Editorial Policy, Ownership Disclosure & Corrections
Ownership disclosure
GolfVilla.com is owned and edited by Rob Bender, who also owns Villa Espada in Cap Cana, Dominican Republic. This is disclosed in the footer of every page, on every ranking that includes Villa Espada, and here. When GolfVilla.com recommends Villa Espada, that ownership interest is real. Villa Espada is evaluated under the same published methodology as every other property, and ownership or any commercial relationship adds zero points to a score. GolfVilla.com currently has no affiliate or referral relationships with any other property in the index; if that changes, the relationship will be disclosed on affected pages.
How properties are selected
Properties enter the research set when they plausibly serve a golf group: real golf access (not just proximity), group-scale sleeping capacity, and verifiable operator information. Properties are never added merely to inflate the count, and competitors are never excluded because they beat Villa Espada in a category.
First-hand experience vs desk research
Villa Espada content is grounded in first-hand ownership and operation, including dozens of rounds at Punta Espada. Competitor research is desk research from primary and official sources, graded A–U for confidence in the dataset; desk-researched facts are never presented as first-hand experience.
Sources and verification
Factual claims are checked against primary sources where possible (official property, resort and course pages), then major operator material, then recognized golf/travel editorial. Course rankings always carry publication and edition. Mutable facts carry last-verified dates. Anything that cannot be verified is marked unknown rather than guessed. A property is ranking-ineligible only when a ranking-critical field cannot be established at all, such as a course with no verifiable guest-play path; a real but incompletely documented access path is scored conservatively and ranked as provisional.
Use of AI
Research compilation and drafting use AI assistance under the owner’s direction and review. Every published fact is subject to the same source rules above regardless of how the draft was produced, and the owner reviews material before publication.
Sponsored content
GolfVilla.com does not currently publish sponsored content. If it ever does, it will be labeled “Sponsored” at the top of the page and excluded from rankings.
Corrections
Factual corrections are welcome at rob@golfvilla.com. Anything that changes a score, a rank, an access type or a published rate qualifies as a material correction: the page is updated, the dataset version is bumped, and the change is noted on the affected page with the date. Typos and formatting fixes are corrected silently. Rankings are recomputed whenever a material input changes, and the 2026 edition’s weights stay frozen regardless of outcome.