Dominican Republic

Americas

13 Mar

Written By Simon Campbell

Play Pete Dye’s iconic Teeth of the Dog while indulging in some of the finest cigars on the planet at the ProCigar Festival.

There’s myriad reasons to visit the Dominican Republic: a semi-tropical paradiso where the Atlantic ocean and Caribbean sea collide in dramatic fashion. The second largest island in the Greater Antilles archipelago [sharing the land with Haiti], it’s a place where you can find as much beauty below the waves as above it – including world-class diving to 16th-century shipwrecks – but for those in the know, you’ll know it as ‘Cigar Country’. Nestled among its valleys are some of the most fertile tobacco fields in the world, putting the republic on a par with, or indeed above, Cuba among cigar aficionados.

Every February it hosts the ProCigar festival, which brings in thousands of tobacconistas to witness, first-hand, the intricate process of cigar making, take in guided tours of historic tobacco fields and meet the gurus of the cigar world, often while sampling the best of Dominican Republic cuisine. Needless to say, Cigar Country’s finest, premium cigars are always at hand.

Away from the festival, the golf is exceptional, including Tom Fazio’s modern masterpiece, Corales. Less than an hour away, on the western side of the Cotubanama National Park, sits Casa de Campo, home to a trio of Pete Dye brilliance, including its crown jewel, the Teeth of the Dog, the Caribbean’s finest course and one of the American’s seminal works.

*Teeth of the Dog Course will be closed from January 20th 2025 until November 30th 2025