One more revolution - Cubs's first pro golf tournament since the revolution

Golf Digest, Jan, 2000 by Thomas L. Friedman

Before the revolution

And if the North Koreans are looking for cover, they can just follow Castro's precedent. For years, the only course in Cuba was the nine-hole Club de Golf Havana, located in a forested area between downtown Havana and the airport. When I showed up to play one afternoon last September, I was assigned as my guide the club's most experienced caddie, 75-year-old Angel Miguel Rodriguez, whose arms and legs weren't much wider than the bubble shafts on my Taylor Mades.

"So, who have you caddied for, An-gel?" I ask, to get a feel for his pedigree.

"Sam Snead, Jimmy Demaret, King Leopold of Belgium--they all been here--before the revolution," answers Angel, who has been caddieing since 1944. A few holes into my round with Angel, I crushed a drive and, in my en-thusiasm (and knowing I was the only one on the course), I did a brief Tarzan yell.

"He was here too," says Angel, not missing a beat. "Yeah, Johnny Weissmuller, he was here, too--before the revolution."

The Club de Golf Havana is a study in contrasts. The holes wind through a parkland setting that is stunningly beautiful. The rolling fairways are lined with coconut trees, royal palms and tall pines, and a small creek bisects the course. Unfortunately, the greens and fairways are not in good shape. Drainage is poor and the grass on the spongy fairways is a variety I had never encountered before. Angel described it as "chicken's leg"--possibly a distant cousin of Bermuda, more likely a close relative of crabgrass.

The putting greens also had a feature I had never encountered in golf on five continents: anthills. After I would hit my ball onto a green, Angel would walk down my putting line and smash all the anthills between me and the hole. Unfortunately, if my ball was just a bit off line, it would hit an anthill and careen off in another direction, like a pinball. I got no sympathy from my caddie, who would just shake his head as my ball went a foot wide of the hole. Like it was my fault! (It reminded me of a caddie I once had in Jakarta, Indonesia, who told me a certain putt should be struck "one ball outside the hole." When my putt ended up a foot outside the hole, the caddie said drolly, "I said a golf ball, not a soccer ball!")

Like those at Pine Valley, none of the bunkers at the Club de Golf Havana have rakes in them. Unlike Pine Valley, it's because the Club de Golf Havana can't afford rakes, or flags, so a long, shaved tree limb with a white rag at the top serves as the flagstick for each hole.

The Club de Golf Havana is techni-cally a private club, but anyone can play. The initiation fee is $70, monthly dues are $45 and green fees are $4 for members and $30 for nonmembers. Caddie fees are $6. Using different tees, but the same basic nine holes, the club has put together a par-70, 18-hole layout that measures 5,892 yards. The club holds an annual tournament, the Cubalse Cup, named after the Cuban holding company that owns the property, and it even offers a free Peugeot for anyone who makes a hole-in-one. Most of the players are dip-lomats or foreign businessmen. Regular Cubans either can't afford to play or simply aren't interested. Marlene Negrin, the caddiemaster, bemoans her countrymen's lack of interest in golf.