Great golfing towns

[Bob_Huntley]

Some years ago, some folks tried to incorporate the Del Monte Forest into the town of Pebble Beach; the attempt failed.

I am not competent enough to do so, but can anyone go to Google maps and measure the distance from course to course, not necessarily to the first tee.

From Pebble Beach to Peter Hay, 200 yards, to Cypress, to Spyglass to Poppy Hills to MPCC to Spanish Bay. There would be few towns matching that team.

Bob  

Peter Hay to CPC - 1.5 miles to the clubhouse, nearest points 0.5 miles
CPC to Spyglass - 0.9 miles clubhouse to clubhouse, nearest points 0.2 miles
Spyglass to Poppy - 1.1 miles clubhouse to clubhouse, nearest points 0.3 miles
Poppy to MPCC - 1.3 miles clubhouse to clubhouse, nearest points 0.15 miles
MPCC to Spanish Bay - 0.8 miles clubhouse to clubhouse, nearest points 0.1 miles

These are all distances from the air by road is a lot further.  All of these fit into about 6.5 square miles.

Maybe you cannot do it on foot, but this makes for a hell of a golf town.

John,

Thank you for calculating that, it is quite an eye-opener. I must say I feel blessed.

Bob

[Anthony Gray]

  No doubt Cruden Bay is the obvious answer. 18 unique holes a bowl of soup and a late night face lick.

  Athony

  

[Brad Fleischer]

Sean

Sligo ? Really ? The one in Ireland right .

Listen I loved the golf course and granted I might have had a bad run but out of all the places I visited in Ireland Sligo was the one were I kept my eye's and ear's open the most .  It was also the place I felt the least comfortable. Maybe it's my background but I noticed a lot of shady stuff going down and most def did not feel like a golf town.

Just my expierence

I also have to say Philly is pretty good and I hate to admit it but underated as well. Good food , good bars and Real good golf .Now I know it does not meet what I consider the criteria but for a big city it's pretty good.

Lahinch is def a surf town now. No doubt about it .

I think as far as the US goes it is hard to beat the town's overseas since the courses were built around the town's and not miles away like here.

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

It seems to me that some folks are talking about nice/great towns with golf and some are talking about golfing towns.  There is a difference even if it can't be properly explained.  The great thing is we all know there is a difference a difference - don't we?

Ciao 

I'd probably pick Lahinch as a golfing town, but a nice town popular for reasons other than golf (but with golf just 5 min walk away) is Dunfanaghy.

[Tim Pitner]

Sean

Sligo ? Really ? The one in Ireland right .

That was my reaction as well.  Rosses Point is nice, but I didn't find Sligo town to be inviting at all.  Maybe I would have had a different experience if I had stayed closer to the course.  Speaking just of the towns, I greatly preferred Donegal to Sligo among places in NW Ireland (but Donegal is not a golf town). 

[Sean_A]

Sean

Sligo ? Really ? The one in Ireland right .

Listen I loved the golf course and granted I might have had a bad run but out of all the places I visited in Ireland Sligo was the one were I kept my eye's and ear's open the most .  It was also the place I felt the least comfortable. Maybe it's my background but I noticed a lot of shady stuff going down and most def did not feel like a golf town.

Just my expierence

I also have to say Philly is pretty good and I hate to admit it but underated as well. Good food , good bars and Real good golf .Now I know it does not meet what I consider the criteria but for a big city it's pretty good.

Lahinch is def a surf town now. No doubt about it .

I think as far as the US goes it is hard to beat the town's overseas since the courses were built around the town's and not miles away like here.

Brad

You are right, Sligo doesn't meet the criteria, but I found it one of the better places to stay.  It certainly had some good pubs!  That said, more should be made of this town, but I didn't find it in any way threatening.  Not many places are when you spend time delivering nuts and beer to hard core Detroit/Highland Park neighbourhoods.

Ciao

[Mark Chaplin]

I've spent long weekends in NYC and wandered around alot but never stumbled across a golf course.

Melbourne has some great courses but it took me 30 minutes on the train and a good walk to the course so I'll exclude there as well.

Philly - Merion was a good 40 minutes from the airport and Gordon Jone's receptionist at a local motel to PV had never heard of PV so that has to be discounted.

In the likes of St Andrews, Dornoch, North Berwick & Woodhall Spa an evening amble will take you to the golf course and there is a big chance the locals in the pub will have an opinion on the game and the course(s) and that to me that fits the criteria of the subject Great Golfing Towns.

From my US experiences there maybe great golfing resorts but the private nature of most clubs makes great golfing towns harder to achieve if most of the locals cannot even get through the gate.

[Bill Rocco]

One of the many great golfing places is Plymouth, MA. It has 11 golf courses, two of which being Old Sandwich, and Pine Hills. It is only a 15 minutes from Cape Cod (second most golf courses per capita- Myrtle Beach #1), and Plymouth is only a half hour from Brookline Country Club and TPC-Boston....

[Cristian]

If a great Golfing Town is a town known for golf, I think Sandwich is not too bad.

If a great golfing town is a great city or town to visit with really good golf nearby (if it is just about golf, who cares about the town   ) then Paris is not too bad:

-Morfontaine
-Chantilly
-Paris St Germain
-Fontainebleau

....you even might get the Mrs to join you and for food it just may beat Dornoch.

[Tom_Doak]

Jeffrey (aka Smiley):  I hope you are enjoying yourself down at Cape Kidnappers.  Most of my crew hung out in Havelock North in the evenings, FYI.  Suggest you try it on the weekend.  Brian Slawnik's name is on the wall at the local pub for having had more than 100 Guinnesses there.

Whoever said Traverse City is a great golf town should go to Scotland.  St. Andrews and North Berwick blow T.C. away.  After those, I would go with Gullane and Brora and Dornoch and Prestwick and Leven, before I thought of anywhere outside Scotland.

Our client in China, Mr. Han, wants to build a "golf town" on a peninsula on Hainan Island.  I have had him go to North Berwick and St. Andrews to get an idea of what it ought to be like.  That would be a dream, if China could have a town like that.