-alive-and-living-in-Maui natives, who far outnumbered tourist-weary akamai (in the know) residents. Mauians, it turns out, genuinely like visitors, if for no other reason than to let them know who’s number one in the state. But never a trace of braggadocio will you hear in the expression, “Maui no ka oi”—Maui is the best. It is said matter-of-factly, and always with a smile.

Totally won over, I couldn’t wait to find out everything I could about an island that had a dormant volcano big enough to swallow Manhattan. Actually, Maui is two islands in one, with a dozen microclimates between them. The island began as a pair of bubbling volcanoes that fused eons ago and are now joined by a fertile isthmus. I headed west to Kapalua, I wandered east to Wailea, making frequent stops along the way. I made copious notes, took lots of pictures and talked to everyone I could.

What I learned on my inaugural trip to Maui is that the two most important things to the Hawaiian people are aina (land) and ohana (family). Aina is source, identity, continuity, a gift to be respected and enjoyed. What I discovered is that I needed to look–really look–at my surroundings while I was playing golf. Maui’s natural beauty doesn’t just put the score in perspective. It is the perspective.

As a one-man department, I decided to send myself to the Aloha State every other year. I missed Maui in 1990, but I made a second visit to the island in 1992. I remember having a cheeseburger in paradise at a café in Lahaina and writing postcards (remember those?) to friends and family. Right then and there, I felt like leaving my return ticket on the bar counter, signing up for a windsurfing class and finding a place in the hills where I could live off the land.

Incredibly, it’s been over 20 years since I’ve seen my island princess. I doubt she’s aged, and if she has, she has maybe a couple of smile lines and is more beautiful for them.

“From the roaring oceans to the majestic lakes, the rushing streams and quiet ponds and burns, water adds a test to golf that entrances.”                                                                                   

–Robert Trent Jones, Golf’s Magnificent Challenge

Now that the Neptune of golf course architects has spoken, I’d like to pick up on my previous theme. It wasn’t so very long ago that golf in the Caribbean was an afterthought. Sun-baked pastures grazed by goats and shaggy-haired nine-holers laid out by recreation-minded hotel managers were the coin of the realm in the islands years ago. The relaxing pace and serene beauty of the islands more than compensated for these lackluster links, especially to casual players for whom golf was just another vacation activity. Make a hip turn on a 30-foot putt to bounce it across a broom-bristle green? No problem!

In point of fact, the Caribbean simply didn’t exist for serious golfers until quite recently.

Today, dozens of worthy golf courses occupy coral rock and volcanic isles that stretch in a 1,500-mile arc from the southern tip of Florida to the northern coast of South America. I give full credit to visionary developer Laurance Rockefeller and peripatetic architect Robert Trent Jones, who teamed to build first-rate resorts in Puerto Rico, St. Croix and the Bahamas between 1956 – 1967. It was they who legitimatized the Caribbean as a golf destination.

But it wasn’t until Pete Dye, a former insurance salesman from Indiana, arrived to build his seaside masterpiece at Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic nearly 45 years ago that golf travelers stood up and took notice of the islands. Curiously, Casa became a brand unto itself. No one associated it with the Dominican Republic, much less the island of Hispaniola, which the D.R. shares with Haiti.

Fine shoes and good cigars are handmade, but few golf courses built in the post-War era share that distinction. Because the importation of earthmoving equipment was prohibitively expensive, Teeth of the Dog was built with manpower, not machinery. Dye’s charm and twangy Spanish, coupled with his extraordinary will and imagination, inspired the Dominican work force to build a subtle, refined course from very balky materials.

Teeth of the Dog was well-received by early visitors, but it achieved acclaim in 1974, when Dye’s hand-crafted links hosted the World Amateur Team Championship. On the U.S. team were future PGA Tour stars Curtis Strange, Jerry Pate, Gary Koch and George Burns. While the initial design measured under 7,000 yards, only three sub-par scores were recorded among the 590 rounds played in the competition. The blustery seaside finish blew away many of the amateurs, who nicknamed the home stretch “Reload Alley.”

I do not feel any of the Golf Road Warriors will echo what Gary Koch said about Teeth after shooting 76 in the World Amateur event. “This course will come out of nowhere and…throw you down and stomp on your head,” he whimpered.

Here’s why. Even if you don’t much care for Dye’s take-no-prisoners gulags at Whistling Straits or Kiawah’s Ocean Course or PGA West (Stadium), Teeth of the Dog from the blanco tees at 6,015 yards is a walker-friendly gem that gets my vote as the most enjoyable resort course in the world.

When high-tech equipment outmoded the original hole lengths for top players, Dye, who can’t sit still when he’s on property, put the Dog on the rack and stretched it to 7,471 yards in 2005. No warrior has any business going back there except to take a picture. Ditto the dorado markers at 7,077 yards. On a typically breezy day, even the blue tees at 6,485 yards are a stretch for the GRW contingent. This is especially true on the all-or-nothing par 3’s. If strategy is the soul of the game, Teeth, when the wind stirs, is the James Brown of golf courses.

I expect Ms. Draycott, by the way, to perform admirably from Teeth of the Dog’s red tees at 4,906 yards. Each was hand-placed by Alice Dye, Pete’s wife, an accomplished amateur who has collaborated with Pete on all his major designs.

Here’s what: Just as Mark Twain never saw the need to rewrite Huckleberry Finn, Dye, while compelled to unmuzzle the Dog and sharpen its teeth from the tips to retain its challenge for top players, hasn’t significantly tinkered with the design of the holes. I admire his restraint.

Herbert Warren Wind once noted that the ideal practitioner of golf course architecture needed to have “the soul of an artist, the brain of an engineer and the heart of a golfer.” One round on any of Casa de Campo’s courses, but especially Teeth of the Dog, is proof enough that no living designer fits that description better than Pete Dye, the indefatigable 87-year-old who’s “still digging,” as he likes to say, and whose design legacy at Casa spans five decades.

Two final notes. I envy each warrior’s ability to start the day at Lago Grill, an open-air, thatched-roof restaurant overlooking the 18^th hole on Teeth of the Dog. Here players can help themselves to a splendid buffet of fresh tropical fruits, excellent fruit smoothies, made-to-order omelets and traditional Dominican breakfast fare.

I also love the unassuming clubhouse set directly behind the ninth green on Teeth of the Dog. Built in the early 1970s, this wood, stone and plaster edifice, shaded in front by a huge tamarind tree, has a cozy little golf shop, wooden-floored locker rooms cooled by ceiling fans, and a modest, open-air 19^th hole deck with painted tables, wicker chairs and a fine view of the sea. Presidente, the D.R.’s beer of choice, is available on draft. So are fine Dominican cigars and smooth Dominican rum.

Pete Dye

Many years ago, a friend of mine returned from an extended golf tour of the Caribbean looking very tanned and relaxed. He presented me with a good bottle of rum and laughed, now that he could sit comfortably, about the cherry-red bottoms he and his girlfriend had acquired while sun-bathing in the nude. But given his devotion to golf, which is total, he talked surprisingly little about the game.

“By the way, how did you find the golf down there?” I finally asked as he whirred up a batch of pina coladas.

“Oh, it was O.K. I guess,” he replied. “Not bad for the tropics.”

Not bad for the tropics! An entire archipelago damned with faint praise. My mind’s eye conjured browned-out fairways and runway-style holes that did little to inspire good play. The compensating factors—balmy weather, white sandy beaches, the limpid blue sea—were certainly good, but I resolved on the spot to pack my snorkel and trunks, but not my clubs, on my next visit to the islands.

Thankfully, I changed my mind a few years later. Successive trips to Jamaica and Puerto Rico convinced me that good and sometimes great golf could be found in the Caribbean.

However, the big payoff came in 1986, when I was invited on a deluxe golf cruise of the islands aboard the Norwegian-registered Sea Goddess, a floating chateau offering creature comforts far beyond the imaginings of a starving young freelancer. From the shelter of Francis Bay in St. John, we sailed 270 nautical miles through the night to reach La Romana in the Dominican Republic, a sultry river port chockablock with banana boats and black-hulled Panamanian sugar freighters. We had made the long overnight journey for the sole purpose of playing golf at Casa de Campo (“House in the Country”), a 7,000-acre resort on the island’s southeast coast that even then was synonymous with golf in the Caribbean.

Built in the late 1960’s by Gulf + Western, the American conglomerate which owned the sugar mill in La Romana, Casa de Campo promoted itself as the “Caribbean’s Most Complete Resort.” A case could be made. There was an equestrian center and polo fields. A palm-shaded beach beside an open-air restaurant. Tennis courts. Water sports. River and deep-sea fishing. A shooting center with trap, skeet and sporting clays. An improbable replica of a 16th-century Mediterranean village clinging to a cliff high above a coiled river with a Grecian-style amphitheater at its center. And guest rooms designed by native son Oscar de la Renta, who had attracted a high-society crowd to the sprawling property.

Even the more jaded passengers on the cruise, and there were several, were impressed by the resort.

Having traveled this far, the players on board were keen to test their skills on the course with the funny name. Dientes del Perro, it was called—Teeth of the Dog.

Pete Dye, who turned 87 last year and is acknowledged as the game’s greatest living designer, had yet to make his reputation when he ventured to the Dominican Republic in the late 1960’s. At that time, the nation was an unsteady banana republic still reeling from General Trujillo’s dictatorial rule. Little did Dye know that his handiwork at Casa de Campo would put the fledgling resort on the map and provide him with plenty of work for the next 40-plus years.

The petite par-3 fifth hole on Teeth of the Dog is a nail-biter.

Apart from its aesthetic and strategic appeal, the story behind the building of Dye’s iconic course, inarguably the finest in the tropics, deepens any golfer’s appreciation of it.

While Dye had already built Crooked Stick, The Golf Club and Harbour Town by the time he arrived in the Dominican Republic, no project before or since has sparked his imagination or tested his mettle like Casa de Campo. Given the chance of a lifetime to create a seaside course on terrain rarely allocated for golf course development, Dye, then as now a P.T. Barnum in khakis, made the most of his opportunity.

After a helicopter tour of the wave-battered coast produced nothing, the ever-resourceful Dye attached a ski tow rope marked in 100-yard increments to the stern of an old motorboat and slowly trolled the coast to figure out how many holes he could fit in along the shore. Most builders would have walked away from a three-mile stretch of encrusted coral rock denuded of topsoil. Not Pete.

Working alongside a small army of Dominicans who hand-cleared the densely vegetated site with machetes, Dye formulated his ideas for golf holes without a formal plan. With little if any growing medium available, soil was created from sand, red dirt and cachaza, a sugarcane byproduct, and hauled to the site in a long procession of oxen-drawn carts. The soil was spread and raked before the fairways were hand-sprigged. Dye buttressed the seaside tees and greens with irregular chunks of coral sledge-hammered from shore. Jagged and yellow, these rocks resembled dientes del perro—teeth of the dog.

In his book, Bury Me in a Pot Bunker, Dye said he “learned firsthand that land responds more positively to the raw-boned hands of the laborer than to the steel-faced jolt of heavy machinery. Whatever delicate features Teeth of the Dog possesses are a direct result of the hard work of those Dominicans who took such pride in their work.”

Dye’s well-worn quote about his labor-of-love links–”I built 11 holes, God built seven”– happens to be true. Other courses have holes that run along the sea, but Teeth of the Dog’s signature holes are in the sea, their tees and greens cantilevered into the ocean. Three of these holes are spine-tingling par threes with more surf than turf in play, but the inland holes, routed through sugar cane fields and stands of teak and coconut trees, are the strategic glue that holds the Dog together. Even an initial round on this walker-friendly links, a friendly Dominican caddie at one’s side, reveals Dye’s genius: doglegs perfectly angled, hazards ideally placed, a balanced routing with excellent pace and variety that brings players to the sea on both nines.

Needless to say, my long-ago round on Teeth of the Dog was the highlight of the cruise, notwithstanding the round-the-clock Champagne. I’ve been privileged to return many times since to Casa de Campo to savor a course that Pete, if you twist his arm, will admit is his all-time favorite among the many he’s built. Much like Donald Ross at Pinehurst No. 2, Dye, who maintains a residence at the resort, has spent the better part of his adult life tweaking and grooming Teeth of the Dog. Except for a few back tee placements and the newly resurfaced paspalum greens, it’s still the same course he built alongside 300 loyal Dominicans over 40 years ago.

In the wake of his failed $5 million offer to Barack Obama to release his college transcripts prior to the presidential election, Donald Trump is now locking horns with Glenfiddich, the Scottish whisky distiller.

Why, you may ask? Because Glenfiddich sponsored an award ceremony that honored a Scottish farmer who refused to sell his land to Trump, land that Trump had earmarked for a golf course. (Trump built his links anyway, but it skirts the farmer’s land).

In retaliation, Glenfiddich as well as every brand of whisky sold by parent company William Grant & Sons has been banned from being served at Trump Hotel Collection properties.

“Glenfiddich should be ashamed of themselves for granting this award to (Michael) Forbes, just for the sake of publicity,” The Donald told The Guardian, a British newspaper.

Forbes’ opposition to the development of Trump International Golf Links prompted his winning of the ‘Top Scot’ award at the recent Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland ceremony.

Methinks that despite his millions, his single-digit handicap and that full head of golden rabbit fur, Donald Trump is not a happy camper. Personally, I believe he and Herman Cain would have made a helluva GOP ticket, but then, a landslide loss may have put him in an even deeper funk than he’s now in.

Men may be able to live on golf alone—OK, golf, a burger and a few beers—but women? Not so much.

The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island is situated in the far northeast corner of Florida just below the Georgia state line about an hour’s drive from Jacksonville. While it does not trumpet its charms like Hilton Head, Sea Island and others, Amelia is one of the loveliest of the barrier islands strung along the Atlantic seaboard.

Fellas, listen up: A beautiful natural setting counts for a lot on a his-and-hers holiday. Fronted by a glorious stretch of ocean beach, Amelia’s natural attributes–tidal lagoons, verdant marshes, shorebirds patrolling the airspace—are more evocative of the Carolina Low Country than the bland,  sun-baked flatlands usually associated with Florida.

OK, the setting is nice. What about the creature comforts? In the wake of a six-year, $65-million renovation completed last Marsh, the hotel positively sparkles. This is a large 444-room property that attracts business and incentive groups, but the function space and name-tagged delegates are segregated from the resort’s leisure guests.

The hotel’s design motif is what you’d expect to find in a more intimate getaway. For example, the colors and textures of the guest rooms were inspired by tide lines that mark the dune-lined beach. The dark mahogany wood floor at entry resembles the wet sand and brown reeds pushed to shore at high tide. The carpet design, pressed to the edge of floor-to-ceiling balcony doors overlooking the sea, evokes an image of windswept sand. The effect is subtle. And not lost on women who notice the fine touches.

The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island

Next is the spa. Most guys, even with daylight fading, will do anything to squeeze in an extra nine. Women are more balanced. They’ll humor us with their company for fourhours on the course. They’ll hold the pin and concede outside-the-leather putts and compliment shots that we know deep down are not that good. No matter. They’re with us. But when the round is done, so are they. Which brings us to the indispensable vacation amenity of the modern age: the spa.

The Ritz-Carlton Spa, Amelia Island, ranked by Conde Nast Traveler among the “Top 100 Resort Spas” on the U.S. mainland, occupies its own wing of the hotel and features 27,500 square feet of indoor space plus a relaxing outdoor lounge area with a cascade whirlpool.

I went for the extra nine holes, but I wish I had a do-over. Among the spa’s signature treatments is a Couples Wrap, a 2.5-hour experience that includes a honey vanilla milk bath, a chocolate-pomegranate wrap, a warm scalp oil massage and a body massage. Silly me. The resort wants couples to have each other for dessert, not grind over three-footers.

In addition to an expert staff, there’s something else women like to experience at feel-good emporiums: great products. The resort’s spa carries Eminence, an all-organic skin care line imported from Hungary. Made without harsh chemicals such as parabens, mineral oils or sulphites, Eminence products are organic, concentrated and very aromatic. I was fascinated to learn that stonecrop, a mossy green sedum with pungent fleshy leaves, is seven times more potent than aloe vera. Our thirsty skin devoured it.

Next up for women is food. Actually, well-prepared meals. Make that eclectic, innovative cuisine with a nice selection of wines. Here the resort truly shines.

With four restaurants and two bar/lounges, the hotel covers all its bases. Salt, the signature restaurant, uses 35 gourmet salts–from smoked to citrus-infused—to produce brilliantly flavored dishes served in a lovely, pastel-hued room overlooking the sea. I ordered the “Steak & Eggs,” which was served with asparagus on a red-hot, 250-million-year-old Himalayan salt block. Totally unique and extremely tasty.

Café 4750, which offers casual indoor/outdoor dining all day, has a farm-to-table coastal menu featuring local seafood (Atlantic trigger fish, Mayport shrimp, flounder and scallops) as well as seasonal vegetables and fruits sourced from local farms. And perhaps to prove that it knows what guys want, the hotel’s Eight Burger Bar & Sports Lounge has sliders, local beers, pool tables and wide-screen TV’s.

We’ll get to the golf in a moment, but the resort goes out of its way to make sure couples are happy. On cool nights, a romantic fire for two can be arranged. Nestled against the dunes in an Adirondack chair, with warm blankets to cuddle under and s’mores, hot chocolate, a stargazer’s map and a telescope at the ready, a couple can shed the incessant chatter of modern life and reconnect to the sound of waves breaking on the beach.

Now for the golf. Resort guests have access to the otherwise-private Golf Club of Amelia Island, a parkland-style layout that appeals to players at all ability levels. The front nine is woven through moss-draped oaks and a smattering of slash pines and cabbage palms, with several lakes in play. The back nine is breezier and more open, its broad fairways and large, undulating greens guarded by salt marsh and well-placed bunkers. At 6,696 yards from the back tees (par 72), this 25-year-old track, a former host of the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf, will not overwhelm you with its length. I’d characterize it as a fun, strategic course. I’d also call it a perfect venue for most women, who can be challenged but not overwhelmed from the red tees at 5,039 yards.

Ponds are common at the Golf Club of Amelia Island

You say you’re a very serious golfer, and that a club of this description won’t cut the mustard? TPC Sawgrass and its vaunted PLAYERS Stadium Course is an hour’s drive from Amelia Island.

After a long barefoot walk on the beach searching for fossilized shark’s teeth (a local passion) while sandpipers trotted ahead of us on the wave-washed flats, my wife and I decided that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts at the Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island. Conde Nast Traveler, admittedly a travel/lifestyle magazine with no golf culture in its gene pool, ranks the property fifth among the Top 20 Florida Golf Resorts, well ahead of other properties more closely associated with golf.

By all means make that trip to Sawgrass to dismantle the Stadium. She’ll be waiting for you back on Amelia Island, stretched out on a beach lounge with a good book, or sipping something refreshing on the Ritz-Carlton’s manicured lawn overlooking the foam-flecked sea.

Among other programs, an enticing “Beaches and Bunkers” golf package is available at the Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island. http://www.ritzcarlton.com/en/Properties/AmeliaIsland/Default.htm