copyright 2009, The Washington Post CARACAS, Venezuela -- Every day, Pascual Cicenia plays golf on an emerald course that is 18 holes of tropical heaven in the middle of this chaotic city. He doesn't take it for granted, he said, especially now that President Hugo Chavez has disparaged the sport as an elitist endeavor with few friends in his populist government. 'You can get into the golf course in about five minutes. You can get in a round of golf just about every day,' gushed Cicenia, 23, taking a break last week as he practiced his 155-yard drives. 'It's probably why he wants to take it away.' Chavez did not directly vilify this course, the Caracas Country Club, Venezuela's most exclusive and a citadel of the country's wealthiest families. But in a televised outburst against golf, Chavez criticized the sport as 'bourgeois,' mocked golfers as lazy and said that 'there is no justification for a golf course in the middle of a city.' In the name of the socialism he's fast implanting in Venezuela, Chavez has nationalized scores of businesses over nearly 11 years in power, including oil multinationals and cattle farms. The government has initiated plans that could lead to the takeover of two of Venezuela's best-known courses, which golf enthusiasts point out would leave only 20 functioning courses in a country more than twice the size of California. It's an argument unlikely to sway a revolutionary. 'I respect all the sports, all of them, but there are sports and there are sports,' Chavez said, wearing his trademark green military-style suit and facing supporters attending his national television show this summer. 'Can someone tell me, `Is this a sport of the people?' ' 'Noooooo,' government ministers and other officials in the audience dutifully replied. 'It is not,' Chavez concluded. The assault on golf had international repercussions, of sorts. Philip Crowley, calling himself the U.S. State Department's 'self-appointed ambassador-at-large for golf,' told reporters in Washington that he is protesting Chavez's 'unwarranted attack' on the sport. 'Once again,' Crowley said, 'Mr. Chavez, one of the hemisphere's most divisive figures, finds himself out of bounds.' At the Caracas Country Club on a recent day, several avid golfers got together for breakfast at the Soda Fountain, a restaurant where attentive waiters serve strong coffee as members enjoy views of the placid greens beyond. Jonathan Coles, a businessman, has been golfing since childhood and now plays a full 18 holes three times a week. He said he couldn't fathom the sport falling to what Chavez calls his Bolivarian revolution. 'It's definitely happening to a lot of firms, but we are talking about a sport,' he said. 'How can you nationalize a sport? That would be the extreme of totalitarian government, wouldn't it?' Others at the table ticked off reasons why golf wouldn't be nationalized -- the cost of taking over a course, the inevitable public battle with determined shareholders, the fact that some well-known Chavez officials secretly play. Luis Sanchez, who is 70 and known as Popeye because he hits the ball so hard, said Chavez should take note that working-class Venezuelan golfers are now making a name for themselves on the international circuit. The most notable name tossed about is that of Jhonattan Vegas, whose father worked as a caddie. It is unclear why Chavez has turned his attention to golf, though the famously impulsive leader has a wide range of adversaries he frequently assails. Along with the CIA, perhaps none is on the receiving end of his invective as much as the rich. And as Chavez pointed out on his show, Alo Presidente, no sport is as associated with the moneyed class as golf. Chavez and other government officials have said golf courses could be better used as housing for the poor or as public parks. In Caracas, clogged with traffic and marked by slums and old apartment blocks, there are few who would deny the need for more green space. The golfing set in Venezuela, meanwhile, has gone to great pains to argue that far from elitist, the sport is open to the masses, with no better illustration than the International Olympic Committee's decision to reinstate the sport in the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro. 'I think he is not informed properly of how golf has grown in the world,' said Julio Torres, director of the Venezuelan Golf Federation. In the early days of Cuba's revolution, Fidel Castro and Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, the Argentine-born guerrilla leader who helped take power in 1959, were photographed playing golf in their jungle fatigues, Torres said. 'There's even evidence that Che Guevara was a good golfer,' he said, 'from back in his days in Argentina.' 