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In the News from Panama

Golf Reporter Gets Hooked On Panama

By Jeff Barton 

Image Source: Travel Weekly Santa Maria Article 

A senior staff writer for Golf Advisor recently visited Panama and now he says he “can’t get Panama (golf) out of his head.”

Panama may not be well-known in golf circles, but it has “a wonderful history in the game,” Jason Scott Deegan writes. And he thinks Panama may finally be ready to get some credit in the international community.

“The April grand opening of The Santa Maria, a Luxury Collection Hotel & Golf Resort might be a breakthrough moment in that pursuit,’ Deegan writes.

He’s referring to the 18-hole course designed by Nicklaus Design in Santa Maria, the fast-growing master-planned community outside Costa del Este, a few minutes from downtown Panama City. The course is the anchor to a thriving new community with a variety of exclusive residential developments.

The golf course’s “character comes from the backdrop of high rises, both the apartment buildings right on the course and the city’s skyscrapers several miles off,” Deegan writes.

(Deegan also expressed a common reaction to his first visit to Panama City: “I had no idea Panama City’s skyline was so breathtaking. It seems every major international corporation has a Latin American headquarters here.”)

Santa Maria “gives Panama two fine golf resorts worth experiencing,” along with the Buenaventura Golf and Beach Resort, in west Panama, about a two-hour drive from the city. Deegan writes. Deegan presents a nice review of the courses around Panama City, as well as a little history of golf in Panama.

Read the Golf Advisor article here.

Travel Weekly, the travel industry trade magazine, also paid a recent visit to Santa Maria, a Luxury Collection Hotel & Golf Resort, and came away impressed. Shortly after a quick drive from the airport, “I was starting to understand the ‘urban oasis’ aspect of the hotel, wrote Eric Moya. The resort is “ideally situated to cater to the scores of business travelers who make their way through the country known as the ‘Crossroads of the World,’” but is positioned as a “destination authority” hotel, he writes.

Read the Travel Weekly report here.