The only time Cuba's Fidel Castro is known to have played golf was in 1961, in a stunt thumbing his nose at the United States.
Cuba is now setting aside any ideological objections and embracing golf.
Investors from Canada and Europe have proposed building gated communities with luxury hotels, villas and condos surrounding 18-and 36-hole golf courses near beach resorts across the Caribbean island.
Some of the projects, which include one by top British architect Norman Foster's firm, has been on the drawing board for years and their backers are hoping Cuba's new president, Raul Castro, will give them the green light to revive golf.
"Old-school objections to golf on ideological grounds have fallen away," said Mark Entwistle, a former Canadian ambassador to Havana who now consults to foreign companies planning to do business here.
There are today at least 10 golf resort projects in the pipeline at various stages in the approval process, Entwistle said.
The only time Fidel Castro was seen armed with a putter instead of a gun was two years after seizing power in the revolution in 1959 that ousted US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista and changed Cuba from a Mafia playground into a Soviet ally.
That was in March 1961, one month before the disastrous landing by CIA-trained Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs. Castro played golf with Ernesto "Che" Guevara, wearing military fatigues and boots, as a publicity stunt then.
The Colinas de Villareal golf course where the two revolutionaries played was soon turned into a military camp.
Havana's elite Country Club was taken over and its fairways became the grounds of Cuba's top arts and music school.
Today, Cuba's capital has only one 9-hole course, the former British-owned Rovers Athletic Club, where foreign businessmen and diplomats play.
The rugged course has seen better days - sticks are used for flag poles on the parched greens. Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona played there almost every day when he lived in Cuba undergoing treatment for cocaine addiction.
The only new golf course since the Cuban revolution was opened in 1998 at the Cuba's prime resort of Varadero after the country opened up to foreign investment and tourism in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The 18-hole Varadero Golf Club is on the grounds of Xanadu, a seaside mansion built by US chemical industry millionaire Irenee du Pont.
Cuba's new interest in golf arises in response to the stagnation of its $2 billion-a-year tourist trade, which saw the number of visitors dwindle in 2006 and 2007.
Cuba has no choice but to build new golf courses if it wants to compete with other Caribbean resorts in Mexico, Jamaica or the Dominican Republic, a smaller country that draws more tourists than Cuba and has 22 golf courses, says Miami lawyer Antonio Zamora, an expert on Cuban real estate.
"If you have a tourist industry you have to offer tourists what they want, and they want golf courses as much as they want beaches, pools and entertainment," Zamora said.
Questions:
1. What year did Fidel Castro play a round of golf?
2. Name the only golf course currently in the Cuban capital.
3. Why is Cuba so keen to build golf courses?
Answers:
1.1961.
2.The Rovers Athletic Club.
3.To revive its flagging tourism industry so that it can compete with other Caribbean resorts.
（英語點津 Celene 編輯）
About the broadcaster:
Bernice Chan is a foreign expert at China Daily Website. Originally from Vancouver, Canada, Bernice has written for newspapers and magazines in Hong Kong and most recently worked as a broadcaster for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, producing current affairs shows and documentaries
