I highly recommend Paradisus Palma Real in Punta Cana. The resort was absolultely perfect. The service was impeccable as was the grounds and food. Across the street was Cocotal Country Cub. A very sporty and fun course, pretty wide open, and in immaculate shape. We played it five times and I would have no problem going back and playing it five times again. When we stayed, golf was included with our room, for the cost of an inflated cart fee.
The concierge desk at the hotel provided golf excursions to all the courses in the area, and in the middle of the summer , there were some pretty good deals.
Wow, can't believe you recommend Cocotal. I just got back from Punta Cana yesterday. Stayed at Paradisus Palma Real, as you did. The resort was nice, very pretty, actually. Spacious also, with plenty of room to either be secluded or together with people per one's preference.
The food, though, was very mediocre. It's "all inclusive," so you get what you pay for. The meals ranged from the absolutely horrible (anything room service), to the mediocre (every restaurant we went to except Passion), to the good (Martin Berasategui's "Passion," which you have to pay an up-charge for).
The golf was a joke. Cocotal was boring, flat, and lacked challenge except from length. It "features": Wide fairways; super-slow, enormous, soft greens with little (for the most part) undulation; little to no elevation change; Bermuda fairways cut high so that the ball sits up on a tee just about every shot), poor, mis-kept bunkering, and is surrounded by homes and includes children riding tricycles and teens riding bikes on the course.
To me, Dooks is "sporty." Maybe Elie from the look of it. But to call a soggy, flat, very long (well over 7,000 yards from the back tees), mostly wide-open course "sporty," just does not at all ring true with me.
But, hey, to each his own.... ;-)