The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Golf Resort is on deck. The South Carolina course is set to host the 2021 PGA Championship.
The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Golf Resort is on deck.
The South Carolina course is set to host the 2021 PGA Championship. The tournament is set for May 20-23.
It’s the second time the course will host the PGA Championship. In 2012, Kiawah Island staged South Carolina’s first-ever major golf championship, as Rory McIlroy took home the Wanamaker Trophy after winning by eight shots.
The Ocean Course occupies the far eastern end of a barrier island of the South Carolina shore, 15 miles due south of Charleston. The course was designed by Alice and Pete Dye and built at a furious pace, opening (barely) in time to hold the 1991 Ryder Cup, the famous “War by the Shore” at which the U.S. eked out the narrowest of victories.
The native site was a wild combination of tidal marshes, freshwater ponds and sand dunes. At the suggestion of Dye’s wife, Alice, the playing corridors for the holes were built up to afford views of the Atlantic Ocean to the south as well as to expose golfers to the winds. The result is an extremely challenging experience of golf in the raw. For the 2012 PGA Championship, the par-72 Ocean Course played at 7,676 yards.
A few things to know if you’re thinking about getting yourself some tickets to the 2021 PGA Championship.
The 2020 PGA Championship has moved to the weekend at TPC Harding Park and a champion will likely be crowned around 10 p.m. ET on Sunday.
Fans aren’t allowed on the grounds at Harding Park due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic but it is expected that next May’s PGA Championship will be back to normal, so if you’re looking ahead to next year’s PGA Championship and you’re thinking about getting yourself some tickets, you better move fast.
Regarding tickets for the 2021 PGA Championship, to be held at The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Golf Resort, the event’s official website says:
To ensure widespread access to the most in-demand ticket types, 2021 PGA Championship tickets will be sold exclusively through a free, no-obligation, online registration process. Registrants will be assigned a group and purchase window based upon the date registration is received.
And here’s the you-need-to-move-quickly message:
Registration will close on Sunday, August 9, 2020 at 11:59 p.m.
It’s also noted on the website that when you’re registering, you are signing up for the opportunity to purchase tickets to the 2021 PGA Championship.
There is another way to score tickets to the event. ESPN Radio is giving some away through a sweepstakes. Enter here for a chance to not only win two tickets but also: two round-trip airlines tickets, hotel accommodations, tickets to the PGA Chalet, a dinner for two, an autographed pin flag, a meet-and-greet with ESPN on-air talent and more. You have until Aug. 11 to enter.
By the end of 2020, MacCurrach Golf Construction will have completed its 33rd year and more than 100 projects.
It started with a typical argument between a father and his teenage son.
The son, 14-year-old Allan MacCurrach III, was tired of cutting the grass at his home for free, and wanted his father, PGA Tour agronomist Allan MacCurrach Jr., to start paying him.
When the debate got heated enough, the teen asked his father why he couldn’t arrange a job for him at an ambitious project in Ponte Vedra Beach: the construction of the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course.
“You wouldn’t last two weeks out there,” he was told.
“Just try me,” the youngster said.
He did.
Allan MacCurrach III got the job in the summer of 1979, working under Stadium Course architect Pete Dye. It began a lifetime of passion for the process of moving and sculpting the earth to form 18 holes of emerald finery, for everyone from 20-handicappers to the greatest players in the world to sink a tee into the ground and lose themselves for a few hours in nature and the ancient sport.
Years later, when the father would ask him how business was going, the son would reply: “just working on that third week.”
By the end of 2020, MacCurrach Golf Construction will have completed its 33rd year and more than 100 projects, a combination of new construction and renovations — the latter of which can be just as challenging.
Allan MacCurrach III (lower left) founded his golf course construction company in 1987 and has built or renovated more than 100 courses since then. With him at their Oak Bridge Golf Club renovation site is his son Allan IV (center), company president Brian Almony (lower right).
There are few Jacksonville courses that have not experienced the MacCurrach touch. His company, with around 100 employees operating more than five dozen pieces of equipment ranging from bulldozers to small shaping machinery, built the original designs at the Slammer & Squire, Palencia, the St. Johns Golf and Country Club, Eagle Landing, Atlantic Beach Country Club, Amelia National and Windsor Parke.
MacCurrach Golf also gets offers beyond the First Coast. The company built notable designs such as Streamsong Red, Black and Blue courses, the TPC Tampa Bay and LPGA International.
In recent years, with new golf-course construction limited, MacCurrach Golf has been hired to do renovations at the TPC Sawgrass, the Sawgrass Country Club, Pablo Creek, Oak Bridge, Timuquana, Hidden Hills, both courses at the Omni Amelia Plantation, the Jacksonville Golf and Country Club and the Jacksonville Beach Golf Club.
Outside the area, MacCurrach Golf has done restorative work at famed courses such as Seminole, Shinnecock, Bay Hill, the Medalist, the Sea Island Club, Southampton, Canterbury, Inverness, Harbour Town Golf Links and Kiawah Island.
MacCurrach Golf was recently cited by Golf Inc., a trade magazine, for being the construction company involved with its best renovations of 2019 in two categories: the Sea Island Club Plantation Course in St. Simons Island, Ga., for public golf and the TPC Sugarloaf near Atlanta for private golf.
“We’ve gotten awards before, but never in two categories at the same time,” the 54-year-old MacCurrach said.
REPUTATION BRINGS MORE BUSINESS
Along the way, the company has established a reputation for integrity that brings in a high volume of repeat business.
For example, MacCurrach has handled three renovations of the fairways and greens at the TPC Sawgrass and every year when the San Jose Country Club closes for two weeks, he gets the phone call.
“We have about 25 projects per year and about 23 of them are repeat customers,” he said.
There’s a good reason.
“He’s an honorable man … he embodies everything the game of golf is supposed to be,” said former TPC Sawgrass general manager Bill Hughes, now general manager of the Country Club of the Rockies in Colorado. “With Allan, it’s not about the money. It’s about making the customer happy.”
“He’s the best there is,” said Ponte Vedra Inn and Club director of golf Jim Howard, whose Ocean Course is undergoing a MacCurrach golf renovation that will be completed by Labor Day. “He’s always on time and on budget.”
An employee of MacCurrach Golf Construction uses heavy machinery to mold the 17th green of the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course in 2006 as part of a renovation project.
San Jose general manager Rocky Staples said the reputation of MacCurrach and his staff are “impeccable.”
“He’s always fair with his bids and he has great respect for the architect’s vision,” Staples had. “I love the guy. I love his team.”
MacCurrach and his team can work fast. In 2006, they stripped the sod from every fairway of the TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course, trucked in 10,000 tons of sand and re-sodded in 17 days.
They can also fan out. In the past two years, he has had overlapping projects on the First Coast, Georgia, Virginia and Massachusetts.
“You can have a great design, but at the end of the day, the guys in the bulldozers have to do the job to make it a great golf course,” said M.G. Orender, president of Hampton Golf who has worked with MacCurrach on new and original designs on the First Coast. “Allan and his guys are the best.”
San Jose and the Ponte Vedra Club Ocean Course are two of the active projects MacCurrach Golf is handling in the area. Others include Pablo Creek, the Sawgrass Country Club, Oak Bridge and the University of Virginia golf course.
And in 2018 MacCurrach finished Dye’s final design, an ultra-private course at the White Oak Plantation in Nassau County that is owned by Guggenheim Partners CEO Mark Walter — who also owns the Los Angeles Dodgers.
It was the 18th and last time that MacCurrach built or renovated a Pete Dye design, which is no accident. Aside from his father, MacCurrach had no greater mentor or role model than Dye.
Hughes said the two are kindred spirits.
“Allan is a man of the dirt, just like Pete was,” Hughes said. “He has a feel for the land.”
LEARNING BY DOING
“The Gardner” was at it again.
It was the nickname laborers on the TPC Sawgrass project in 1979 and 1980 had given Pete Dye for his habit of grabbing rakes or shovels out of their hands and showing exactly how he wanted a fairway or green contoured.
Sometimes it was less subtle. On more than on occasion, MacCurrach said a crew would think they had a green, tee box or mound finished. But Dye would suddenly appear on a bulldozer, and proceed, as MacCurrach recalls, “to just smash everything you had done because he didn’t like it.”
MacCurrach was part of a group that finished the third green of the Stadium Course one day — until Dye plowed through the green with a bulldozer, his way of telling them to start over.
“I was riding home with my father that day and told him, ‘that damn Gardner is nuts,'” he said. “The green was perfect.”
But young Allan found out that Dye has his own definition of perfect.
“That was the genius of the man,” MacCurrach said. “He would never settle. He wouldn’t sleep on it unless he was 100 percent satisfied. He was inspiring to work for because there was an energy about him. You knew you were working on something special.”
MacCurrach’s first job was “picking up sticks and digging holes,” on the property that would become the TPC Sawgrass. But young Allan took an interest in heavy equipment and Dye taught him how to use a bulldozer literally by letting him dig in the dirt like a little kid with a toy.
“After I was done with whatever jobs they had me doing during the day, Pete would let me get on a bulldozer with lights and I pushed dirt up and down on the driving range,” MacCurrach said. “It was a big, muddy mess and you couldn’t do any harm. I just pushed dirt from here to there until about 1 or 2 in the morning.”
MacCurrach would then retire to a cot in a construction trailer, get about four hours of sleep, and then repeat the process the next day.
VAGABOND SETTLES DOWN
For the next three summers, until he graduated from Sandalwood, MacCurrach worked for Dye. After the TPC Sawgrass was finished in 1980, MacCurrach spent the summer between his junior and senior year working on the Honors Course in Chattanooga, Tenn.
The next summer it was on to Castle Rock, Colo., to help Dye build and Plum Creek Country Club.
Then came a course in North Carolina. Then Georgia. Along the way, MacCurrach got an associate’s degree in golf course management at the University of Massachusetts and even branched out from under Dye’s wing, working for 1982 Players champion Jerry Pate on a course in Michigan.
“I was a vagabond,” he said.
Eventually, MacCurrach had to develop a bit more structure than that. He decided he could handle a job on his own and wrote a proposal to the owner of a planned golf course.
“He started asking me about workman’s comp and general liability … stuff I had never heard of,” MacCurrach said. “I told I’d get back to him.”
MacCurrach leaned on Dye, his father and another architect, Dave Postlethwait, for advice.
MacCurrach Golf was incorporated in 1987 when Allan was 22 years old. Within two years he landed a project in Georgia and two courses on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama.
Windsor Parke was the first local project. MacCurrach scored his biggest deal in 1997 when he was hired to build the first World Golf Hall of Fame Course, the Slammer & Squire, and the offers have come tumbling in ever since.
RETOUCHING THE CLASSICS
It was during the Slammer & Squire project that MacCurrach was walking around the property one day and saw a young man neck-deep in a trench in the blazing sun, working for $7 an hour.
It was Brian Almony, a recent graduate of Lake City Community College’s Turf program who had moved to St. Augustine.
MacCurrach liked the work ethic the young man was showing. It became not only a lifelong friendship but a business relationship, with Almony eventually rising from that muddy trench to become the company president.
“His talents are where my weaknesses are,” MacCurrach joked. “People actually like Brian.”
MacCurrach began doing more renovations of “classic courses,” those built primarily before 1960 and designed by some of the most famous architects in history.
The names ring out. MacCurrach has done renovation on courses designed by Donald Ross, Walter Travis, A.W. Tillinghast, Harry S. Colt, Seth Raynor, Dick Wilson and Herbert Strong.
MacCurrach Golf has done 40 classic course renovations. The company uses laser technology, robotics and GPS to rebuild greens, fairways and bunkers as closely as possible to the architect’s original design, but often it comes down to someone coming down from the bulldozer, grabbing a rake or even getting on hands and knees to mold the earth by hand.
“You’re always thinking about the designer, and you also think about the great players who have been on those courses,” Almony said. “It’s very humbling.”
COMPANY SURVIVES DOWNTURNS
Renovations have constituted the vast majority of their contracts since the recession in 2008. MacCurrach said the company’s revenue fell by half that year but he was prepared.
“We were well-capitalized and did not have to lay anyone off,” he said. “We stayed committed to our people and we knew what assets we had, how much money we had and we knew what our door-closing number would be. We never got there.”
Despite the current economic downtown because of the coronavirus pandemic, MacCurrach has more than enough business and said the company has exceeded its revenue record in each of the past five years.
“We’re doing a lot of face-lifts,” Almony said. “We like to think of them as new designs on old pieces of ground.”
MacCurrach said having passion is the key.
“We’ve worked with 59 architects and most of those guys are fanatics, passionate,” he said. “They know what they want and they want it right. I love that. We thrive on that.”
MacCurrach’s passion trickles down through his employees and it’s one reason most of his customers only have to dial seven digits to reach him.
“I don’t have enough good words to say about Allan,” Howard said. “There are a number of national construction companies people could go to and we take multiple bids when we want to do a renovation. But we always settle on Allan.”
Golfweek’s Best top resorts plan their reopenings in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
The top golf resorts in the country have been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus pandemic. With revenues tied to accommodations and food services as well as to their golf courses, even the resorts that have been able to keep their courses operational have sustained more than a month of lost bookings throughout the properties.
Most states have reopened their golf courses – only Vermont, Maryland and Massachusetts have remained closed to golf with no announced plans to reopen. And now that many states are trying to restart businesses, several top resorts have announced reopening dates of at least some non-golf operations as they plan a return to normalcy.
As examples of how resorts around the country are trying to get things started as governors allow businesses to open, we offer the following look at Golfweek’s Best top resort courses and proposed timelines for the full resort operations to open. Each resort has stressed its efforts to provide sanitary playing opportunities with social distancing and other modifications such as leaving the flags in the hole while putting and using modified cups to prevent players from having to reach too deeply into the holes.
No. 1 Pebble Beach Golf Links
The famed course in Pebble Beach, California – host to six U.S. Opens – reopened Monday. Hotel operations are slated to begin June 1. Spyglass Hill at the resort, No. 11 on the Golfweek’s Best list, also reopened Monday. Tee times are typically reserved for resort guests with only limited non-resort public access, but during May the golf courses will be open for public-access bookings with reduced green fees: $495 for Pebble Beach, down from the normal $575, and $325 for Spyglass Hill, down from the normal $415.
There are PGA Championships scheduled out to 2031, although venues for 2025, 2026 and 2030 are still to be determined.
In 2019, the PGA Championship was moved up from August to May.
In 2020, the PGA will slide back on the calendar but not because of another schedule overhaul. Rather, the global coronavirus pandemic has forced changes across the board for golf tournaments.
On April 6, the PGA Championship was tentatively rescheduled for Aug. 6-9, while staying at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco. PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh indicated on April 14 that every effort will be made to stick to those dates, even if it means no fans on the grounds.
There are PGA Championships scheduled out to 2031, although venues for 2025, 2026 and 2030 are still to be determined.
Future locations
2020
TPC Harding Park, San Francisco, Aug. 6-9
2021
Kiawah Island Golf Resort, Ocean Course, Kiawah Island, South Carolina
2022
Trump National Golf Club, Bedminster, New Jersey
2023
Oak Hill Country Club, East Course, Pittsford, New York
2024
Valhalla Golf Club, Louisville, Kentucky
2027
Aronimink Golf Club, Newtown Square, Pennsylvania
2028
The Olympic Club, Lake Course, San Francisco
2029
Baltusrol Golf Club, Lower Course, Springfield, New Jersey
2031
Congressional Country Club, Blue Course, Bethesda, Maryland
Wth coronavirus having shut down most of the top golf courses, many caddies are struggling even more to shoulder their financial burdens.
Even in the best of times, caddying isn’t exactly a get-rich-quick kind of gig. And with coronavirus having shut down most of the top workplaces for loopers in the United States, many caddies are struggling even more to shoulder their financial burdens.
To help make ends meet, several caddies from the East Coast to the West have established GoFundMe.com accounts to help out-of-work caddies stay afloat until their next paying round. Two of the most notable fundraisers were started by caddies at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon and at Kiawah Island Golf Resort in South Carolina.
With over 350 caddies serving its five (soon to be six) golf courses, Bandon Dunes operates the largest and arguably the most influential program of its kind in the U.S. These independent contractors have been idle since the resort closed its doors March 25 after two weeks of scaled-back operations. The resort plans to remain closed through April 30.
Sven Nilsen and Todd Petrey are among a working group of about a dozen caddies who have taken the initiative on the GoFundMe campaign called Bandon Caddie Relief Fund, which has a tagline of the greater-than sign – “>” – next to a Bandon puffin logo. Nilsen is a former structured finance attorney who left Chicago for the Oregon coast in 2014. Petrey, who previously started a company that made traffic-control products, has been at the resort since 2002.
“We had this moment of good fortune when we started talking to a local non-profit, the Greater Bandon Association, to serve as our beneficiary for the GoFundMe campaign,” Nilsen said. “The president told Todd he’s always had a soft spot for us, because when the Bandon Youth Center was built a long time ago, the caddies were the ones that helped build all the basketball courts.”
“It’s a powerful statement to say ‘Greater Than Golf’ in such a golf-centric town,” Petrey added. “And I was so happy to have the entire Bandon Dunes team get behind that. They said, ‘We firmly believe that what we’re trying to do here is greater than golf. It’s feeding families and keeping people afloat while our golf courses are shut down.’”
Michael Chupka, Bandon Dunes’ director of communications, has worked to bring the resort’s marketing muscle to the campaign. He teamed up with caddie and former resort intern Jake Muldowney to produce a short film that will spearhead the social media campaign. Chupka said the “Greater Than” tagline resonates because it means different things to different people.
“It takes me back to growing up playing golf and trying to play competitively – having this dream of making it on Tour and going through the trials of taking everything so seriously,” Chupka said. “As I matured, I realized it was just a game. ‘Greater Than’ is a reminder to everybody to think about what the game means to them.
“There’s so much going on right now. The time and energy we’re putting into this is important, but our hearts go out to the people who are working in hospitals, and the people who have been affected – friends and family members who have fallen ill. We’ve been fortunate to think about golf 24-7 in our little bubble down here in Bandon, so it’s nice to widen the lens and think about how this is affecting the world. We’re really just a small part of it.”
Ian Montgomery has caddied at Kiawah Island Golf Resort for more than a decade. (USA TODAY Sports photo)
Ian Montgomery, a caddie for more than a decade at Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course, set up a similar fund last week to benefit more than 100 caddies who work at the course scheduled to hold next year’s PGA Championship.
“I kind of took upon myself to start this,” said Montgomery. “It seemed like a pretty good idea, and if it takes off, I can help out all the people who always help me at work.”
Montgomery said he was inspired by Larry David, the creator of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld who established a fund to help caddies at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles. Montgomery said most of the area around Kiawah is dependent on the resort, and it’s been hard to make ends meet since the course temporarily closed April 4 with plans to reopen May 15.
“It’s one thing to lose your job, and it’s another thing to lose your job and not be able to find another one or take up even a side job anywhere else,” he said. “Even going to a grocery story, bagging groceries or something like that, you can’t even do that. With no end in sight, we’re just trying to take care of what’s necessary.”
Amid the international coronavirus pandemic, more than half the top 25 courses on Golfweek’s Best list of resorts are temporarily closed.
After weeks of trying to keep their courses open during the international coronavirus pandemic, more than half the top 25 courses on Golfweek’s Best list of resort tracks have shuttered their operations temporarily or plan to this week.
Several of these resorts, stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific, have posted to their websites or sent emails that operations have been halted. At others, the courses remain open while the hotel operations have ceased or been dramatically curtailed, and some are maintaining full operations.
Several of the top 25 are northern courses that have not started their golf seasons yet and as of now are still planning to open when their seasons begin.
The situation is fluid and likely to change for some of these resorts that do remain open. Several of the courses that have closed have posted that they plan to reopen in April or May. Following are details on each.
1. Pebble Beach Golf Links
Pebble Beach, California (pictured atop this story)
MGM has ceased all casino and entertainment options until April 16.
8. Kiawah Golf Resort (Ocean Course)
Kiawah Island, South Carolina
OPEN
The resort has modified its services and dining availability, but the courses are open. The pro shops are closed, with booking and check-in being handled remotely.
In the United States and United Kingdom, resorts and tour operators say few rounds and trips are being canceled in response to coronavirus.
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Golfers will play through rain, wind, heat and cold. And, apparently, the current coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. and around the world.
From the West Coast to the East and stretching all the way to the United Kingdom, resorts and tour operators say that very few rounds and trips are being canceled in response to the pandemic. Even as the number of confirmed cases in the U.S. has risen past 600 and the U.S. death toll has climbed past 25, most people with golf travel already planned appear reluctant to cancel their trips.
Golf travel offers a very different story in general than the airline and cruise industries, which have been hit hard by cancellations.
“We have experienced no impact,” Bryan Hunter, public relations director at Kiawah Island Golf Resort in South Carolina, wrote in an email to Golfweek. “In fact, we just hosted 88 two-person golf teams for our annual Friendship Cup weekend, and we had no cancellations. We are obviously monitoring the situation and educating employees on how to be responsible, just as we would with any communicable illness. Kiawah Island Golf Resort is operating business as usual.”
The response was much the same at Pebble Beach Company in California.
“Pebble Beach Company is actively monitoring the Coronavirus (COVID-19) situation, and has taken supplemental precautionary measures to ensure the continued health and well-being of our guests and employees,” officials of the famed resort wrote in a statement. “These measures include resort-wide hygiene training and more frequent cleaning of public spaces. To date, there have been no reported cases of COVID-19 in Monterey County. From a business perspective, the impact to date on our business has been minimal.”
International golf booking companies have seen similar responses to the coronavirus outbreak, with a few exceptions. Gordon Dalgleish, president and founder of international booking agency PerryGolf, said he has fielded calls from some worried customers considering canceling their travel plans, but those mostly have been offset by new customers who are still eager to travel.
“In 35 years, we’ve seen hand-foot-and-mouth (disease), we’ve seen post 9-11, we’ve seen SARS, we’ve seen volcanoes in Iceland, we’ve kind of seen most of everything,” said Dalgleish, a Scotsman who lives in Wilmington, North Carolina. “The very strange thing about this (coronavirus), people’s perception of it are at the opposite ends of the spectrum. We can talk to one person who wants to tweak a tee time or add something on their trip that’s booked for July, and the next person thinks the world is falling apart and just wants out. It’s about their own personal level of comfort.”
Photo courtesy Kiawah
PerryGolf sells trips to destinations ranging from golf stalwarts Ireland and Scotland to farther-flung South Africa and Tasmania. The company also sells golf cruises, where players travel by boat and sleep onboard, then disembark to play golf. These cruises include trips around the Mediterranean and Italy – which has been hit hard with more than 10,000 cases of coronavirus and more than 60 deaths, according to USA TODAY – as well as the U.K., South America and many other global destinations.
As with many in the cruise industry, Dalgleish was upset with a U.S. State Department warning Monday that travelers avoid cruise ships altogether. The cruise industry supports about 422,000 jobs in the U.S., according to a Washington Post story, and Dalgleish is afraid the State Department’s blanket warning is too severe with an unlimited scope that could cost thousands of people their livelihoods.
“Vendors for ships are getting clobbered,” Dalgleish said. “Can you imagine being a vendor in Florida right now? … The purpose of government is to be specific and concise and for the information so be secure, not to introduce more questions than answers.”
While the cruise side has been more of a struggle as coronavirus threats have grown, Dalgleish said the numbers for conventional golf trips have remained relatively stable.
Peak season for travel to the U.K. and Ireland is mid-April through early October, Dalgleish said, and people who have bought trips are approaching or already have passed their final payment dates. Those countries have not been added to warning lists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or by the World Health Organization. Some customers have called PerryGolf looking for reassurances, but in general they are keeping their plans.
Dalgleish also said PerryGolf is working with vendors to delay final payments when necessary, and that the normally strict terms and conditions of a travel contract might be made flexible to assuage fears.
“People fundamentally want to wait as long as possible before they have to make a final financial commitment,” Dalgleish said. “We have laid out our terms and conditions from the outset, but that’s under, well, let’s call it normal conditions. If we have to modify those to find that happy middle ground, to where it makes sense for the consumer and it makes sense for us as a business and they have to wait 30 days (to make a payment), then that’s what we do. We’ve worked with different folks in coming up with reassurances.”
Sam Baker, founder and CEO of Cincinnati-based Haversham and Baker Golfing Expeditions, said his international booking company has seen almost no impact from the coronavirus outbreak. Haversham and Baker mostly sells to country club members who travel in familiar groups with friends, and most trips are booked nine to 18 months in advance. Ninety percent of the company’s trips are to Ireland or Scotland.
“Right now, 2020 is the biggest season we’ve ever had by 10 percent,” Baker said. “And we continue to add to bookings for 2020. So it’s going to grow even more. And our early bookings for 2021 are also running higher than they ever have. So contextually, we’re not seeing any effect yet in the numbers.
“Having said that, we continue to monitor the situation really closely. I think that caution is the smart move here. We’re working with our suppliers (to promote guest safety).”
Baker said none of the 200-plus hotels and courses with which his company books are in areas flagged by the CDC or WHO. Still, most hotels have implemented new safety measures, such as frequent cleaning of high-touch areas – think elevator buttons, door knobs and the like, Baker said.
“As we’ve had people call us out of an abundance of caution, we continue to tell our clients what’s going on, and here are the facts on the ground,” Baker said. “Does that mean you shouldn’t be concerned? Of course not. You should be, and you should exercise caution.”
And Baker said he couldn’t overstress the importance of good travel insurance. With golfers paying an average of about $6,000 each for golf, on-the-ground transportation and hotels on a Haversham and Baker trip, he said it’s important to buy travel insurance from a major carrier and to read the fine print.
“There’s an old saying in the industry: Good travel insurance is never cheap, and cheap travel insurance is never good,” Baker said. “Don’t shop by price, and instead shop by coverage. … In all our literature, when people book with us, we tell them you really need to insure against a loss. We are having more people ask questions about that.”
Both Baker and Dalgleish said that despite the outbreak, many people will continue to travel to play golf, both domestically and internationally. Nobody knows how long the outbreak will last or to what extent the illness might reach, but it’s important to base any travel plans on realistic precautions and not on hype, hysteria or ignorance.
“When is this all going to kind of clear up? I don’t know,” Dalgleish said. “The reality is, at some point this will be in our rearview mirror. This is not the new normal. But it’s not as if somebody is going to come out one morning and blow the all-clear whistle. The reality is that people are going to be concerned until we start to see a serious, ongoing reduction in the number of cases and the news cycle finds a shiny new object. …
“Our view is that people, for the most part, want to travel and they’re just looking for some level of reassurance that travel makes good sense and they’re not just throwing good money after bad.”
Pete Dye designed more than 250 courses around the world, many of which have hosted major championships and PGA Tour events.
Pete Dye, who died Thursday at the age of 94, designed more than 250 courses around the world, many of which have hosted major championships and PGA Tour events.
Known for making tough courses that would challenge – even infuriate – the best players in the game, Dye left a lasting impression on course architecture. While perhaps most famous for his island green at No. 17 at the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, his contributions to golf go way beyond that pond.
Following are the top 10 Dye courses in the Golfweek’s Best rankings for 2019, as compiled by our hundreds of raters. Nine are in the United States, and one is in the Dominican Republic. Each course was judged by 10 criteria before being assigned a total score between one and 10 by each rater, then those scores were averaged to compile the rankings below.
1. Whistling Straits(Straits)
Where: Mosel, Wisconsin
Year opened: 1997 (resort)
Average rating: 8.28
Golfweek’s Best: No. 7 Modern Courses in the U.S.
2. The Golf Club
Where: New Albany, Ohio
Year built: 1967 (private)
Average rating: 7.86
Golfweek’s Best: No. 12 Modern Courses in the U.S.
3. Kiawah Island Golf Resort (Ocean)
Where: Kiawah Island, South Carolina
Year built: 1991 (resort)
Average rating: 7.85
Golfweek’s Best: No. 13 Modern Courses in the U.S.
4. Pete Dye GC
Where: Bridgeport, West Virginia
Year built: 1994 (private)
Average rating: 7.78
Golfweek’s Best: No. 16 Modern Courses in the U.S.
5. Honors Course
Where: Ooltewah, Tennessee
Year built: 1983 (private)
Average rating: 7.75
Golfweek’s Best: No. 19 Modern Courses in the U.S.
No. 17 at the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course (Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports)
6. TPC Sawgrass (Players Stadium)
Where: Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida
Year built: 1981 (resort)
Average rating: 7.74
Golfweek’s Best: No. 22 Modern Courses in the U.S.
Casa de Campo’s Teeth of the Dog course (Courtesy of Casa de Campo)
7. Casa de Campo (Teeth of the Dog)
Where: La Romana, Dominican Republic
Year built: 1971 (resort)
Average rating: 7.54
Golfweek’s Best: No. 3 in the Caribbean and Mexico
8. Oak Tree National
Where: Edmond, Oklahoma
Year built: 1975 (private)
Average rating: 7.45
Golfweek’s Best: No. 41 Modern Courses in the U.S.
Harbour Town Golf Links (Courtesy of Sea Pines)
9. Sea Pines (Harbour Town GL)
Where: Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
Year built: 1970 (resort)
Average rating: 7.35
Golfweek’s Best: No. 54 Modern Courses in the U.S.
10. Long Cove
Where: Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
Year built: 1982 (private)
Average rating: 7.14
Golfweek’s Best: No. 77 Modern Courses in the U.S.
The best of South Carolina’s Low Country and Grand Strand is all about long marsh views, moss dripping from oaks and beachside living. Think shrimp boils, pickup trucks and Southern accents. And golf courses. From Myrtle Beach at the north end of …
The best of South Carolina’s Low Country and Grand Strand is all about long marsh views, moss dripping from oaks and beachside living. Think shrimp boils, pickup trucks and Southern accents.
And golf courses.
From Myrtle Beach at the north end of the state’s beaches to Hilton Head Island near the southern end, it seems there are more fairways than back roads – and that’s saying something down here.
It’s no surprise to most traveling golfers that South Carolina has great golf. Myrtle Beach is a long-time staple with its nearly 100 courses. Halfway down the state’s coast, Kiawah Island Golf Resort has hosted a Ryder Cup in 1991 and a PGA Championship in 2012, and the course is slated to host that major championship again in 2021. Harbour Town Golf Links at Sea Pines hosts the PGA Tour’s RBC Heritage each April.
What is somewhat surprising is that in a state that stretches inland some 250 miles with a diverse landscape that rolls up toward the Appalachian Mountains in the west, all the state’s top-ranked public-access courses are near the beach. Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list includes 15 courses in the Palmetto State, and each of them is near the coast.
My recent rounds on the top five on the list showcased the best of coastal South Carolina golf. Included with the highlights of my trip are comments from Golfweek’s Best raters, on whose opinions our comprehensive course-ranking system is built.
