Southern California's No. 1 Golf Source
STROKE OF THE DAY |
"Golf is my life and I love it. I'd play with rocks if I had to." |
-Margaret Curtis |
SITE
SEARCH
GOLF
CALENDAR
TRAVEL
|
||||
|
Ask a golfer to recount a memorable golf-related vacation and chances are you’re going to wind up hearing about an exotic, incredibly scenic and history-drenched locale. When golfers take vacations, they don’t fool around. They pick the golf courses situated on some of the most prime real estate on the planet: from the Hawaiian Islands and the Monterey Peninsula to misty Scotland and the Oregon coast, golfers know how to vacation in style. So, we asked seven people in the golf community to share their best golf vacations ever. As you’ll soon find out, none of them stayed in cheap motels or messed around with a nine-hole executive course. Eric Lohman. Bandon Dunes, Oregon. July, 2005. Black Gold Golf Club’s general manager visited this storied Oregon course with his twin brother and their parents. “Our family over the years has had numerous golfing vacations, but what was especially nice and memorable about this is that we were able to play as a family at what is considered by many to be the best golf resort in the world,” Lohman said. “Both my brother and I left our jobs and wives at home and were able to play the purest golf with the two people who introduced us to the game — our mom and dad.” But it didn’t start like a walk in the park. On their first day, the foursome teed off at Pacific Dunes at 4 p.m., with a 35-mph wind in their faces. After four holes, Lohman “had to negotiate with myself whether or not I could actually play 18 holes. Mind you, both my parents, who were in their early to mid-60s, never complained once.” But his next drive went 350 yards down the middle of the fairway and suddenly everything seemed right. The next three days saw “some great shots and many stories of golfing successful, failures and humbling bounces. I will always remember that trip because for me it was exactly what I loved about the game of golf: the connection it had to my family, the joy of playing at such a special place and the thrill of conquering the challenge of Bandon Dunes.” David Kramer. St. Andrews, Scotland. May, 2001. This trek took the general manager of Los Serranos Golf and Country Club, his wife, Rosie, and friends Richard and Lori King to the hallowed birthplace of the game. They stayed at the Scores Hotel, which is directly across the street from the R&A clubhouse, and just 65 meters from the first tee on the Old Course. They played both the Old Course and the New Course, and though he knew the 600-year-old Old Course is considered the most important course in the world, it still came as a surprise to the American born-and-bred Kramer to look out and see the somewhat flat, treeless terrain that the Old, New and Jubilee courses occupy. “But it’s the perfect location for initiation to Scottish links golf and the Scottish people who created and championed their game,” Kramer said. It wasn’t the first time the Kramers had been to St. Andrews. The previous summer they’d visited but were unable to play the venerable Old Course. However, due to “spontaneous and fortuitous circumstances,” a tee time on the Old Course opened up six weeks before a planned vacation. The couples stepped up their travel arrangements and made a four-day trek that included a three-hour tour of London during a layover at Heathrow. But the centerpiece was the golf. The most enduring memory? “The friendship amongst us, and celebrating the love of the game at a golf venue unlike any other,” Kramer said. Postscript: Kramer shot an 84, which was six shots better than his handicap, and avoided every bunker on the historic Old Course. Robyn Cole. Monterey Peninsula. October, 2004. In honor of a “rather significant birthday,” Cole, the marketing director for Tustin Ranch Golf Club, traveled to this exquisite piece of golf property with her husband, her mother, and her best friend and her husband. The five-day trip began with three days at the grand, old Victorian Inn on the waterfront in Pleasant Grove and ended at the Inn at Spanish Bay and its oceanfront location. Every evening at sunset, they could see the resident bagpiper as he strolled the length of the first fairway. The group played Pebble Beach, the Links at Spanish Bay, Spyglass Hills, Poppy Hills and Del Monte. What still stands out, in Cole’s memory, was the chance to “experience, a little bit, what the greats in this game have experienced. Having watched this tournament for years on television, heard the awe in the voices of the players and announcers as they talk about ‘Pebble’ and knowing the Monterey Peninsula contains some of the most gorgeous land California has to offer, well, you’ve just gotta do it! When you’re sitting on the same fence on the 18th tee as Jack Nicklaus did, gazing out over the Cove and about to play one of the most famous holes in history, well, it just doesn’t get any better than that. Of course, one big difference: I took a triple on that hole.” Tina Mickelson. Shadow Creek, Las Vegas. Late ’90s. Tina Mickelson and her good golfing buddy, Shari, planned a weekend trip to play this ultra-exclusive course. They booked rooms at the Mirage and would soon find that the combination of high-energy excitement and party atmosphere in the hotel and casino isn’t particularly great for the golf game. “There is always so much going on in Vegas that you’re easily distracted,” said Mickelson, an ambassador for women’s golf at Santa Luz Country Club in San Diego. “And it’s not just the gambling or drinking. It’s all the shows and the restaurants and the visual stimulation. And then you get to the golf course and it’s tough to get focused.” But though initially difficult, the course was so amazing that Mickelson quickly forgot she was even in Vegas. “When you walk on the grounds and see all of the different animals and foliage, you feel like you were picked up and spit out in the middle of a very exotic place. “It was a rare treat, the kind of course you don’t get to play every day. And it was great experiencing it with a good friend. It’s something we still talk about. And the thing is that I didn’t play well at all. But it was the funnest round of golf I’ve ever had playing really, really poorly. We were trying to figure out what bird that was, what flower that is. The experience was unlike any other. And, on top of that, my friend had a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ on the practice tee right before we teed off and it really inhibited her game. And I had the shanks. But it was still the most fun we’ve ever had on the golf course.” Charlie Schroeder. Ireland. September, 2006. This solo excursion led one of our former writers to some of the Emerald Isle’s most beautiful seaside towns and gorgeous courses, including Lahinch, Doonbeg, Waterville, Old Head and Adare Manor. He stayed in quaint B&B’s and hotels perched on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean and he’ll never forget the sound of the howling wind rattling his windows at the Butler Arms in Water-ville. “At times I felt the place was haunted,” he said. “Of course, the wind really haunted me the next day on the links.” Schroeder recalls the dramatic Old Tom Morris-designed Lahinch, with its sand dunes towering 30 to 50 feet above the ground. He says Old Head, set atop a peninsula overlooking Courtsmacsherry Bay, makes Pebble Beach look like a pitch-and-putt. “It was golf as it was meant to be,” Schroeder said. “It’s rare to play so many great courses in such a short amount of time and experience another culture while you do it. Although my time was limited, I had ample opportunity to stop in the small towns and grab a pint and connect with the locals. Along the way I bumped into lots of Americans playing golf, most of whom were part of a larger tour group. In my opinion that’s not the way to do it. Rent a car — a very small car — and travel with a couple of buddies. Otherwise, you’re just going to play golf, and to me that’s only half the fun. The other half is inter-acting with the locals, stopping in the pubs and making a wrong turn or two.” Marci Dubois. Lanai, Hawaii. October, 2005. Dubois, a Southland Golf contributor, and her husband, Joe, stayed at The Lodge at Koele and played the Challenge at Manele Bay and The Experience at Koele. The courses were great and the accommodations award-winning, but what really made the trip stand out was the island itself. “It’s a little Hawaiian island with all the charm and character that used to define all of Hawaii,” she says. “It’s only 140 square miles and there isn’t one traffic light on the island. “We’d wake up and have breakfast in Lanai City and then play either Koele in the mountains or Manele on the ocean. Then we’d eat lunch, visit Shipwreck Beach and take a swim. Then it was a nap in the afternoon, dinner, in to bed early and up to do it all again. There isn’t much to do except play golf and enjoy the accommodations. That made for perfect days.” Eric Tracy. Monterey Peninsula. October, 1991. Our resident columnist and man-about-the-golf-world has had his share of golf vacations. The one he chose to recall wasn’t his best. But it was his most memorable. “To say my life was in a transition period would be an understatement,” Tracy recalled. “I had just turned 40, a relationship that lasted almost half of my life disintegrated and I found my first gray chest hair. It was a mid-life crisis with a capital M. ‘Screw it,’ I thought, ‘I’m taking care of No. 1.’ “So I booked a dream golf vacation on the Monterey Peninsula. It was the stuff of dreams. The weather was perfect, and so was the plan. I was going to play Alister MacKenzie’s Pasatiempo in Santa Cruz on the way up, followed by Spyglass, Spanish Bay, Poppy Hills and finish up with the Pebble Beach Golf Links. “It was first-class all the way as I checked into The Lodge at Pebble Beach. I didn’t care that my domestic split cost almost as much as this golf week. But, wouldn’t you know it? While I went north, my game went south! For the first (and only) time in my life I owned a single-digit handicap but played like a 36. I hacked and whiffed and shanked my way to scores of monumental proportions. I was miserable. “Finally, after the longest six days of my golfing life, I reached the famous par-5 18th hole at Pebble Beach. The golf vacation from hell was about to end. I headed to the championship tee fully confident that the six golf balls in my pocket were about to experience a watery death. “But somehow, the golf gods took pity on me. My clubface squared and I whistled a perfect drive over the cliffs and ocean. I pulled out my 3-wood and for the first time that week put two shots together, staying under the wind and leaving myself in great shape. “Then I pulled out my 8-iron and hit one of those perfectly shaped shots you see on TV that hits the green and stops 12 feet from the hole. My spikes were no longer touching the ground. I stalked the putt, settled over it and rammed it home. “It was my $4,000 birdie — the only hole that week I remember.” SG |
||||
RSS Subscribe
Digg This Article
