You can see the water early. It’s the Caribbean Sea, blue and perfect, and of course there’s no missing it. Visitors likely saw plenty of it on the flight to this island nation.
Before a player ever sets off the first tee of Teeth of the Dog, the sea is seemingly right there in view from the main Casa de Campo clubhouse, down and across the ninth and 18th holes. There are glimpses of blue on the early holes. It’s oh-so-close on the third and fourth holes, just a skosh more than a hundred yards away, providing a taste of salt on the air to make you think you know what it means to play golf alongside the ocean.
But it’s not until you step onto the fifth tee box that you experience the sensory overload of playing golf directly alongside the sea. Salt spray. Trade winds. Palm trees. A tiny green perched above the waves – take one too many steps backward while reading a putt, and you might make a splash. It’s almost too much for the golf-travel obsessed.
Right there on that tee box is where many golfers learn what it means to play tight to the ocean. Not playing near the water with a restricted view through some condo towers or mansions, not on a cliff high above the waves, not on the inland side of a beach dune with the wet stuff a full wedge away. Instead, this fifth tee shot is an incredible introduction to swinging so close to the sea that you might get your socks wet – a real possibility if your approach shot falls short and you go for a bold recovery from the rock-strewn beach.
“I remember the first time I played Teeth of the Dog and I pulled up to No. 5,” said Robert Birtel, director of golf operations at the sprawling Dominican resort, “and I was like ‘Whoa, what’s going on here?’ ”
What’s going on is up to 176 yards of bravado, beauty and visual intimidation. It’s the late Pete Dye at his finest – an unforgettable golf shot set in a postcard.
And it’s just the beginning. No. 5 is only the first of seven holes on Dye’s Teeth of the Dog – so named because the sharp rocks along the shore called to mind a canine’s canines – where it’s not only possible you blast a ball into the sea, it’s frequently surprising if you don’t.
