REVISTA PALMAS 68 OCTUBRE 2022

PRESENT
decided to test Seth. He suffered a series of heart attacks. Seth
believes that Toñin Casillas is the reason he is alive today. He is
the one who suggested that he should see Dr. Eladio Castrodad,
where he was treated with great dedication. Dr. Castrodad recommended
that he should go to Boston for further care, and that
ended in a successful open-heart surgery.
The Palm Course, a Gary Player design, opened nine holes for
play in November 1973, with the grand opening of the full 18 holes
in May of 1974. It was not until 2001 that the Flamboyan course
opened, designed by Rees Jones, the US Open doctor who has
redesigned golf courses where major tournaments are played.
Among the golf courses designed by Rees Jones we can find Hazeltine
National, where the 1970 US Open was played, Bethpage
Black, and Torrey Pines East; all of these have delivered memorable
US Opens throughout the years.
Both golf courses in Palmas are environmentally sound and they
were designed to adapt to the land where they were built as to
avoid disrupting the ecosystem. The original owner, Mr. Fraser,
also a developer, was an environmentalist before it was cool to be
one, just ask Seth about his fights to keep a tree, a bush, a mangrove
etc. His motto was that nothing could be built in Palmas that
was taller than a palm tree.
Palmas del Mar golf courses have had a 56-year evolution with
a lot of challenges and setbacks, economically and nature wise
but thanks to our General Manager, Seth Bull, together with his
incredible team that he has been able to pull together through
the years, we can see some light at the end of the tunnel.
It takes a lot of hard work to become a great golf destination-- it
is a combination of great golf tournaments, great facilities for their
members and guests and, another important piece of the puzzle,
is the creation of programs that foment the game of golf between
their members, especially the young ones.
In the late 1970s, Palmas Del Mar was host to numerous local
tournaments, but Seth decided to amplify the scope of the tournaments
to bring Palmas from a local golf venue to an international
one. Some of these prestigious tournaments were the TWA
Pro-Am championships, celebrated for seven consecutive years.
By the mid-90’s we had the Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf with
Lee Treviño and our own Chi Chi Rodriguez which aired on ABC.
Another important event that put Palmas on the map was the
Cheito Oquendo Scholarship Fund Tournament which was sponsored
by Budweiser for four years to benefit the Hispanic Youth
Foundation. These tournaments attracted a lot of baseball celebrities
like Ed Figueroa, Juan Marichal, Candy Maldonado, Don
Zimmer, Eddie Murray just to mention a few. Another important
event that was celebrated in Palmas was an NCAA tournament for
the top 5 college golf teams representing both men and women.
The tournament that is closest to Seth Bull’s heart, no pun intended,
is the Seth Bull Open which has raised a whopping 2 million
dollars in benefit of the Asociacion Puertorriqueña Del Corazon
(Puerto Rican Heart Association).