Ah the heat of summer beckons. It’s about time to get out of the rut. I finally had the temerity to sign up for a golf lesson at Havana’s one and only golf course, the nine-hole Havana Golf Club, which I had been angling to do for the longest time. In my best imitation of reigning U.S. Masters champ and YouTube trickster Bubba Watson, I only spent, half a day of lessons, at most, before deciding to learn my swing on my own. I think this was for the best because I refused to follow the instructions of my exasperated instructor, old man Vega, to his immense consternation.
It shouldn’t be that difficult, I muttered to myself when I first packed the second-hand set I obtained from a departing Indonesian colleague for a song. I played competitive baseball when I was younger. A couple of months and scores of lost golf balls later, all I can show is that I can tee off without much difficulty (as if that’s much of an achievement).
In a par 35 course, my best score so far has been 56 and that already includes some fudging. When all else fails, it’s easy to heap the blame on the unkempt Carabao grass of the sole surviving golf course in the city of Havana. And, boy, have I not taken advantage of the opportunity. I have been playing golf almost every day (when the weather permits) ,including weekends when I saunter off to the only 18-hole world class golf course in Cuba in Varedero Beach, four hours away from Havana.
What an odd feeling it is playing the Capitalist’s game, as Fidel and Che called it, in Socialist Cuba! The Havana Golf Club was once the the ex-British-owned Rovers Athletic Club in the 1950s This was the only one which the Castro regime allowed to survive among all of the golf courses in the city. All the others were shuttered and converted into military barracks and even an art school.
Prior to its “nationalization” in the 1990s, the Havana Golf Club was an oasis of elitism in egalitarian Havana, where the privileged few, mostly expats, were allowed to enjoy the forbidden game. Old timers such as my golf instructor, old man Vega, like to reminisce about those golden years when they learned the game by caddying for those long disappeared elites. Discussions always seemingly revert to the “good old days.”
The golf course is a time capsule, a shadow of its former self. Animals, even pedestrians looking for a shortcut, freely mingle with golfers along the links. The grass seems unkempt amid groves of mango and pine trees. The club’s crew mightily tries to keep it up to standards. With the onset of the rainy season, swarms of mosquitos always seemingly bombard golfers that my glove once became red with my own blood for having squished so many of those interloping insects.
As they said when I first started playing here: “If you can survive playing on this course, you can play anywhere else.” The golf course is narrow, thus it demands accuracy. Teeing off at Hole Number 1 is especially a challenge as it borders a road on the right side, which by the way, does not have a perimeter fence to separate it from the course. Hence, outsiders who are looking to grab your wayward balls shadow you the whole way only to sell it you later for a fee. To top it all off, hole markers keep getting stolen so wood replacements are sometimes used in their stead.
Since this is Havana’s only golf course, this means that there would always be a long queue of golfers behind or in front of you. Woe it is to them who get stuck behind my group as we are all beginners. One time, a Spanish retiree who playing behind us nonchalantly remarked that had we been playing in other countries, we would not have been allowed. I casually responded by giving him the middle finger.
Club crew swear that Diego Maradona, who spent time in Havana for drug rehab, frequently played golf when he was “convalescing.” Wanted Cuban-Americans who stole millions from the US Medicare are also known aficionados along with a number of known cigar smugglers and probably some drug smugglers sprinkled in as well (who knows). Practically similar characters abound in our Havana Cigar Club. We are all there to experience something that the vast majority of our contemporaries would not be able to do in our lifetime – play golf in exotic Havana while smoking Habanos and drinking mojitos.
Not everybody can brag about having done that. Perhaps “in our lifetime” would be a reach. Even now, new golf projects are under consideration by the Cuban government to entice more tourists from abroad. What’s next, casinos? That would be a truly great development and I would seriously consider retiring here as well just like a number of my fellow club members.
By the way, the reason why the Cuban government took over the club from the British was because it had gained notoriety as a mixing place for spies. It sounds like coming from a thriller novel: foreign spies secretly reconnoitering with their assets amid the din of cocktails. That too has long been gone. Heck, if this current crop of players counts spies among them, they need to upgrade their wardrobe. I myself love to wear my basketball sando shirt on the links, which terribly looks silly, of course, but nobody really cares!