Some golf courses are built for the game. Others are built for the place. The difference is not in the yardage or the par — it is in whether the designer arrived at the site with a preconceived plan or with open eyes. Gregory T. Letsche belongs to the second school.
Reading the land before touching the pencil
Letsche’s design process always begins the same way: walking. Weeks before a single line appears on paper, the team walks the land in every possible condition of light — dawn, midday, sunset, rain. In the case of Country Lakes, that meant exploring the 1,100 hectares of the northern zone of Hunucmá, identifying the natural sightlines toward the water bodies, and understanding how the wind off the Gulf affects ball flight at different times of year.
The result of that initial reading dictated something that defines the course: most holes have a direct view of the water. Not because the plan demanded it — but because the land asked for it. The lakes are the structuring element of the landscape, and the course embraces them rather than ignoring them.
A par 72 with tropical character
The Country Lakes course is an 18-hole par 72 with a total length of roughly 6,800 meters from the championship tees. But the statistics are the least interesting part. What distinguishes the course is its rhythm: the front nine builds progressive tension — wider opening holes that gain definition toward the turn — and the back nine intensifies the dialogue with the lakes, with the most spectacular holes reserved for the finish.
Technical characteristics of the course:
- 18 holes, par 72, ~6,800 meters from the championship tees
- Multiple tee positions for different playing levels
- Fairways of tropical grasses adapted to the Yucatán climate
- Greens designed with subtle slopes and natural contours
- Water hazards integrated as landscape elements, not merely as penalties
- Golf academy and a 400-yard driving range
The course as everyday landscape
Perhaps the most relevant thing for someone who lives at Country Lakes is not playing golf — it is living inside the course. Boma’s private communities are designed so that the horizon visible from many homes is the fairway, the lake, or both. The course is not an amenity set apart from the development: it is the landscape one lives in every day, whether you play or not.
“A well-designed golf course is, first, a park. The game is its reason for being, but the visual and spatial experience is what makes it part of the home.”
That is what Letsche delivers at Country Lakes: a course that is at once a demanding sport and a garden of monumental scale. The ball matters. The place matters more.