The Boston-New York sporting rivalry, one-sided though it often is (Hub fans invariably care more about beating anything NYC than the other way around), has traditionally taken a backseat on ice. Still, it beggars belief that Bruins v. Rangers — a battle of Original Sixers separated by just 200 miles — has become such a non-entity, largely because the two combatants have not played a single playoff series since 1973, despite having always competed together in the Eastern Conference (or some ridiculously named facsimile thereof).

That streak ends Thursday night with Game 1 of the NHL’s Eastern Semifinals at the TD Banknorth Garden, and perhaps it will light a fire going forward. If nothing else, it will serve as a stirring flashback for hockey fans of my vintage who remember a time when this was a proper rivalry and home teams wore dark uniforms their own barn — a practice that had long prevailed back in the day, was abandoned by the NHL in the mid-1970s, but has recently been restored.

The Bruins’ blood rivals are, of course, the Canadiens, whose decades-long torture of Boston peaked just as the Rangers rivalry fell away, in the late 1970s. Those Montreal teams were all-timers, star-studded winners of four straight Stanley Cups (1976-79). The B’s, though very good throughout the ‘70s, simply could not slay them. Even in their heyday, when they netted a pair of Cups, in 1970 and ‘72, the Bruins were never obliged to beat the Canadiens in a playoff series.

Montreal had many rivals during that period, and it only stoked Boston passions further that peut-être Les Canadiens didn’t care that much about beating the Bruins. Today, recent form and some incendiary incidents of thuggery have perhaps stirred in Montreal fans a hatred that matches that of Bruins Nation.

[Indeed, much of Canada has every right to loathe the current B’s following their organ-removing defeats of heavily favored Vancouver in the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals, and Monday’s unlikely Game 7 dispatch of Toronto’s Maple Leafs, in overtime — the Bruins had trailed 4-1, with just 10 minutes remaining. No Canada-based club has won the Cup since 1993, a fact that continues to gall hockey purists (read: 90 percent of the population) north of the border. Maybe derision of the current Bruins can be that one elusive thing all of Canada can agree upon…]

The Bruins of the early 1970s were not so villainous. They were Big and Bad, in an admirable way, and the Rangers — more of a finesse team, built on the refined skills of Rod Gilbert, Jean Ratelle, Brad Park and Vic Hadfield — proved compelling foils. Boston beat them to win the Cup in 1972. Their last playoff meeting was a Ranger victory, the 1973 conference semifinals. As a young Bostonian, I vividly remember resenting the Rangers for unseating the defending Cup champions, a loss that kicked off one of the most frustrating runs of near misses in hockey history. (Boston would lose the 1974 Cup final to Philly before dropping a dizzying succession of playoff series to Montreal, each one more gut-wrenching than the last.)

But any resentment of the Rangers didn’t last.

Terry O’Reilly and his crew famously went into the stands at Madison Square Garden to punch up some Rangers fans in December 1979, but the lack of playoff confrontation — who could imagine it would last fully four decades? — effectively defused the rivalry. The 1975 and 1976 trades that shipped Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge and Carol Vadnais to New York, in exchange for Ratelle and Park, further blurred the line between bitter enemy and mere foe.

Montreal became the fixation.

It’s funny how that works: The best rivalries become a sort of long-term competitive obsession, to exclusion of teams that might well be torturing or otherwise beating you in the moment. Boston endured 39 years between titles (1972-2011), and in that seemingly interminable span they were beaten back by several great teams of longstanding: the Islanders of the early 1980s, Gretzky’s Edmonton Oilers… Yet we Bruins Fans never stopped hating on the Canadiens exclusively.

[Another great piece of nostalgia prompted by this year’s playoffs: the return of the Islanders after a long post-season absence. Just seeing their uniforms, admirably unchanged from the glory days, stirred strong memories of Bossy, Gillies, Trottier, Nystrom, Smith and Resch. The Nassau County Coliseum — scene of so many vintage Bruins telecasts delivered via rabbit ears and Channel 38 — remains impossibly small, dark and retro. Their current star, John Taveras, wears no. 91 and, for a brief moment during their first-round loss to the mighty Penguins, I mistook him for Butch Goring…]

The Rangers famously went 54 years without a Stanley Cup before winning one in 1994 (deploying a goodly number of former Oilers, it must be said), and I’ve no idea whether Ranger fans brought with them on that long and painful journey a particular rival, or developed one. Maybe, for a time, it was Islanders. Maybe it has become the Washington Capitals, whom the Rangers seem to face, in the playoffs, every year for the last two decades (though it’s hard to develop a rivalry with a team that has never won anything, ever).

If it’s been the Bruins all along, I feel sorry for them, because we never really noticed.

Here’s all I have to say about the advent of FootGolf: “It’s about fucking time.” Anything that essentially combines my two favorite participatory sports — and knee-high argyle socks — has my full attention and support.

I knew there was something out there like this, but until I read this piece, I had no idea it was so well developed, and so freaking awesome. As a devotee of disc golf, I embrace the game in all its alternative forms. But this one takes it to a new level. There’s even a rule book, to be consulted in the event one’s approach hits the pin and ricochets backward into a lake. (Of course, if that should happen, the ball would be floating on the surface and could presumably be retrieved, prior to a legal drop).

Soccer and golf have a long and distinguished history together. There’s the dreaded foot wedge, of course. And there was that time Alan Shearer played through our group at Gleneagles. I’d love to see him hole out with a proper foot wedge and run the length of the hole with is signature hand held high.

Check out more information here. There’s apparently a FootGolf facility in Las Vegas, but that’s awfully far away. If anyone out there knows where this activity can be pursued here in New England, I’m all ears. After all, there was a FootGolf World Cup held in Hungary in 2012. I now have my sights set on 2016.

Interesting confluence of events both personal and national last week, when embattled Rutgers University — struggling to salvage its basketball cred prior to moving from Big East to Big “10” in 2014 — hired NBA veteran Eddie Jordan to replace head coach Mike Rice, who was jettisoned after video surfaced early in April showing him crassly berating and physically abusing his “student athletes”.

[We’ll leave aside for the moment the fact that Rutgers knew about Rice’s antics long before the video was made public. That’s just more run-of-the-mill, big-time-college-athletics sleaze, and honestly, what more is there add?]

What interested me was the return of Jordan to his alma mater, where he played in the mid-1970s as a cog in one of college basketball’s most unheralded great teams — and the fact that I learned of his homecoming while staying in the Marin County home of my boyhood friend Tom Wadlington.

That Scarlet Knight team, which went unbeaten in 1975-76 before falling to Michigan, Ricky Green and Phil Hubbard in the national semifinals, was even more visible to me, as a budding, 12-year-old college hoops freak, on account of Tom’s arrival in my hometown just two years prior. Tom had moved to Wellesley, Mass., from East Brunswick, N.J., where his parents, if I’m not mistaken, had both worked at Rutgers. He showed up in my 4^th grade class, and on my various soccer teams, spewing all sorts of Rutgers propaganda. Much of it was dismissed for what it was — the meaningless parochialism of some pre-teen interloper.

But then, midway through the ‘75-76 season, it was clear that on the college basketball front at least, Wad was not talking shit. These guys were really good, and would eventually run the table, win the East Regional and go to the Final Four (not yet so branded, I don’t believe). They did so with Jordan at the point, Mike Dabney at shooting guard, super-smooth Phil Sellers at small forward, Hollis Copeland at the 4, and Boston-bred freshman “Jumpin” James Bailey at center.

I think we all remember Larry Bird’s Indiana State team that went unbeaten before losing to Magic & Michigan State in the 1979 NCAA Final. But the long history of college basketball is not exactly littered with teams that go unbeaten over the course of a regular season, much less progress untarnished all the way to the Final Four. UCLA did it repeatedly in winning so many titles under John Wooden, and Indiana went unbeaten start to finish the same year Rutgers came so close, in 1975-76. Other teams that have won titles while going undefeated include Bill Russell and KC Jones’ USF teams in 1955 and 56, North Carolina a year later, UCLA four times, and Indiana.

But it gets thin when you search for teams that remained unbeaten all the way to the Final Four, only to lose there. Once we account for Rutgers and Indiana State, I recall these:

• Indiana went unbeaten the year before its golden campaign, only to lose in the Midwest Regional final to Kentucky, 92-90, largely because  (Hoosiers will argue) star forward Scott May had broken his arm with 7 minutes to play.

• UNLV was 34-0 when it famously lost to Duke in the 1991 national semifinals.

I encourage anyone to set me straight, but I think that’s it: Seven teams went undefeated and won the title, only two more got to the Final Four unblemished.

Jordan has his work cut out for him in Jersey, to be sure. Maybe joining the Big “10” (I’m not sure how many teams are in that conference anymore, but it ain’t 10) will expand his recruiting territory, but Rice has seriously sullied Rutgers’ reputation and recruiting capability in the short term. And despite being located in the heart of a bountiful talent pool, Rutgers has never been that great or recruited many first-rate players (Roy Hinson tops a short list). The Scarlet Knights weren’t part of the original Big East, of course. They joined in 1995, and it could be argued, it didn’t benefit the basketball program a lick.

As for Tom Wadlington, he ultimately matriculated at Cal Berkeley and has since transferred all his propagandizing efforts (on behalf of collegiate athletics) to the Bears. But he did have this to say upon learning the news of Jordan’s hire: “He should bring Phil Sellers and Mike Dabney as assistants!”

Raised to be aggressively skeptical of consumerism in general and advertising in particular, I have, throughout my adult years, embraced this foundational credo and built upon it, dutifully flipping channels during commercial breaks and breezing right past magazine ads. More recently, I diligently disable any and all online pop-ups. I watch on TV virtually nothing that hasn’t been DVR’d. When I am obliged to confront an ad, I delight in letting loose upon it all my powers of sarcasm and mockery. I am indeed hard pressed to think of a single instance where I was moved to purchase anything on the basis of its formal advertisement.

Anything, that is, except special edition burgers mongered by fast food giants.

In fact, much as I’m loath to admit it, I am perfectly helpless in the face of fast food burger innovators and their army of propagandists.

I recognize this is for the major character flaw it is, and perhaps by writing about this phenomenon, this innermost shame, I hope to overcome it.

Until that time, I am putty in the hands of Burger King each and every time they trot out a special edition Whopper. The King and his competitors are a sophisticated bunch. It’s not merely the power of their advertising. I know they spend years in special labs researching and building into their products the neuroscientific triggers designed to elicit in unsuspecting consumers, like me, the desired Pavlovian response. When it comes to new burgers, I am essentially their Munchurian Candidate.

Ads for existing burger products don’t have the same effect. You could pimp Big Macs to me all day long and I wouldn’t be moved. I know from Big Macs, and I’m over them.

However, when the burger establishment pitches me a new beefy confection, I MUST TRY IT.

Intimates of mine may well read this and say, “Well, Hal is famously enthusiastic about all things edible.” And this is true. The same parents who so well prepped me to resist consumerism also imparted to me, by nature and nurture, an overdeveloped appreciation of worthy foodstuffs. But while I’m saddled with an unhealthy love of pizza, for example, I don’t see an ad for some new Domino’s product and rush out to buy it. I don’t notice a fancy new offering at my local pizza purveyor of choice and feel any immediate urge to sample it. Introduction of a new chicken-based sandwich leaves me essentially unmoved.

The burger situation is anomalous and insidious. Something about beef flesh reaches my involuntary subconscious on a primal, somewhat frightening level.

Today I ran across the attached ad for something Jack in the Box is calling the Hot Mess. Am I the only one intrigued by the mere name of this thing? We don’t even have Jack in the Box in Maine, or anywhere in New England, so far as I know. Still, I am plotting my next trip to the West Coast where I can cram a Hot Mess down my pie-hole.

Methinks it’s the special edition aspect that truly breaks down my fragile defenses. Homer Simpson famously falls victim to the charms of the Ribwich, a McRib-like concoction whose periodic availability (“for a limited time only!”) he meets with characteristically unbridled glee (indeed, Homer ultimately follows the Ribwich around the country, from city to city, like a Grateful Dead fan).

Thankfully, I don’t have the need to eat these things over and over, but I must try them. When Dairy Queen unleashed its Flamethrower burger — hot sauce, jalapenos, pepper jack and bacon — I naturally went out and sampled one straightaway. Okay, several. But I got over them in due course.

It’s the curiosity that gets to me, and if they’re equipped with bacon and/or jalapenos, well, it’s Katy bar the door.

I’m a Burger King guy, because I like underdogs (and their fries have always been superior), but mainly because their menus have routinely featured more bacon-bedecked items than McDonalds’, or any other competitor. Naturally, it didn’t take me long to sample their new “Angry” Whopper, so called because of the jalapenos (complemented by bacon and onion rings — formidable).

Wendy’s Baconator combined the time-honored lure of cured meats with another clever name. Of course I’m gonna try that. (If they ever figure out a way to work a fried egg in there, I’ll be among the first in line).

It’s not all about curiosity. The value proposition is another trigger. Much has been written about the obesity of underprivileged Americans due to the remarkable affordability of fast food. A clear connection there, in my view. For the pure delivery of calories (worthless calories, but calories nonetheless), $7 goes a very long way.

Yes, I’ve had a Whopper, and I don’t need to try another — but if you’re offering me one for a dollar? I’m likely to be persuaded by that, even if I’m not hungry. Two Egg McMuffins for $3? Only a fool would pass that up.

I’m already over the recently unveiled Angry Whopper. Been there, done that. But this Hot Mess thing… It’s in my head. I’m headed to California in April, and I’m intrigued enough that I may well bypass the SoCal delights of In ‘n Out Burger and Fatburger.

The regional nature of some chains does figure prominently in this equation, so far as I’m concerned anyway. When I arrive in California, it may be that In ‘n Out or maybe Carl’s Jr. has introduced something that I simply must experience. When I first started traveling in Florida, I had an uncontrollable urge to investigate what Checkers had to offer.

In Kalamazoo, Mich., from whence my wife hails, I was, for a time, fascinated by something called Hot ‘n Now, a local chain that serves only drive-thru patrons from small, purple, A-framed establishments in mall parking lots. “Oooh…What’s that?” I cooed to her the first time we passed one.

“Ugh. They’re disgusting,” she said.

“Well, yeah. Naturally… But we’re going to need to turn around.”

You heard it here first.

Tell me what doesn’t make sense about this trade. With Rajon Rondo out for the season with a torn ACL, the Celts are done this year. Maybe they’ll make the playoffs, but it’s time to turn the page. The Lakers and Dwight Howard are not proving a good fit, and he’s a free agent at the end of this year. Most of the talk has been about trading Pau Gasol, but the Lakers are instantly NBA Finals material with Garnett, a better fit for Coach Mike D’Antoni’s offense, a different but comparably excellent defender, a man Kobe would prefer to Howard, for right now (Nash, too, but he doesn’t have anything like Kobe’s veto power in LA).

Who says no to this trade?

Not the Lakers, who must think short term with the pieces they have. Things have gone so awry with Howard, personally, they might not even be able to sign him this summer. Dealing for KG cuts their losses and makes them better.

Not the Celtics, who can build around Howard, Rondo and maybe someone like Josh Smith (ATL homeboys reunite!), for Boston instantly becomes a free agent destination of choice with that young core (a core that doesn’t need to shoot; the gunners will line up to play with those guys).

Not the League: The numbers match up. Garnett makes $19 million and Howard just 11, but throw in Jeff Green ($8 million) or Brandon Bass (6) and it fits.

KG is one of the few NBA players with a no-trade clause. He’s been a model Celtic, but if we’ve learned anything about Garnett during his tenure in Boston, winning is paramount. The window is closing for him, too, and it’s gotta be clear, to him, this Celtics incarnation is toast (I’ve argued they could not realistically have won the last three years; they’ve been gallant but never had have the horses). He has two years in him, I reckon. So do Kobe and maybe Nash. Gasol for sure. Why would he say no?

Because the Lakers are, well, the “hated Lakers”, and because they have 16 championships to Boston’s 17, Pierce — who is too much of a Celtic to ever leave for the Lakers — would say no to a Howard-for-Pierce, Gasol-for-Pierce deal. He grew up in LA but he’s been that anomalous single-team player his whole career. He would not want to go to LA on a championship-mercenary mission.

I don’t believe KG looks at it the same way. He undertook that mission when he came to Boston. Perhaps he wouldn’t go to Miami, but I say he goes to LA.

Only the Celtics would have plausible motivation to say no. While they would probably not trade KG within the Eastern Conference, they might also balk at sending him to the “hated Lakers”. Danny Ainge could potentially be handing LA a 17^th title and a place directly level with Boston in the Pantheon.

Still, that’s a lot of yes and a single no.

If you haven’t checked out Zach Lowe’s NBA reporting at Grantland.com, do. He’s extremely informed and a facile writer. This was a clever piece, for example, exploring the Celtics options and multiple potential trade partners. The Spurs make sense, though KG and Tim Duncan reportedly loath each other and San Antonio has nothing to give in return. Lowe (and Jalen Rose) both posit an Al Horford/Kyle Korver for Howard scenario, which makes more sense. But neither floats the Garnett for Howard idea, which makes the the most sense of all. The salaries line up. So do the stars, in an astrological sense and this vital sense: KG & Kobe would assent. These two stars are nearly burned out, and they want to win.

In my work, I gather and view killer golf photography all the time. Those of us in the trade often refer to these beauty shots as “golf porn”. This particular photo — the back tee on the 16th at Cape Kidnappers GC in Hawkes Bay, on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island — has always intrigued me for what it lacks and what it delivers (full disclosure: This course is a client of my firm, Mandarin Media). My job is to get magazines and website to print or post an image like this, but I don’t know that many have done so. It’s a funny shot, captured by Chris Mclennan. Maybe editors choose others from Cape because while the 16^th is a magnificent, incredibly photogenic par-5, this image doesn’t give any indication of that. It attaches the viewer’s eye to no golf hole whatever, not that we can see or even vaguely discern. On the other hand, any golfer looking at this photo could and should think to himself, “How bad could this hole possibly be?” I was traveling with some fellow golf writers earlier this month and the subject of Cape Kidnappers came up. One tried to argue that while Cape is a magnificent course (Top 50 in the world according to all the trusted rankings), and among the 10 most photogenic courses on Earth, it’s not that scenic for the golfer actually playing the course.  I beg to differ, and I imagine that anyone standing on 16 tee — a thousand feet above the South Pacific, looking back at five holes with similarly perched vantage points — would beg to differ, as well.

What is it about the Tuscan hill town that holds such incredible architectural and social appeal? It can’t be the Seinfeld references alone, can it? My wife and I once spent a lovely week between Aix-en-Provence and Avignon, where one French resort, Pont Royal, featured one such village in miniature — one would have thought the French would not deign to pay their noisy neighbors this sort of homage.

And then there are the many sprawling golf clubhouses that have, of late, taken on this popular design theme: I’m thinking of The Bridges GC near San Diego and whole bevy in Florida, China even. The Italians don’t fancy their golf in any great numbers. But something about this tableau has really hit home with golf developers.

I can’t prove it, but Casa de Campo may have started this trend. Altos de Chavon doesn’t just sit high on the cliffs above Rio Chavon (right next to the Dye Fore 18). It fairly well hangs out over those cliffs, and its lofty perch is but a detail. This is something of an architectural marvel, an entire Tuscan hill town designed by Dominican architect Jose Antonio Caro and created by Italian master designer and cinematographer Roberto Coppa. Local artisans handcrafted the cobblestone pathways, decorative ironwork, furniture and buildings using the volcanic rock and coral displaced by construction of the resort. The village began to take shape in 1976. Frank Sinatra christened altos De Chavon in 1982 with a concert at the amphitheater.

Last night we sampled the considerable atmosphere high above the river (where several scenes from “Apocalypse Now” were shot), and it’s somethin’, boy. After a sumptuous meal at one of the many restaurants in the village, La Piazzetta, we wandered around and through the narrow streets and piazzas, stopping in at a local bar or two (just to make sure they weren’t some Disney-inspired prop), and taking in the incredible views up and down the Rio Chavon basin.

I can attest that it’s all real, not some whimsical creation of the resort. Apparently the place is overrun by tourists and wedding parties during the day; the chapel there, St. Stanislaus Church, is the nuptial venue of choice for women across the DR. There are boutiques, museums and galleries. After night falls, the locals come out and make it more inviting still.

Casa de Campo makes no apologies for the luxuries it purveys, and so it should come as no surprise that the resort serves as a sort of Mecca for Caribbean polo, the sport of kings (and anyone else who can afford to show up to a match with the requisite 6-7 horses). If you play polo, odds are you already know that Casa manages some 300 horses for guest play, for all manner of recreational riding, for breeding and sale. For the neophyte, it’s a fascinating window on a sport we hear about (mainly through Prince Charles references) but rarely see.

Cali Garcia-Velez is the man who manages all things equine at Casa de Campo, and he would appear well suited to the role. A Dominican native, Garcia-Velez is tall and dashing (a dead ringer for the actor Will Arnett), a son of the rancher who used to manage the cattle on this vast property, and a former polo professional in his own right.  While Casa has its own polo fields, today Garcia-Velez ably escorted a few of us media scum to a match held at a private ranch some 15 minutes from the resort.

“You see that guy there,” he said, pointing to #4 in black. “He’s riding one of our horses. I sold it to him. He came to me for an upgrade and he couldn’t be happier… In polo, it’s all about the horses. And the guys who can afford it will always have the best horses. That’s just the way it is.”

This was no arms race we witnessed today, as the late afternoon sun bathed the field and surrounding sea of sugar cane in a soft, pale-pink light. In the DR, there are maybe 30 polo players of a high standard and they converge on fields like this one, and those at Casa de Campo, for a match or two each week during winter, the high season. They come from all over the island but mainly from here, Greater La Romana, and Santo Domingo some 90 minutes away.

The action is non-stop, as Red and Black (four players to a side) gambol from one end to the other, flailing and bumping, at speeds you cannot appreciate until you’re this close. Outside the lines, the mood is decidedly more casual and festive, with families spread out on blankets behind one goal and still more gathered in the thatch-roofed clubhouse at midfield. They all greet Garcia-Velez with familiarity. The drinks/conversation flow as play proceeds through the first three chukkers, or periods, which last some 7 minutes apiece.

A proper match is six chukkers; the players change horses after each one. On one level the game is simple: whack the ball between posts 24 feet apart, positioned at each end of a field 300 yards long and 150 wide. On another level, there is great nuance to the strategy, the game’s physicality and officiating. It’s good to have an expert sitting close by, imparting the finer points.

But again, this is a casual Saturday afternoon match in January. The week of Presidents Day, and again over Easter, the polo communities from across the Caribbean and Florida will descend on La Romana for the two biggest tournaments of the year. As Garcia-Velez is telling me about this, along with the reasons for Argentinian Polo dominance, and what a polo pony really costs, the players thunder past en masse. The conversations — ours and those taking place all around us — come to a studious halt, as all eyes follow the action to the north goal.

The 4th at Dye Fore, evidence of the gorgeous views here and why you need a good short game to score. (Larry Lambrecht photo)

Having played the Links Course this morning, the Golf Road Warriors have now sampled all three tracks here at Casa de Campo. With that sort of first-hand experience in tow, I’ve taken it upon myself to issue five vital directives to golfers mulling or already planning a visit here:

1)   Play the Links Course first — If you’re coming from a winter clime and haven’t touched your clubs in months, this is the place to work out the kinks. The front nine is especially playable; it’s not till hole 12 that it gets at all penal — in the form of several lakes that require serious negotiation. Even then, Pete Dye has fashioned an extremely comfortable, attractive piece of eye candy here, a Florida-style faux links with enough elevation change and design interest to place it head and shoulders above 98 percent of the courses you’ll ever find in Florida.

2)   Play Teeth of the Dog next — The temptation is to head out there right away, what with all those ocean holes and the beautiful pictures you’ve no doubt seen in advance. But get a round under your belt first; get the feel of the greens and considerable wind here at Casa de Campo. A quick session with the staff at the Jim McLean Golf School here wouldn’t be a bad idea either. You don’t want to get out there with all those expectations and stink it up.

3)   Play Dye Fore third, when you’re good and ready — The scale of this course and the views from various spots along its 18 holes (down the Rio Chavon canyon, or down to the Marina on the front nine) are truly extraordinary. But Dye Fore is not for the faint of heart (or, for that matter, some New Englander right off the plane after three golf-less months). You’ll want two rounds under your belt before you tackle this beast. But do tackle it. The risk-reward dynamics here are stark, oversized and (should you negotiate them with dexterity) extremely satisfying. My favorite? The gigantic speed slot on the par-5 18^th — a veritable half-pipe carved from the left-center of an uphill slope 60 yards wide. Wow.

4)   Bring your “A” short game — Dye courses have the reputation for being difficult, and talk of threading a drive down a half-pipe probably doesn’t help. But that rep is too simple to be true. Pete’s fairways are always generous, with bunkering that, while legion, nearly always funnels golfers down the right path. However, his green complexes are often all-or-nothing affairs. Miss and you’re bunkered (often deeply bunkered) or mired in some swale that requires a putt up a steep, shaved face, or a delicate flop shot to a plateau putting surface, or a bump-and-hope into said steep-shaved face. If you can handle the short sticks, if your sand game is handy, you can score on all three courses here, especially Dye Fore and the Links, where the greenside features are most severe.

5)   Don’t worry about bringing enough golf balls — There are two reasons for this. First, these courses aren’t ball-eaters, thanks to the super wide fairway corridors. Yes, there’s a lot of water on the back nine at the Links, and the Caribbean laps against 7 holes at Teeth of the Dog. But that’s about it. Second, the grounds staff at Casa de Campo has scrubbed the course clean of lost balls, shined them up, grouped them together by brand, and will gladly sell them back to you at very reasonable prices  — a win-win practice Director of Golf Gilles Gagnon fully endorses.

Casa de Campo bills itself as enabler of The Sporting Life, and they deliver on that claim in myriad ways: golf, of course, but shooting, polo, tennis, yachting and several more I’m sure I’m missing. But there is baseball, too, and tonight we got a thoroughly entertaining taste.

La Romana, the city of 250,000 that is home to Casa de Campo, is home to Los Toros del Este of the Dominican League, a winter circuit comprised of the country’s many fine players and a few U.S.-based stars home for the Major League Baseball offseason. Thursday night we ventured out to Estadio Francisco A. Micheli to watch “The Bulls of the East” drop a 4-3 decision to visiting Estrellas Orientales, who hail from the noted baseball hotbed, San Pedro de Macoris.

MLB fans surely understand by now what a huge impact Dominican players have had on America’s national pastime. Indeed, as a Red Sox fan, I’m forever in debt to Dominican stars David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez and Pedro Martinez for delivering two World Series in the last 8 years. But the Dominican league is something substantial in its own right, a brand of beisbol that must be experienced to be believed.

Yes, there are MLB stars on hand, though Los Toros’ Erick Aybar, who plays for the Angels, and Estrellas’ Felix Pie were the only two “big” leaguers on hand this night. Aybar didn’t even play actually, which is typical apparently. Sometimes these MLBers show up to games, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they show up and never leave the dugout. It’s all very loose down here, and the crowd whoops it up regardless — waving banners, dancing to the band ensconced in the loge section, chanting scatologically, and tittering as the PA announcer ogles hot chicks in the crowd.

“I want an American girl, and her little friend,” the crowd chanted in the third inning, commenting on U.S.-Dominican couples they spy in the crowd, assuming the Dominican guy is just angling for a green card.

After Los Toros pushed one across in the bottom of the third, the PA announcer broke into a low growl, and intoned, “Attention, attention: Section 5, black top, blue pants… How healthy the women are tonight!”

In the middle of the fourth, the Toros mascot (a bull, naturally), delivered one of the raunchiest dances you’ll ever see from a man in orange fur, and it sure beat the hell out of any between-innings dot race — or the execrable Sweet Caroline sing along. Until this year there had been cheerleaders at Estadio Micheli; they’d been banned because they weren’t particularly family oriented. “Basically they were strippers,” our local guide explained, and the players spent too much game time ogling them as they worked it atop the home dughout. There’s been a strong call for their reinstatement.

The baseball itself is quite good, certainly on par with AAA, but it’s the little twists on the game that make it worthwhile for a tourist. There are cashews, not peanuts on offer. The beer flows, of course (the ubiquitous Presidente Light — in special Toros orange cans), but also rum — in plastic bottles to mix with Coke. When they flash player stats on the big screen, there’s the recognizable AVG and HR figures, but RBI is replaced by “C.E.”, for Carreras Empujadas, or “pushed runs”.

The DR may have thrilled this summer when Félix Sánchez won gold at the London Olympics in the 400-meter hurdles, but this is a baseball country, first, foremost and always. When we pulled into the stadium parking lot, it was not yet full and dozens of kids were playing baseball on the hard top. For visitors to Casa de Campo, baseball is yet another sporting diversion. For the locals in La Romana and across the country, it’s the only real game in town.