Communist Caddies?

Fidel Castro tees off on capitalism's favorite pastime, but will golf attract tourist dollars to Cuba?

IT'S HARD TO SAY NO TO A US$55 GREENS FEE--ESPECIALLY when it includes a caddy and cart.

If Toronto native Larry Naccarato hadn't stumbled across a travel brochure advertising a seven-night, all-inclusive trip to Cuba's Varadero--the largest and arguably one of the most famous tourist resorts in the Caribbean--for $1,000, he probably would have ended up in Florida.

"For this type of a golf course, it's super cheap," Naccarato says of the $5 million Varadero Golf Club, a 6,900-yard strip of manicured greens, saltwater lakes and sand traps right alongside the ocean. "In the States, I can't play for $50 to $55 unless I go to a municipal course.

In Canada, which sends more tourists than any other country to the Caribbean island, Cuba is well known for its beaches. It's only recently, however, that the socialist government has begun selling the country as a destination for--of all things-golf.

While revolutionary Che Guevara's image now graces all types of souvenirs from key chains to T-shirts, the blatant promotion of capitalism's favorite pastime reflects the Marxist government's tough lie in a deep ideological rough. After all, one of the first things Guevara and Fidel Castro did after the triumph of the 1959 revolution was bulldoze almost all of Cuba's golf courses and build schools in their place.

Socialists at St. Andrews? "I don't see a clash of ideologies, because golf didn't come from the capitalist countries, but from Scotland, more than 400 years ago," says Jose Tovar, director of the Varadero Golf Club. He gestures to a copy of a famous photo of Che and Fidel, both bearded and dressed in trademark guerrilla fatigues, playing a final round of golf before the bulldozing commenced. Apparently Che, during his early years as a physician, loved golf.

Indeed, now that the government has turned to tourism for hard currency, it's not about to let the Caribbean golf boom pass it by. Along with the Dominican Republic and Jamaica, Cuba is planning its own strategic rollout of greens. Rumbos, the state-owned company that manages the Varadero Golf Club, will start building in Cayo Coco, the main tourist island in the Camaguey archipelago, in early 2001. It has plans for three more courses once foreign financing is secured.

Other government-run companies are also trying to gain a piece of the action, sparking an internal bidding war of sorts. Gran Caribe, a company specializing in five-star hotels, starts building in Jibacoa, 69 kilometers east of central Havana, in September. Meanwhile, Gaviotas is planning a course for Guardalavaca, a beach town in the province of Holguin, and Cubalse has the green light to give a face-lift to the former Rovers Club (now the Havana Golf Club), the only course not bulldozed after the revolution. Plans include adding nine more holes and sprucing up its neglected, withered greens.

The government's short-term goal is to build one course in each of Cuba's nine tourism zones, according to Raul Martin, Rumbos' manager. Long-term plans put the total number of courses at 28. The government's plan to milk Cuba's mass tourism potential is echoed in the billboards studding the highway between Havana and Varadero. "Coming soon, the 444-room Hotel Sol y Mar," promises one such sign.

Cuban resorts are a hot investment. Although it used to be that a foreign partner could not hold more than 49% in a joint venture, 1992 and 1995 modifications to foreign-investment laws allow for 100% foreign ownership, while guaranteeing investors full protection of their assets and the right to remove profits in hard currency Now foreign investors from Canada, Spain, Mexico--almost everywhere except the United States, it seems--are eagerly coughing up capital to position for the elusive return to a market economy.

Wealthy duffers. The potential for profit is there. Tourism is growing at a healthy clip of 20% each year. The number of beds in resort hotels is doubling by the decade. Last year, 1.6 million tourists visited Cuba, generating a little over $2 billion. For this year, the government projects 2 million visitors. But per capita revenues aren't increasing at the projected rate, Martin says. Enter golf, which is expected to capture a more spendthrift market.

But will the golfers come? And can Cuba replicate Florida's snowbird success even with half the world's golf market being barred from visiting the island nation legally? "There are three possible scenarios," Martin says. "One is that the blockade remains as is. Another is that the blockade is maintained but the travel ban is lifted. Another is that the blockade is lifted entirely. A study commissioned by the government to analyze Cuba's infrastructure needs in that scenario estimates we would need about 100 courses to meet demand." Adds Varadero's Tovar: "We've learned how to live without [the U.S. market]."

Certainly the experience of the Varadero golf course bodes well for Cuba. The 72-par, Robert Trent Jones-style course, designed by Golf Design Service of Toronto, brought in 14,000 visitors last year, generating $1.8 million in revenues, Tovar says. But don't be fooled by the casual dress code: The course stands up to any other in the world, adds British transplant Jimmy Burns, a golf instructor at the nearby 400-room hotel Melia Las Americas and a member of Britain's Professional Golf Association.

In fact, this past April, all the course's greens were replanted with dwarf grass per request of the Professional Golf Association in Europe, which, after holding its grand finale in Cuba last fall, plans to hold its championship there for the next three years. The club has at least one tournament booked through the end of 2000, each bringing in from 45 to 180 players.

The Varadero Golf Club is also a historical attraction. The course was enlarged from nine holes on the expropriated estate of chemical tycoon Irene Dupont Nemours. The Dupont mansion now serves as a small hotel, attracting tourists looking for an alternative to resort-chain accommodations. Known as "Xanadu," the mansion built in 1930 is a masterpiece of Italian marble and exotic woods. It has its own wine cellar and organ, piping music throughout the entire house, which was renovated in 1998. Guests can eat off the mansion's original china and use its 19th-century French-style furniture for $140 to $180 a night.

Varadero Golf Club instructor Pedro "Choppy" Klein says that more courses are needed because golfers like variety. He predicts that when the blockade is lifted, residents from the southern United States will fly to Varadero just for the day.

Blockade or no, U.S. citizens are finding ways into Cuba. According to Martin, 10% of golfers coming to Cuba come from the United States. As Cuba Travel U.S.A., which has been taking U.S. residents to Cuba since 1977, boldly declares on its Web page: "President Clinton is encouraging Americans to help the Cuban people. We'll tell you how and why. Pope John Paul II has encouraged the world to open up to Cuba and Cuba to the world. We are doing our part. You can do yours by joining us on a luxury golf outing in Cuba." Fore!