Don’t miss this entertaining José de Córdoba/W$J article on the dour legacy of golf in Communist Cuba and the attempt to revive the game to attract more tourism. Turns out that the game flagged in Cuba after Che’ Guevara kicked Fidel Castro’s ass in a big golf game shortly after Castro seized power:

In 1962, Mr. Castro lost a round of golf to Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who had been a caddy in his Argentine hometown before he became a guerrilla icon. Mr. Castro’s defeat may have had disastrous consequences for the sport. He had one Havana golf course turned into a military school, another into an art school. A journalist who wrote about the defeat of Cuba’s Maximum Leader, who was a notoriously bad loser, was fired the next day. [.  .  .]

The famous game between Messrs. Castro and Guevara took place shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis, according to José Lorenzo Fuentes, Mr. Castro’s former personal scribe, who covered the game. Mr. Lorenzo Fuentes says the match was supposed to send a friendly signal to President Kennedy. "Castro told me that the headline of the story the next day would be ‘President Castro challenges President Kennedy to a friendly game of golf,’" he says.

But the game became a competitive affair between two men who did not like to lose, says Mr. Lorenzo Fuentes, who recalls that Mr. Guevara "played with a lot of passion." Mr. Lorenzo Fuentes says he felt he couldn’t lie about the game’s outcome, so he wrote a newspaper story saying Fidel had lost. Mr. Lorenzo Fuentes says he lost his job the next day, eventually fell afoul of the regime and now lives in Miami.

At any rate, Raul Castro has jumped started efforts to rebuild Cuba’s golf infrastructure for tourism purposes. But it’s not going to be easy. First, there is that whole "private property is a bad thing" problem:

To make golf tourism work, Cuba, which does not recognize the right to buy and sell property, will have to permit leases of as long as 75 years for foreigners, to entice them to invest in the villas and condos on which modern golf development depends. Some believe those leases are the tip of the spear that will, over time, reinstate full property rights. [.  .  .]

If history is any guide, bringing back golf won’t be easy. "Cuba is the sand trap from hell," says John Kavulich, senior policy adviser at the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, who has followed the travails of entrepreneurs trying to develop golf projects in Cuba.

On the other hand, given how the U.S. golf industry is going, maybe investing in the sand trap from hell is not looking all that bad.

Speaking of Cuba, don’t miss this Michael Stasny post (with pictures) on his recent trip to Cuba. He notes at the end of the post:

Cubans don’t have access to "world news" (no foreign newspapers, no internet, no satellite dishes), so the people I talked with were actually quite happy with their situation ("We don’t earn much, but as opposed to other countries education and health care is for free!" (translation mine)) and couldn’t see that people in developed countries who are considered as dirt poor have a way higher living standard (I didn’t have the impression that they were afraid to speak openly).

The rest of the trip I stayed on the beach in Varadero, a tourist zone that is closed for Cubans (only those who work there can enter). The hotel was really nice (Iberostar Varadero) and the service was excellent. In case you like being on the beach and food and a fast and cheap internet connection isn’t your highest priority, it’s the place to be.