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Haiti has one golf course, the Petionville Club, a little nine-holer on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, the nation's capital. Since the 7.0-magnitude earthquake devastated the country on Jan. 12, the course has been transformed into a refugee camp manned by the 82nd Airborne Division.
The golf course has been covered with shabby tents assembled from poles and sheets. Near the ninth green, relief workers pass out water, MREs (meals ready to eat) and high-protein biscuits. Helicopters drop provisions, but not everyone gets a ration. Last Saturday the soldiers handed out more than 2,500 meals before they ran out. The latest estimates have more than 10,000 people living on the course.
Bill Evans, a 62-year old American, is the general manager and president of the club. He lives at the modest facility, where non-members can play for $30. Built in the early 1930s during the last years of the U.S. occupation, the course now claims around 400 members. The short layout doesn't include any par 5s, and all the grasses are indigenous and self-sustaining. The club is not exclusive to the international elites who keep it afloat. In the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, where water and electricity are luxury items, there is little room for a golf elite.
"On a typical day you're going to find caddies playing with members," Evans said. "It's not some snobby, elitist golf course."