CUBA:Four decades after Castro lost a game to Che Guevara, up to 10 new courses are planned, Rory Carrollreports from Havana
JOHAN VEGA knows the Havana Golf Club well. Too well. He has played every bunker, green and fairway thousands of times and the course has become monotonous.
"It's like being on a carousel, round and round, round and round. I can do it with my eyes shut."
To demonstrate, Vega drops a ball to his feet, closes his eyes and with an eight-iron makes a neat chip towards the green.
Golfers like to tackle different courses, but the Havana club is the city's sole one and Vega (37) its only instructor. He has worked here for 15 years with an increasing sense of groundhog day. "I could do with a change," he sighs.
He may get it. Half a century ago there were plenty of other courses, but Cuba's revolution annexed them on the grounds that they were capitalist, leaving the nine-hole Havana Golf Club and an 18-hole course in Varadero. The fact that Fidel Castro famously lost a round to Che Guevara did not help golf's case.
Now, however, the pendulum may be about to swing back. Fidel has relinquished power and there is talk of new courses opening across the island.
The Cuban tourism minister Manuel Marrero has said up to 10 courses may be built. The government is worried that the €1.25 billion-a-year tourism industry, a crucial foreign exchange earner, is slumping. High prices and mediocre facilities are blamed for a 4.3 per cent drop in visitor numbers in 2006 and another dip last year.
A particular concern is that few Britons, the most common visitors after Canadians, return for a second visit.
Enter golf. The sport has helped the nearby Dominican Republic boost tourist numbers and president Raul Castro, who has succeeded his ailing older brother, hopes it can do the same for the impoverished communist island.
"They know they need to get more money into here and they know golf may be able to do that," said one western diplomat.
Investors are being encouraged to build courses while the government plans a €112m upgrade of tourism infrastructure. A golf taskforce is said to have been formed, although details are sketchy.
A Canadian firm is considering a 36-hole course in eastern Cuba and European firms are investigating other sites. The London-based architects Foster and Partners have plans for a resort on the west coast, while the French firm Bouygues Batiment is considering a marina-and-golf project in Varadero.
But the plans have yet to leave the drawing board and sceptics dismiss the sport's revival as wishful thinking, not least because the state does not recognise the right to buy and sell property.
Rumours that investors will be granted 75-year leases remain rumours. Investors say the regime's desire for golf dollars is genuine, but bureaucracy and ideology stymie basic business.
"I've stopped going to government press conferences about this," said one Havana-based journalist. "They've been talking about golf for years. I'll believe it's happening when somebody starts actually building a course."
Golf arrived in Cuba in the 1920s and was associated with the Americanised elite. When the revolution triumphed in 1959, Havana had three courses. Fidel, though not keen on the game, played Guevara in 1962 as a publicity stunt.
Jose Lorenzo Fuentes, a reporter who covered the event, said the two revolutionaries were hyper-competitive. Fidel, a bad loser, resented being beaten, even though his deputy had more experience from caddying in his youth in Argentina.
The course, Colinas de Villareal, was ripped up and converted into an army barracks. Another course, the Havana Biltmore Golf Club, was turned into an arts school, leaving only the Havana Golf Club. Its grandeur has faded.
These days the bar is musty, tee-flags are missing and staff spend idle moments knocking fruit from the trees. The €12.50 fee - the average monthly state wage - means players tend to be diplomats and Cubans who work for foreign firms.
"It can get pretty quiet here," said Vega, the instructor, who grew up opposite the course. The loneliness of the long-distance runner is nothing compared to being one of a kind in Havana.
"It can feel pretty solitary." Apart from Varadero, Vega has never played another course, nor travelled abroad.
"I know every inch of this place. It's nice, but it gets boring."
Despite the odd visit by celebrities such as Diego Maradona there is little to break the monotony. "I don't know whether new courses will be built or not.
"If they are . . ." his voice trailed off, and he squinted down an all-too familiar fairway, "that would be lovely."