Cariari Country Club

Overview: Cariari Country Club is an 18-hole private course in the Central Valley near San José, designed by George Fazio and built on land that was once a coffee plantation. The directory's 6,590-yard championship figure and par 71 describe a course whose challenge comes from mature trees, narrow tree-lined fairways, large greens and carefully placed sand hazards. The layout is not a resort-style coastal course: its character comes from the established parkland, the Central Valley climate and the way the vegetation frames the approach to each green.

History: Construction of Cariari's championship course began in the early 1970s, with George Fazio responsible for the design and his nephew Tom Fazio involved in construction. Current course references use 1974 as the opening year, while other records list 1973, so the field is retained with that small date qualification. Cariari became Costa Rica's first championship 18-hole course and for many years stood as the country's main international golf venue. The surrounding coffee-landscape history remains important because the mature fairways developed from an agricultural property rather than from a newly cleared resort site.

Did You Know? Cariari hosted the Costa Rica Open in February 2006 and was also the venue for the Friendship Cup in 1979 and 1980. Those events show how the course served both national golf and larger regional competition while retaining its private-club setting.