Traveling with golf equipment is stressful because no one wants to have their gear go missing or get damaged on a golf vacation. Sadly, my clubs were lost for four days when I flew from Manchester, England, to Edinburgh, Scotland, after the 2006 British Open, which meant I played Carnoustie and The Old Course at St. Andrews with borrowed clubs while wearing running shoes.
Danielle Kang felt that stress last week because her clubs were lost for two days before the Solheim Cup in Spain started. She plays Titleist clubs, but Ping’s equipment truck was the only one on-site at Finca Cortesin, so Ping supplied Kang with equipment so she could practice until her gear (and a second set rushed and hand-delivered by Titleist Europe) arrived on Tuesday evening.
Whether you are planning a once-in-a-lifetime golf vacation to Europe or a buddy trip to Arizona, these five tips can help lower the anxiety of traveling with golf equipment.
Some golfers are known to incorporate mindfulness, meditation and religious practices into their routine.
It’s no secret that travel takes a toll on the body. If you add a week of walking, four days of tournament play, practice rounds, driving range time and workouts for weeks on end, the mind and body will have to work overtime to recover.
For example, Jon Rahm forces himself to exercise after a long plane ride.
“If you have time and [access to] a gym or whatever it may be, get a little bit of exercise in,” Rahm said. “It doesn’t need to be crazy. It could be 30, 40 minutes of just some kind of stretching or whatever to get the blood
flowing a little bit more so your body can just naturally recover and get things moving.”
The physical demands of golf tournaments are extensive. This includes long days often jam-packed with physical activity. With the long weeks of back-to-back travel, some golfers simply can’t maintain a true routine of non-negotiables such as managing nutrition and lifting in the gym.
Golfers have to adapt to various time changes, societal norms, diets and cultures in different states and countries. For example, a United States-based golfer will likely often fly to Europe, which can present as much as a nine-hour time difference. Let’s say that particular country does not prioritize breakfast or it’s harder to get their hands on common U.S. essentials, their body only has a couple of days to adapt to these changes.
Jon Rahm plays his shot on the first hole fairway during the first round of The Genesis Invitational golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
Professional golfers employ numerous strategies to recover physically and mentally while on the road.
They may engage in specific exercises or work with a trainer to ensure they maintain strength and flexibility. Adequate sleep, hydration and rest are all a huge priority to ensure physical and mental cognition.
Yes, they get to travel to some amazing destinations, but many spend the majority of their time in their room to recharge before and after their rounds.
And some golfers at various levels even have part-time jobs to pay for golf tournaments and expenses. It is a constant grind on and off the course for them.
To address mental and emotional recovery, some golfers are known to incorporate mindfulness, meditation and religious practices into their routine to manage stress and stay focused.
Golfers may also seek the support of sports psychologists or engage in activities that help them relax and unwind.
Additionally, collegiate golfers are managing just as much as the professional level, but their life includes college classes on the road.
Playing a round of golf is at least four hours of mental and physical strain plus the warm-up and post-round practice. Many collegiate tournaments have 36-hole days, equating to nine-plus hours of golf in a day. Having to complete essays, math and other tasks is nearly impossible on the day of a tournament.
Golf has many layers that go into the preparation and performance of the sport, but managing it properly can be the ticket to success for many.
Here are 8 must-do activities when visiting Melbourne.
If Australia wasn’t a bucket list destination for you, you may change your mind after hearing about kangaroos hopping down rolling fairways and the plethora of activities to do.
Many people dread the thought of long plane rides, but the views, excursions and wildlife make it more than worth it. The plane ride is a good opportunity to catch up on sleep in preparation for a hefty time change.
Golfweek took a trip to Melbourne to play extravagant golf and explore the city. While the Aussie accent didn’t stick, the memories and experiences will last a lifetime.
St. Andrews Beach Golf Course complements numerous American courses that are frequently preferred by younger players looking for adventure
St. Andrews Beach, initially intended to be a private club that fell on hard times. It has since been revived as a must-see daily-fee facility. Its layout by Tom Doak and Mike Clayton opened in 2006, and simply put, it’s familiar to the classic Sandbelt courses to its north as far as turf conditions go, but the facility’s irresistible vibe and design set it apart from other courses we played in Australia.
For comparison’s sake, St. Andrews Beach matches up well with several American layouts often favored by younger players looking for adventure. Think Sweetens Cove in Tennessee or Tobacco Road in North Carolina. The simple clubhouse at St. Andrews Beach is a temporary metal building (there are plans to build a new clubhouse), and the bathrooms are out back in a trailer – again with that Sweetens Cove comparison. There is zero pretentiousness, just golf. Not even a range, as players can warm up into a net next to the parking lot. The peak green fee is about $70 in U.S. dollars.
Gary Lisbon, an Australian golf photographer and writer of international acclaim who also helps direct golf tours, had joined us as a sherpa on much of this trip, and his drone frequently followed us around the humps and bumps and sometimes tumbling slopes of St. Andrews Beach. Kangaroos watched our threesome from adjoining fairways, with several larger specimens sauntering onto the sixth green as we played our approaches – no need for an ecotour here, the ‘roos were everywhere.
St. Andrews Beach presented a totally relaxed setting, just golf and laughs and big animals that could care less about first, second and sometimes third attempts to escape deep bunkers. Those traps might not be as impeccably maintained as at some of the nearby private clubs, but they fit perfectly well in the raw terrain and add greatly to the memorability factor. The course ranks No. 19 in Australia and New Zealand.
In this video, Golfweek takes on members of the Royal Melbourne over 9 holes at the East Course.
Averee Dovsek, Jason Lusk and Gary Lisbon had a match planned against an Aussie side led by Royal Melbourne members Darcy Brereton, a professional who competes on the Handa PGA Tour of Australasia and Henry Peters, Owner of Under The Card. We won’t go into the details – the lopsided match turned out as anyone might expect when a tour pro is involved. But those results didn’t matter, because this was Royal Melbourne.
We played the East Course this day, the somewhat underappreciated sister course of the world-famous West Course. The East checks in at No. 11 on the Golfweek’s Best list of top courses in Australia and New Zealand, and six of its holes are used alongside 12 from the West to create Royal Melbourne’s Composite Course that is played in many top-tier competitions, including 16 Australian Opens and three Presidents Cups.
It was a blast, even as our American team was blasted in the nine-hole match. The course doesn’t return to the clubhouse at the turn, so we kept swinging, unwilling to miss any of this layout. As is often the case, the top-ranked course at any facility receives almost all the adulation in the press and on TV. But the East at Royal Melbourne is not to be missed, not a single shot of it.
Kangaroos, koalas and golf: A trip to Melbourne and Victoria in Australia is even better than you can imagine.
I had the typical American checklist of expectations as I boarded the massive Qantas A380 en route to Australia: koala bears, kangaroos, surf breaks and cool accents.
I was headed to Melbourne in the state of Victoria on the country’s southern coast, so I was out of luck when it came to crocs – the fierce biters that live far to the north, not the shoes worn by several jammie-clad passengers on my overnight flight. But there would be plenty of nature on tap during Golfweek‘s visit to the second largest city in Oz and its surrounds.
I also had plenty of expectations for Victoria’s golf just south of Melbourne. The Sandbelt region is famous among fans of course architecture, for good reason. Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath, Victoria Golf Club and a handful of others pepper the lists of best classic courses around the world, including those compiled by Golfweek’s Best ranking program.
I knew this late-April trip to Australia would be full of big bounces, putts from off the greens, beautiful bunkers and some of the most intoxicating greens in the game. The inland equivalent of links golf would be a fair description, with firm and fast sand-based layouts that force a player to think instead of just fire away at a distant flagstick. In other words, my favorite kind of golf.
St. Andrews Beach Golf Course on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, Australia (Courtesy of Visit Victoria/Gary Lisbon).
My hopes, based on years of reading and studying photography and watching elite international events broadcast from Australia, were high. Scotland, Ireland, England, even a handful of U.S. resorts that successfully mimic the best of links golf – this is the style of play I wanted to experience in Victoria.
With expectations so impossibly high, I was gobsmacked when Australia surpassed all of them. Every box was ticked. Simply put, Victoria serves up the best kind of golf at dozens of courses, nine of which I sampled.
The terrain, the textures, the turf – it all rolled into a level of golfing perfection on frequent repeat. I was on the ground nine full days, playing golf for six of them, and it wasn’t nearly enough time to take it all in. But the courses I did play in mostly sunny conditions and ideal autumn breezes – remember, spring in the northern hemisphere is fall to those south of the equator – ignited a desire to return. The flight is long, that much is true. But the list of courses I want to replay or tackle for a first time is even longer.
Much of this is credited to one man who put the Sandbelt on golf’s map in a big way. Alister MacKenzie – a Scot famed in America for his later course designs at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia and Cypress Point in California, among others – visited Victoria in 1926 and laid out the West Course at Royal Melbourne, which ranks among the top 10 in the world on most critics’ lists of courses. He also lent his services to several other clubs in the region, be that rebunkering an existing course or suggesting changes to putting surfaces. MacKenzie’s fingerprints are almost everywhere in the sand.
The par-3 fifth hole at Royal Melbourne’s West Course in Victoria, Australia (Jason Lusk/Golfweek).
Golf already existed around Melbourne, but it was Royal Melbourne’s West Course that proved elite golf could flourish in the Sandbelt. Other prominent designers have followed in MacKenzie’s footsteps, and in the nearly 100 years since his visit, the region has become a mecca for international golf architecture aficionados who heed the call, walk down a jetway in some faraway land and jet off to Melbourne to discover what all the fuss is about. Count this region alongside the United Kingdom and Ireland as must-sees for anybody who truly loves great golf courses.
I was in Victoria with a film crew and Golfweek contributor Averee Dovsek, a former college golfer and now a long-drive competitor who also makes fitness and instructional videos for Golfweek.com. With the government agency of Visit Victoria as our host, Dovsek and I were to play a series of matches against local golf pros and club members on several of the area’s top courses. Then I was scheduled to play several other courses on my own – when it comes to this kind of golf, I can’t get enough. Australia is a long way for an American to travel for golf, so when you’re there you have to take advantage of every possible chance to play. VisitMelbourne.com is a great place to start, as is TheSandbelt.com.
From the Scottish Highlands around to St. Andrews, a series of true links astonish with variety, playability and charm.
Where to begin?
That is not a rhetorical question. When laying out a bucket-list golf trip to Scotland, it’s a very serious query, part of a series of such questions that will follow you around the country. Where to begin? Which course next? Toughest of all: Which courses can I bear to skip?
Headed to St. Andrews? There’s a lot more on tap than the famed Old Course, 30 times the site of the British Open – ahem, Open Championship, thank you very much. Will you play the New Course, which seems a misnomer, seeing how it was built by Old Tom Morris in 1895? How about the Jubilee? The Castle, which having opened outside town in 2008 is the newest of the seven courses managed by the St. Andrews Links Trust? Maybe sample a handful of the other layouts not far from the Home of Golf?
Headed into the Highlands for a dream round at Royal Dornoch? Everyone on other courses, on the way and on social media will tell you that you can’t skip nearby Brora (I didn’t) or Tain or Golspie (I missed both, but I already am planning to return). Scouting a classic links trip to Aberdeen? You can’t miss classic links such as Royal Aberdeen, or Murcar Links or Cruden Bay or a handful of others. The options are lined up along the coast. All the coasts of Scotland, actually.
Cabot Highlands, formerly known as Castle Stuart, in Scotland (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
Headed east? You’ll be told not to miss the courses to the west. Looking north? Don’t miss those gems to the south. Whichever point of the compass you choose and whatever address you plug into Google Maps, there will be dozens of opportunity costs – all those suggestions are correct, even if they create a totally unmanageable itinerary for a traveling golfer on a weeklong holiday.
Weeks after my recent trip, when playing with a group of Golfweek’s Best course raters in California, I barely could finish a sentence about where I played before the questions poured in: Did you play this one, and what about that one? We all process the world through the lenses of our own experiences, and that’s especially true when judging the courses somebody else is, or is not, playing.
The 18th green of the Old Course at St. Andrews sits close enough to the street and town that the afternoon shadows of old buildings stretch across the putting surface. (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
Such was the quandary when I started planning this trip to Scotland. I was lucky, because I knew where I would begin. American course designer Tom Doak is building a new course at Castle Stuart near Inverness, which is being rebranded as Cabot Highlands after its recent acquisition by Canadian company Cabot. I would begin there to hear Doak discuss his plans as well as to sample the original course at the resort.
But from there? I had options. Too many options. The names of famous Scottish links courses roll on and on, and it would take months to see even half of what I had in mind. I had only 12 days on the ground, so I enlisted the help of course booking provider Golfbreaks and the local experts at VisitScotland.com to help set up a trip that would venture high into the Highlands before swinging back down the coast, east to Aberdeen and eventually into St. Andrews.
Scotland, of course, is where the game as we know it was invented, and the best of it is all about links golf in particular. Firm, fast and sometimes almost entirely natural – I coveted the links experience. Of the 550 or so total golf courses in Scotland, fewer than 90 might be classified as true links, depending on one’s given definition – there is great debate among academics and clubhouse drunks about what constitutes a proper links. On this trip I was lucky enough to experience 11 examples. Each was distinctive, and don’t dare think of links golf as some uniform game, because it is the definitive opposite of that. The conditions might be similar, but each layout shines on its own, each bouncy shot promising something unexpected.
Street view in St. Andrews (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
I played courses that are famed worldwide, and several that are less known outside Scotland. I played in sunshine and rain, wind and calm. I played well, and I played poorly. The only constants were the courses, the terrain and coastlines flashing through my exhausted head each night in whatever accommodations I had scheduled. The trip included planes, trains, buses, shuttles and a blue Skoda SUV – “Keep left, keep left, keep left,” I had to remind myself at the start of each drive on skinny, winding roads, because I couldn’t bear the thought of missing my next round of golf due to something so mundane as a car crash.
There were a lot of miles, a lot of different beds, a lot of nerves in the car. So many good courses, too many bad swings. And it was all perfect.
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The food, the drinks, the scene … oh yeah, the golf stands out at Punta Mita’s two courses, too.
Tania Ritchie and her husband were sailing around the world when friends of the Canadian couple asked to make a detour to view property.
Between mountains and the endless Pacific on a crescent of pristine beach is Punta Mita, a former fishing village on a private peninsula at the southernmost point of the Riviera Nayarit, 30 miles northwest of the resort city of Puerto Vallarta. A funny thing happened on their way around the world: The Ritchies ended up being the property buyers, calling off the sailing trip and never looking back.
“We were thinking we’d settle in Paris, maybe,” she says. “We had no intention of buying in Mexico, but we just knew and here we are 13 years later.”
Tania shared her origin story to this palm-shaded oasis of warm breezes, oceanfront holes and guaranteed good times between bites at a post-round feast last December at the 10th annual Golf & Gourmet, where I competed and hobnobbed along with golf greats Lorena Ochoa, Craig Stadler and Jean Van de Velde. It is the gated community’s signature and most anticipated event of the year, a four-day extravaganza of dining, drinking, teeing off and tastings. It is a modern-day bacchanalia with celebrity chefs, mixologists and sommeliers flown in for a weekend of culinary excellence, and it’s a bucket-list trip worth taking for golfers and non-golfers. (If anyone needs a partner, I’m available.)
Punta Mita’s Bahia Course, 17th hole, in Mexico (Courtesy of Punta Mita Golf Club)
I went solo because it was too soon for my wife and I both to be away from our then-10-month-old daughter. I promised my better half – not to mention the better golfer in the family – that one day I’d make it up to her. Never did I expect I’d deliver on the promise less than a year later, but that I did in October. The first time we were both away from our daughter – who we left in good hands with two of my sisters-in-law – felt like a belated babymoon.
A little more than 20 years ago, this southwest point on the Riviera Nayarit was nothing more than an off-the-grid spot for hardcore surfers. No one could have imagined that two championship golf courses, multimillion-dollar villas and two luxurious resorts, the Four Seasons and St. Regis, would be carved out of 1,500 acres of jungle on Banderas Bay.
On my first trip here, it didn’t take me long to discover why the Ritchies and tourists that enjoy activities such as snorkeling, scuba diving, sailing and fishing tend to fall hard for the intoxicating beauty of Punta Mita, especially at the Four Seasons Resort, where guests are welcomed at its thatched-roof – what the locals call a palapas – and open-air lounge and descend to a sparkling infinity pool at its center. Prepare to be blown away by views that register an 11 for “Wow” factor.
My accommodations were modern and elegant, and I opened the sliding glass door to draw in breezes off the electric-blue sea. But this is a place where you want to spend as little time in your room as possible.
I could’ve taken up permanent residence in the infinity pool, where the bartenders wade into the water to deliver drinks and snacks. I kept seeing sunbathers sipping straws out of coconuts, so I finally asked a middle-aged American tourist the name of this fanciful concoction. “Coco Loco,” he said of the mixture of gin, vodka, tequila and lime. “It’s kind of like a Long Island Iced Tea, but with tequila. You’ve got to have one … but only one!”
The St. Regis is every bit the equal of the Four Seasons for living in the lap of luxury, including a personal butler at your beck and call and a champagne toast for guests every Friday at sunset to ring in the weekend. There are two more five-star resorts scheduled to be built as part of a next phase in the development.
But when I visited with my wife, we stayed in a gorgeous rental property at the Tau Residences, which included our own terrace pool and a view of Bahia’s 17th green that could even be seen from the shower in the master bath. In effect the decision is to stay at one of the resorts and enjoy its amenities or choose from the many rental properties and receive access to the five beach clubs that dot the property and be treated as if you are the member-owner. It’s a bit like choosing between filet mignon and lobster tail for dinner. As someone who has done them both – the equivalent of surf and turf – I promise you can’t go wrong either way.
There is a view of the Pacific Ocean from every hole and the comfort stations are a golfer’s dream.
Oftentimes, resort courses come with expectations of rolling fairways, marginal views and multiple visits to the beverage cart. Quivira Golf Club located in Los Cabos, Mexico, exceeds those expectations and then some. Quivira is a Jack Nicklaus course design with a 7,085-yard layout.
Quivira opened its course in 2014 and is an exclusive amenity for owners and guests of Pueblo Bonito Golf and Spa Resorts. Quivira features carpet-like fairways, white sandy bunkers and greens fit for a tour championship. This resort course is designed to provide a challenge to players of all skill levels with a variety of elevated tee boxes and “not so conveniently-placed” bunkers.
There is a view of the Pacific Ocean from every hole and the comfort stations are a golfer’s dream. It’s common to find resort courses that claim to have ocean-front holes, but only two or three holes are actually near the water.
At Quivira you get to see the ocean from all 18 holes as you start your round at sea-level and climb through the cliffs around the Old Lighthouse for panoramic views. The comfort stations located throughout the course offer fresh, made-to-order libations, tacos, sliders, desserts, snacks and more.
Quivira Golf Club hole 18. (Quivira Golf Club)
After your round, the 19th Hole Bar and Quivira Steakhouse at the clubhouse offer you a place take a seat around the fire pit for drinks or a delicious meal overlooking the Pacific. If you happen to visit between the months of December and May you might even get lucky and catch a glimpse of humpback whales migrating just off the beach.
A new Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course is currently in development for the luxury enclave, Old Lighthouse Club, complete with a variety of amenities including The Bunker Bar where players can enjoy more post-round scenic views.
Pueblo Bonito Pacifica pool. (Pueblo Bonito)
Pueblo Bonito Golf and Spa Resorts is not only a golfers paradise, but also boasts luxurious amenities that cater to anyone’s dream vacation. Pueblo Bonito is home to eight different resorts of varying aesthetic and views. Quivira’s residential resort communities feature two resorts by the names of Pacifica and Sunset Beach and a third lodging option known as Montecristo Estates Luxury Villas.
Each resort has a slightly different vibe to it with some properties maintaining a more contemporary feel and others paying an ode to Mexican heritage. Guests of Pueblo Bonito Resorts are granted access to all other restaurants and bars in sister properties.
LaFrida Oceanview Terrace at Sunset Beach. (Sunset Beach)
Schedule yourself a massage or spa treatment in a relaxing environment to unwind after a round, or a beautiful dinner at LaFrida. This restaurant in Sunset Beach features the ambiance of traditional Mexican art, but with modern flavors and cocktails.
Whether you are looking for a romantic getaway at Pacifica, a Greco-Roman fantasy at Rosé, Mediterranean style at Los Cabos or a luxury estate, Pueblo Bonito has amenities and resorts for every preference.
You can learn more about Pueblo Bonito Resorts here.
