TOM

By Tom Bedell

In my last post I mentioned a long history of twisted swing thoughts, best illustrated by this drawing a member of the MOTO Research Team sent me awhile back. It’s presumably been making the rounds since 1995. No one seems to know what genius concocted it, but if anyone ever finds out or the artist steps forward, let’s give a tip of the golf cap for this expert rendering, which hilariously captures the essence of the cranial eruption that is the golf swing, said to occur in 1.5 seconds.

The mixture of axiom and admonition here, wonderfully contradictory with the jocular exhortation to, “Have fun!!” finds its literary equivalent in “Swing Thoughts,” by John Updike, part of his collection Golf Dreams (Knopf, 1996), which would first on my list of desert island golf books, and quite possibly sufficient to the job.

By Tom Bedell

My man Fish, cigar aficionado that he is, would have enjoyed my recent trip to the Dominican Republic and Roco Ki, the emerging resort community on the country’s eastern shore. Not only were the cigars being hand-rolled on the spot, but everyone and their mother were smoking them.

The cigars were just an amenity, of course. The point of the visit was a preview of The Faldo Legacy Course and the Westin Roco Ki Beach & Golf Resort, which will initially anchor what will ultimately be a whopping four-course development with luxury real estate offerings. Actually, the real estate opportunities are already being snapped up. Tee times and hotel reservations may still be a bit premature. The course should be finished in August, and designer Nick Faldo will show up for the grand opening in December, when the hotel is scheduled to be completed. Stay tuned.

We played eight holes of the course for a few go-rounds, doubling up on what will be hole seventeen. This is an easy par-3 from an elevated tee, a mere 120-yard poke. Easy, at least, for blind golfers. The sighted will have too much information to contend with, on what promises to become one of the most photographed holes in golfdom. So why not get started?:

Feel something tightening up? What should be a fairly simple wedge shot is now complicated by sea, sky, rocks, wild vegetation, crashing surf, wind, and a long mental history of twisted swing thoughts. Probably a good time to swing fast and look up. Maybe the view from a helicopter will help?:

Well, maybe not. Still the shot is more visually than technically daunting, and easier from an alternate tee box that doesn’t require crossing that yawning rocky gap. But that initial view is from a tee box shared with the eighteenth hole. Turn around and another startling tee shot is at hand, this a par-5 that crosses the sea twice:

A look at the unfinished holes suggest that Faldo really puts the hammer down on the course from the fourteenth hole onward and finishing up with these two beauties, but it will be a resort course, and hence the right tee choice should yield safe options for all.

Faldo first visited the property six years ago. The six-time major winner felt the property was exciting, with its Cambodia Meets the Monterey Peninsula look, but took on the project with a certain amount of apprehension. According to Nick Edmunds, the managing director of Faldo Designs, the chief said, “If we don’t create one of the world’s great golf courses here we will have failed.”

Time will tell, but Faldo also said that hole seventeen, in the wind, “Will be one of the most enjoyable sixes of your life.” And he was right about that.