Reply to John and Pete
In the peak travel years before Covid, I was out of the country about five months a year on five different trips, so friendships became global and multicultural for close to a decade. I made friends in various places in Australia and Ireland through golf. I also had a hobby interest at home in gardening and landscaping and started doing non-golf stops in Japan to see gardens. I tend toward solo pursuits and virtually all of my travel which numbers now 51 overseas trips, mostly involving some golf, other than the Japan trips which involved pursuing gardening interests. I followed some travel blogs involving mileage programs and developed a fondness for flying, enhanced by being able to access better seating and having a flexible schedule where I could fly based on available fares that were within a range that made them better values.
The culture of private clubs in the U.S. wasn't my cup of tea. I've liked the clubs I've played at overseas which tend be be egalitarian with the primary emphasis being golf. The two clubs I have played at most have courses laid out in natural settings with minimal encroachment by residential development.
So what started out on a first trip to New Zealand and Australia in late 2007 as an experiment evolved into a really enjoyable lifestyle.
To Pete's question, I have always had a lot of extra equipment and took an old set of 690 MB irons, Vokey wedges and Titleist metal woods and hybrids to Ireland and stored them in a locker for many years. in 2014, I started accumulating multiple sets of AP2 710s with the same shafts and more modern Titleist drivers, fairway metals, and hybrids, so with extra sets, I left one set in Australia and had other sets in a couple of locations in the U.S. I had the same holiday rental on the Mornington Peninsula for many trips and the owners stored my clubs for me, including the two year period when Australia was closed to entry. When Australia opened up in March of last year, I cashed in miles and went back. I returned later in 2022 and will go back again later this week, with one light checked bag and a couple of carry ons. I liked my time in New Zealand but the abundance of accessible courses concentrated in a few areas of Australia contributed to returning to Australia a lot. [size=78%] [/size]
Charles Lund