Your First Golf Trip Ever

[ed_getka]

Kirk,
   Thanks for sharing, that was cool.

[George Pazin]

Jordan, I don't know about your first trip, but I highly recommend doing something like Ed describes at some point early in your life - maybe post college. Sounds like a dream come true to me.

My only real golf trip was the GCA Land of Enchantment tour. It was fantastic because I: 1) got to play The Rawls Course at Texas Tech and, more importantly, 2) got to travel and hang out with my good friend Adam Clayman. It's a trip I'll never forget.

If you hit Monterey (one r! ) with your dad, I'd make certain to include Pacific Grove.

I'm looking forward to a trip with my son someday, but he's only 2, so I don't want to wish my life away!

 



Kirk, I second Ed, thanks for sharing that story. In a weird way, I hope you never experience just a golf trip (hope that makes sense).

[Tom Huckaby]

George, of course that trip also allowed you to play Black Mesa and fully absorb its greatness.

 

Sorry, smartass way of getting to the point of this post:  I too have to thank Kirk for that post, and I absolutely understand what you mean when you convey wishes that he never experience "just" a golf trip.  That makes perfect sense.

Oh, btw, I have wracked my brain since this topic first appeared and I honestly can't pin-point my first golf trip.  Golf has been a part of damn near every trip I've gone on for any reason since about age 10.

But to answer what I think Jordan is getting at, well... caddies aren't necessary but if there they do tend to add to the fun; if golf is the primary reason for the trip and the courses are great, 36 holes a day sometimes isn't enough; and the main thing is not going to be the courses, but the PEOPLE you go with and meet.  Do not short-shrift that part no matter what.

TH

[Tim Pitner]

Jordan,

Here's a tip for future golf adventures: study abroad.  After my first year of law school, I studied at Trinity College in Dublin.  My class lasted a month (1 1/2 hours each morning Mon-Thurs), so I was based in Dublin for that time and traveled the week before the class, the week after and every weekend.  Golf wasn't the focus of the trip (my wife accompanied me), but I played several times and paid ridiculously low student rates.  I think I paid something like 20 Irish pounds ($30) to play Lahinch, and much less to play courses like Donegal and Connemara.  

So, if I were you, I'd do something similar except go earlier (during undergraduate school) and go sans significant other so you can play whenever you want (of course, I have no regrets--Ireland is about more than just golf).

[Sally Livingston]

I wish I could say my first trip was when I was 12 or 14 like some of you, but I did feel that way, so that's part of it. My husband and I put a golf trip together for a group of friends to Ireland 9 years ago. I was just getting started into the game and I believe there were 4 of us girls that tried to play a couple courses, Waterville & Killearny being the most remembered, while the rest of the ladies toured the great sites, castles and shopped. The 4 of us? Well, we should never been out there. I still remember looking back at the poor raging 4-some on the horizon behind us as we were snapping photos of each other. What an experience- sure hope it wasn't one of you guys! The entire trip was an awesome experience - Guinness, golf, stories and the whipping weather - truly fell in love with it.
Since then we've been back several times golfing in different parts of Ireland, alternating almost every year with Scotland.  

[Brian Cenci]

My first true golf trip was last year with fellow GCA'er Dave Neveux.  16 days, 17 different top 100 courses, 23 rounds of golf, 7800 miles of driving from Lansing, MI to Bandon, OR and back, 1 corvette.

We played:
Victoria National (Indiana)
Olympia Fields (Illinois)
The Harvester (Iowa)
Wild Horse (Nebraska)
Prairie Dunes (Kansas)
Lakota Canyon (Colorado)
Redlands Mesa (Colorado)
Bandon Dunes (Oregon)
Pacific Dunes (Oregon)
Bandon Trails (Oregon)
Circling Raven (Idaho)
Old Works (Montana)
Links of North Dakota (North Dakota)
Hawktree (North Dakota)
Hazeltine National (Minnesota)
Quarry at Giants Ridge (Minnesota)
Greywalls (Michigan)

Most memorable things were the Brass Rail bar in the middle of Kansas...The awesome cover band at some bar in Bandon, OR...running out of gas at 2:00 in the morning in Adel, Oregon (on the Nevada/Oregon border) and having to call a tow truck to bring us gas...the corvette we took...the girls we picked up at a strip club in Coure D'Alene, Idaho...too much to even write about and most things I can't.