My Extreme Macho Mexican Golf Vacation
February 4, 2010 by sydney
Filed under Highlights From Last Month...
by Mark Knudson
When you think of a golf vacation with your wife and friends, you likely picture yourself in the sweet surroundings of Palm Springs or Sun Valley. For most people, a polished course, free of intimidating wildlife, and a rented Escalade to take you around town after a round of golf sounds ideal.
I recently took that coveted golf vacation with my wife and friends but traded in conventional and convenient for daring and dramatic. Before you read on, let me start by saying that the golf vacation that I am about to relate is only recommended for the manliest of men or women. If you want to play it safe, golfing in your Footjoys in a golf Mecca like Myrtle Beach, the trip I am about to describe is not for you. If you’re the kind of golfer that is always playing it safe with your irons and distance logs then do us all a favor and stop reading right now.
This golf adventure was engineered by a 3rd degree Ninja golfer whose motto is “Grip it and rip it!” not “putt for dough”. But if you enjoy driving 80 mph in your jacked up Mexican Ram Charger on a winding two-lane jungle road in Mexico, sans gas gauge, then this adrenalin-filled vacation may be just what you’re looking for.
It started with our flight to Puerto Vallarta. After settling in, we made our way to the Von Hagge designed El Tigre at Paradise Village. Much to my delight, El Tigre clubhouse is well equipped for the golfer who chooses to travel light. With friends in tow, sunscreen and extra water accounted for, we headed out to the greens with our rented–but brand new–Taylor Made clubs. These clubs, rentals mind you, left me completely satisfied. I achieved my usual score and did not find myself looking for ways to compensate my swing. In fact, when we went over the bridge to set up for the island shot on number 6, we noticed a family of razorback iguanas staring us down. “Bring it lizard!” I thought as I stuck a 9-iron shot six feet from the cup. Birdie.
This was a fun round of golf on a long and manly course lined with palm trees and water hazards. The service and company were great, but remember, this was just a warm-up round to get acclimatized to the soggy Mexican pea grass and humid sea breezes. You don’t want to feel too much adrenalin unless you are ready for it.
We spent the night in a little condo named Club Buena Vista, located about five minutes south of town in the Conchas Chinas area. The view of Banderas Bay was spectacular and the water was a little cold…just how I like it. Puerto Vallarta is lucky to have six pro-quality golf courses to choose from. Besides El Tigre, we have heard good reviews on the Four Seasons course at Punta Mita. Jack designed their course that features a 17th hole that is contained on a rare natural island just off the shore. The Vista Vallarta complex also has 18 holes also designed by Jack and another 18 by Weiskopff. If you’re into view, this course might be for you. But now the adventure begins.
Day two of our trip reminded me why I like to travel in the winter. Mornings are beautiful in Puerto Vallarta in January. The toughest choice is whether to have that cup of coffee on the sunny patio or start your day immediately, taking full advantage the inspiring weather. However, if golf is on the agenda as it was for me, you have to know that by noon the humidity can slow even the manliest of hackers. Average temperatures in Puerto Vallarta are in the 80’s year round. My advice: start early unless you like it when they see you sweat.
Coffee in hand, we headed south in our Ram Charger from Puerto Vallarta on Route 202 towards our second golfing destination of Isla Navidad. This spectacular course is situated on an island aside the beautiful Grand Bay Hotel about 3 hours south of Puerto Vallarta - four hours if you drive the speed limit and slow down for speed bumps. My good friend Rick was driving and bet that we could make it to the next pueblito before we ran out of gas. Rick lost that daring wager as we ran out of gas at the crest of a dangerous hill in the Mexican badlands. No worries. We did rock-paper-scissors to see who would go for gas. I lost and I had to hitchhike about ten miles…No problemo. When the senoritas dropped me off in El Tuito I found no gas station but a little market where fuel was actually sold in pickle jars. Now that is my kind of pit stop!
When we arrived in Barra de Navidad we were impressed by the nearby island that is headquarters to the fabulous Grand Bay Hotel, rated by the Travel Channel as Mexico’s best. This picturesque island was discovered on Christmas Day (Sp: Navidad) by Hernando Cortez and his Spanish sailors in 1533. They founded the ship-building port where explorations to Japan and the Philippines were initiated. A short ride via water taxi took us from the quaint Mexican village of Barra de Navidad to the Grand Bay dock where we were surrounded by elegant gardens, inviting pools and the trappings of the rich and famous.
After a great dinner and watching sports on cable at the Grand Bay’s well-appointed guest suites, we arose with great anticipation of the round of golf that awaited us. We were lucky to be accompanied by the course Pro, Rafael Ramirez, who taught us a few Mexican cockfight golf secrets as we tackled the 27-hole wonder. Van Hagge designed Isla Navidad and created many surf and sod masterpieces. The oceanfront greens on the 12th and 14th holes especially reminded me of the Spanish Galleons that moored there with their virile warriors so long ago. Now, the nearby marina moors host high-end yachts and schooners. We watched in awe as our personal pro “El Rafa” ripped a 260 yard 3-wood over the ocean inlet on hole #20 for a tap in birdie. After our round on Isla Navidad we checked out the boy toys at the marina and then partied into the night under a barrage of fireworks at the Grand Bay. The skyrockets reminded us of cannon fire, as we went to bed smelling like gunpowder. Nice.
The next morning we were ready for El Tamarindo. About 30 years ago Robert Trent Jones Jr. and David Fleming embarked on a golf project that is as heroic and wonderful as a Chuck Norris stunt double. In the beginning, this course was hacked out of the jungle with machetes. The jungle workers were met with jaguars, wild boars, coral snakes, and even boa constrictors. They built a six-mile road through the jungle of cobblestones and pavers. It took 600 men over three years just to build the road to the golf course. When you put in that much man sweat just to get there, the golf course has got to be good. And it is. In my opinion El Tamarindo stands as the finest macho golf course in the world. Located about 45 minutes north of Isla Navidad and three hours south of Puerto Vallarta, El Tamarindo is surrounded by untamed jungles and craggy seascapes. This golf marvel stands as a monument to manliness. A note of caution: if your ball goes into the rough, don’t go looking for it…without a machete.
One of the unique things about El Tamarindo is the presence of families of wild tejons on almost every hole. A tejon, or coati, is a long-tailed animal that is a cross between a large squirrel and a badger with a pointy nose. As we golfed we were met at every hole by these friendly beasts. Their cuteness can easily be called into question, but once we understood their diet (an extravagant cuisine of worms) we had no reason to fear for our safety.
The whole golf course at El Tamarindo is a wonder of nature and a monument to the ingenuity of real men. When you come over the hill and see the green on number 8 you have to gasp. Finally you have a chance to turn a 200-yard drive into 350 plus. No fibbing or fuzzy math needed; this vertical drop is on your side. My heart rate doubled as we drove our supercharged golf cart down the winding path to the green and adjacent Pacific Ocean. Then we looked at the 9th tee. My inner woman wept as I gazed up at the 6-tiered tee boxes high above the green. We drove our cart slowly up the switchbacks to the black pro tees. After admiring the Pacific seascape, we let it rip with wedges to the green below. One false step or errant cart maneuver would have sent us to a watery grave in the cliffs and crashing waves below. However, my wife Wendy passed out the high fives when her drive ricocheted off a cliff and wound up closest to the hole.
On the green we found a mound of fresh dirt that had been created by a burrowing Mexican mole moments before our arrival. As we made the turn and headed to the equally spectacular and difficult back nine, we noticed that several greens keepers were following us on landscaping carts. As we left each hole they would mow and rake behind us to keep each hole immaculate. If we happened to hit an errant ball, the gardeners would venture into the wild with their machetes to retrieve it only to sell it back to us a few holes later.
After 18 holes, we were greeted by Ismael Galvan, the head pro at El Tamarindo, who laughed as we told him of our recent run-ins with wild animals and magnificent drives. After a satisfying day on the links we took our Ram Charger to the adjacent El Tamarindo Resort to settle in for the night. There on the sandy beach we watched the sun set over craggy cliffs and pterodactyl-like birds soar in the ocean mist. Each of the individual villas has a private pool and state-of-the-art sound and video not to mention king beds and sheets with 1000+ thread count. The food was spectacular, the company was wonderful, and I knew that this day of golf would go down as one of my best ever.
The next morning we headed north, back towards Puerto Vallarta. Our last stop along the way was at one of the most romantic small resorts on earth. Las Alamandas is located about an hour north of El Tamarindo and two hours south of Puerto Vallarta. This monument to romance has been providing rest to the likes of Brad Pitt, Robert DeNiro, and Fazio for over 30 years..
While there we met Las Alamedas’ owner, Isabel Goldsmith Patino, who finished the project that her grandfather had started in the 60’s. Antenor Patino, also known as the “Tin King”, was the son of the fifth wealthiest man in the world before his family’s Bolivian mining interests were nationalized in the 50’s. Antenor barely escaped with his life and a few million gold doubloons, which he used to build his exotic Moorish castle “Las Hadas” in Manzanillo (featured in Bo Derek’s movie “10″) and later start Las Alamandas. Isabel’s legacy has been to use her influence at Las Alamandas to conserve the Costa Allegre in a beautiful way for generations to come. Wendy and I agreed to count our stay at Las Alamandas as a second honeymoon.
We ended our week-long golf and beach vacation with a last-minute shopping trip at Puerto Vallarta’s famous Malecon boardwalk where we strutted our stuff then finished the evening with shrimp tacos and fajitas at the hip seaside restaurant Mi Querencia. In English, Mi Querencia means “my preference”. A fitting closing statement to a week filled with adventure, sunsets, wild animals, and some of the best golf memories I will ever have.
For more information about the golf courses and resorts mentioned in this article contact the following websites:
Mark Knudson is the owner of Fifty Best and MexicoInsideOut. He can be reached at fiftybest@hotmail.com or call 425-681-1627.
