The brief: four golfers, three nights at Casa de Campo, three Pete Dye courses. The resort sits on 7,000 acres of Dominican coastline east of La Romana — a private beach, three courses, a marina, and a hilltop medieval village above a river gorge. The golf is the reason to go. The property makes everything around the golf easy.
Golf carts are how you get around. At 7,000 acres, they are not optional.
Day 1 — Arrive in La Romana · Casa de Campo
La Romana International Airport (LRM) is twelve minutes from the resort gate. American and JetBlue connect through San Juan; direct service is available from select cities in season. Arrival day is a travel day — no golf is scheduled, and the itinerary doesn't try to force one.
Check in. Take the cart out. Minitas Beach is a short drive from the main hotel — a private stretch of white sand on the Caribbean with clear, shallow water and chaise loungers in the shade of palms. The resort's signature drink is a piña colada served in a fresh, local pineapple. That is what arrival afternoon looks like.
In the evening, take the cart up to Altos de Chavón — the resort's replica medieval village on a bluff above the Chavón River gorge, built in the late 1970s by Italian designer Roberto Copa. It looks, improbably, like it was lifted from the Ligurian coast and set down 300 feet above a Caribbean river. The views down the gorge at dusk are genuinely good.
Dinner at Chilango Taqueria, which sits at the center of Plaza Chavón overlooking the square and the St. Stanislaus church. It's a vibrant Mexican street food taquería — tacos, fresh ingredients, outdoor seating — and the right room for an arrival evening: casual, loud enough, no occasion required. Open until 11pm.
Day 2 — Teeth of the Dog
The round the trip is built around.
Pete Dye designed Teeth of the Dog in 1971, and the course has since been fully restored and reopened to the standard it was built for. It is ranked the number-one course in the Caribbean and number seven in the world among the GOLF Magazine Top 100 courses — not Caribbean-qualified, globally. Eighteen holes, par 72, 7,263 yards from the championship tees. Seven of the holes play directly along the Caribbean Sea, with the ocean in play or immediately adjacent on more than a third of the round. The course rating is 76.0 from the back. That number is doing real work. The carry holes along the sea — the 5th, the 16th, the stretch in between — are played into whatever the Caribbean is doing that morning. The wind changes the club selection and the risk calculation on every one of them.
Dye's Teeth of the Dog is a resort course in the way that Augusta is a members club — the designation understates what it is. Block the full day.
Afternoon at the La Caña Pool Bar at the main hotel. The pool is quiet mid-afternoon, the bar is steps from the rooms. The round earns it.
Dinner at La Caña Restaurant, the resort's French restaurant at the main hotel. The name comes from the sugar cane fields that have defined La Romana since the early 1900s — local ingredients in French-inspired preparations, from dinner through a late evening at the bar. By night the room shifts: live music, hand-rolled Dominican cigars, a selection of local rums. Dinner from 6pm to 11pm, the bar until 1am.
Day 3 — Dye Fore · 27 Holes
Dye Fore is 27 holes across three nine-hole configurations — Lagos, Marina, and Chavón — and a full day here means playing all of them. Seven holes run along cliff edges that drop 300 feet to the Chavón River below. The views from those holes — 360 degrees of Dominican mountains, the river, the marina, and Altos de Chavón on its bluff in the distance — are as good as golf scenery gets. Holes 12 and 15 have been called two of the greatest and most challenging par 3s in the world.
At 7,740 yards in full configuration, it is not Teeth of the Dog — which is the right way to sequence it. Day 3 is a long, full, technically demanding day of golf with a different character from the day before. Golf carts handle the transitions between nines. The round takes the better part of the day.
Dinner at La Piazzetta at Altos de Chavón — the resort's Italian and Mediterranean restaurant in the village above the gorge. A different room from La Caña: an older setting, a wine-forward menu, and the Altos de Chavón atmosphere at night when the village is lit and quieter than it was at arrival.
Day 4 — The Links · Depart
Morning round on The Links before the drive to LRM.
Pete Dye called this course his "Dye 101" layout — 18 holes, just over 7,000 yards, slope 126. Wide fairways and challenging green complexes, with undulating putting surfaces and tall Bahia grass framing sculpted bunkers. Several holes carry direct views of the Caribbean Sea. It is the most playable course Dye designed in his career, and it plays that way — a morning round that closes three days of serious golf without requiring anything the group doesn't have left. The right course for exactly this position in the sequence.
Flight home from LRM by early afternoon.
Three Pete Dye courses, one per day of golf. Teeth of the Dog is available exclusively to resort guests and their companions — access to the number-one course in the Caribbean is a function of where the group is staying.
On the package: We recommend the Unlimited Golf plan for this trip. It covers daily tee times on Dye Fore and The Links, meals at the resort's signature restaurants, drinks, and four-passenger golf carts for the property. Some exclusions apply, but the practical effect is that the group eats and drinks for three nights without watching a bill — which is the right way to run a golf trip. Teeth of the Dog carries a separate green fee, as it does for every guest at the resort.
