Golf Adventures fulfills the Blanks
By Dave Seanor, Senior Editor Golf Week

From Golf Week 7-31-2004

Susan and Landy Blank

Nine years ago, Landy Blank and his wife, Susan, saw the future of golf in Costa Rica. They decided to be part of it. They sold the restaurant they owned in Charleston, S.C. They sold their home and most of its contents. They arrived here with four suitcases and three dogs and started a company called Costa Rica Golf Adventures.

"I tend to be realistic about things, but this was one time I threw caution to the wind," says Susan Blank. "It was one time when I wanted to take a chance, and I'm glad we did."

Costa Rica Golf Adventures brings close to 400 golfers to the country annually. The company hopes to boost that number with the recent launch of an affiliate program that compensates PGA professionals in the United States who make referrals or book groups through CRGA. The Blanks arrange transportation, accommodations and tee times. They'll also make dinner reservations and book side trips such as fishing, horseback riding and rafting.

"Once you visit, you go back again," Landy says. "If you go back twice, and interact with the people and get to know them, it becomes more than a vacation. You aspire to live here."

Golf hasn't exactly exploded in Costa Rica - there are fewer than 10 quality 18-hole facilities in the country, spread mostly along the Pacific coast - but the combination of golf with the multitude of outdoor activities it has to offer has enabled the Blanks to grow a business.

"We're relatively inexpensive," Landy says of his golf offerings, "but we're not cheap."

Packages put together by Costa Rica Golf Adventures typically run from $1,000 to $1,800 per person (double occupancy) for a seven-night stay and four rounds of golf. Ninety percent of the Blanks' bookings are customized to include additional golf, fishing or other side trips.

Blank figures his itineraries won't change much in the coming years.

"I don't really anticipate a lot of golf courses being built here," he says. "The country doesn't lend itself to golf all over the place."

Blank says that rather than new golf developments springing up, existing facilities will expand. New courses are on the drawing boards at the Four Seasons, Paradisus Playa Conchal and Hacienda Pinilla. Blank says there are at least nine properties under development on the high ground of the Papaguya Peninsula in the Guanacaste region, some of which are likely to include golf.

If they do, Costa Rica Golf Adventures undoubtedly will be the first to know.

For more information on Costa Rica Golf Adventures, call 877-258-2688 or visit www.golfcr.com. PGA professionals seeking information about the affiliates program can visit www.golfcr.com/affiliates.