A FBF Featured Article by Departures

Learn more about our resort, this great article gives interesting insight into the PUNTACANA world and a few of Mr. Frank Rainieri's struggles. We know we're bombarding you with a lot of information but we're excited for our 45th Birthday and proud to tell our story. We hope you enjoy. A special thanks to Departures writer John Brodie.

One doesn’t need to be a golfer to appreciate the views on the 18th hole at PUNTACANA’s new Tom Fazio–designed course. Dotted with fuchsia-colored bougainvillea, the 500-yard dogleg-to-the-right is perched dramatically atop ocean cliffs. Standing at the tee, high above the seaspray, takes your breath away. For those lucky enough to play here, the panorama makes for an unforgettable final hole.

The only imperfection in this spectacularly manicured vista is a crumbling ruin of a stone wall I notice in the distance. Frank Elias Rainieri, the 33-year-old son of the resort’s founder, explains that when his father opened Puntacana with just four rooms in the early 1970s, “there was no airport, no infrastructure, nothing. So he tried to make money any way he could, and the ruin is all that is left of one of his schemes—a salt factory for evaporating seawater.”