Puntacana Resort & Club: La Cana

Now a 27-hole complex, the original 18 holes opened in 2001 with the corridors carved out of what was then virgin jungle. The development has filled in around the course, and it no longer feels like an exotic voyage on a lost island—but the in-your-face architecture of designer P.B. Dye, son of the late Pete Dye who is responsible for so much of the golf DNA of the Dominican Republic, is no less exhilarating. Dye throws everything into La Cana—including the kitchen sink: buckshot pot bunkers; vast waste areas; a hole with over 20 bunkers and one with zero; bulkheaded hazards; and an island green surrounded by a moat of sand and a peninsula putting surface projecting over the beach and into the ocean.