Puerto Rico has been very, very good to Michael Bradley. At 44 the PGA Tour veteran is entering that part of a career that, for many, amounts to a no-man’s-land of grinding weeks on the big or Nationwide circuits as they count down the years to the Champions Tour, where there’s usually no cut and, on balance, much easier money.

But with his second Puerto Rico Open victory in four years, Bradley can breathe a bit. He can sit back knowing he doesn’t have to rely on sponsor’s exemptions to get into PGA Tour events, and his $630,000 first place check — awarded on the 18th green at a sun-drenched Trump International Golf Club — he’s got his family financially set.

It took a one-hole playoff with third round leader Troy Matteson to get it done — and Matteson blowing a short putt on that hole to seal the deal — but now Bradley can take a week and ruminate a bit on just what this tournament means to him as a golfer and a competitor.

“There was a lot riding on this week,” he said. “If I lose, and you know, I finish second and blah, blah, blah, but obviously not with the same perks as the win is. So that’s going to probably carry me to almost 48. I won’t be too far from the Champions Tour, but it’s nice to say four time champion because it’s my fourth win on Tour. I gotta be honest. I never thought that I would say that. So it means a lot, especially that I’ve won twice since I was 42.”

And he can thank Puerto Rico for half of that resume.

“I enjoy the golf course. It’s tropical like Florida where I live. I like the greens. I like the layout. There’s no rhyme or reason why I have played well here. I can’t put a finger on it, but I'm not going to question it.”

He shouldn’t. Puerto Rico put its best foot forward this week, from service to weather to course conditions, and a strong leader board down the stretch brought it all into focus. This tournament belongs on the PGA schedule for years to come, maybe even earning its own week one day.

On a parallel track, the entire island deserves to move to the top level of American golf getaway purveyors. Fairways + Greens sampled five of the area’s 24 courses over the span of one week — four on the northeast coast where the Open takes place, with one impromptu journey to a course that, when it opens to the public this summer, will immediately enter the “best in the Caribbean” conversation. In fact, it might make noise on the international top 100 front.

Located on the northwest corner of the island, a 20-minute drive from an airport served with daily mainland flights from New York, Newark, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale, Royal Isabela is, in a word, spectacular. The culmination of more than 20 years of planning, financing and just plain hard work by co-owners and brothers Staney and Charles Pasarell, the golf course dives over coastland hills and around natural and manmade springs for most of its front nine, then takes golfers on a wild cliffside ride above the whitecapped, impossibly azure Pacific for its incredible back nine, 150 to 300 feet above four miles of pristine beach that comprise a stunning section of the brothers’ 1,800 acres of former farmland.

“We’ve located 90 golf holes in all on this property,” said Stanley Pasarell during a breezy round under low clouds on an otherwise sleepy Sunday afternoon. “Eventually we’ll have three holes in the dunes, right on the beach, which is why the sixth hole, for example, returns to the clubhouse. It could be part of another course someday. As you can see, the views here are incredible. There’s no place else like it on Puerto Rico.”

That’s for sure. Whereas the big resort courses elsewhere on the island take a more familiar, time-tested tack, Royal Isabela is a wild mustang of a routing right out of the gate. With the blessings of a natural, sandy landscape that immediately recalls the southern Irish headlands and with the help of California-based architect David Pfaff — and incorporating their own impressions after years of traveling the world and playing golf — the Pasarells have built a beast that, in the span of the extant 18 holes conjures images of some of the world’s greatest seaside tracks, from Cypress Point to Princeville’s Prince on Kauai to Kapalua Plantation on Maui, with elements of Scottish links thrown in for good measure. Blind tee shots, cliffhanging greens, hidden bunkers and heaving mounds rule the day and turn every shot into an adventure. The aforementioned No. 6, for example, can be played as either a par 4 or par 5 depending on which fairway you choose, which in turn sets up which green becomes the target. From the “Natural” tees — code for “impossible for all but scratch players or better” — the hole plays well over 500 yards when figuring in the elevation change. Even in the prevailing east-to-west tradewinds, it just might be the hardest 4-par in the Western Hemisphere.

But it’s the back nine where, says Pasarell, “the golf course really begins.” Standing on the 10th tee, a crescent-shaped par 5 with a remarkable twisted, horizontal tree guarding the broad fairway’s elbow, you can’t help but think of Cypress Point’s dunesy genius. And it just gets better and tougher from there, with a double green on holes 12 and 14, the greatest ladies’ tee in the world on No. 16 — hanging over the ocean with just enough forced carry to give gals that tingle of needed concentration they usually don’t get — and one of the world’s instantly great seaside par 3s, No. 17, a 190-yard shot over sheer cliffs to a two-tiered green that toes the fairness line, holding only the most perfectly shaped shots. The Natural tee on No. 18 is just flat-out insane, asking for a 290-yard carry to a fairway hidden behind rows of bushes and palm trees, with old ranch house ruins lurking down the left side. The green itself isn’t visible until you’re 120 or so yards away — though it’ll be well-framed once the permanent clubhouse, topped with a Don Quixote-style windmill, is completed later this year.

It’s breathtaking, beautiful and beguiling, and only serious golfers need apply for membership. Royal Isabela will offer 20 casitas with butler service and private terraces — also slated to open this summer — and allow guests to play the course itself, adding another arrow to Puerto Rico’s recreational quiver. Fairways + Greens will have a full review in its July-August “Islands” issue. Until then, lick your chops and start working on your game. You’ll need it.

www.royalisabela.com