Just golfing around – Punta Mita Resort, Riviera Nayarit, Mexico

Posted By JIM WILSON, QMI AGENCY
The Kingston Whig Stnadard

Okay, for the record I don’t golf.

Nice sport. Interesting sport. I just don’t play.

So when I found myself heading to Punta Mita, a new gated resort development about 30 km up the coast from Puerto Vallarta and home to two new Jack Nicklaus Signature courses, friends and colleagues, looked at me quizzically.

Especially with word that Nicklaus himself would be on hand to inaugurate the second, Bahia.
Truth is, I have golfed — and that tree in Bermuda probably still has the scar from my three-iron to prove it.

And the larger truth is, I love Mexico, not unlike the 1.2 mil ion other Canadians who become enraptured every year. Drug wars and swine flu notwithstanding, there is little substitute for its warmth -literal and figurative – culture and just plain fun.

In contrast to the almost tiresome Cancuns and Acapulcos, Punta Mita is the new kid on the block.

The developers — DINE, one of Mexico’s largest — arrived about a dozen years ago and haven’t so much built Punta Mita as they have sculpted it out of a 1,500- acre spear-shaped peninsula. The master plan calls for some 1,000 residences — currently there are about 250 — shops, restaurants and, yes, probably another golf course and resort to go along with the dazzling five-star Four Seasons and St. Regis.

The architecture, atmosphere and clientele are decidedly upscale, which come to think of it might be another reason for a non-golfer to feel slightly out of place.

But this lasts for, oh, about 35 seconds — enough time to look out over the shimmering Pacific from the expansive open lobby on a sultry fall day and be handed a cocktail by an even warmer face.

Around me I hear chatter about — argh! — golf. But already my mind is elsewhere, like wading along some 15 km of sandy beach meandering its way along the coast of Banderas Bay.

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