One More Mulligan

On a recent business trip to the Carolinas I drove past so many golf courses it made me wish that I had time to play a quick nine. Even the smaller municipal courses looked very inviting. I decided that I needed a quick golf fix even without my clubs. I decided to drive past some courses on the way to and from clients to check out what I was missing. After looking at the courses from my car I decided that when I got back I needed to see if I could carve away some time to get back down here and play.

Hilton Head golf is famous and I am no stranger to the images of the ocean side courses from television and magazines. The Ocean Course at the Sea Pines Resort is every bit as beautiful as any of those images. Open year round and built in 1962 it offers tees that range from 125 to 133 in slope which will offer any foursome a challenge for each level golfer.

Thankfully I was unaware that they even offer rental clubs. I may have been late for some of my meetings.
George Fazio designed the self named course at the Palmetto Dunes Resort in 1974 and it’s 132 slope from the tips has been a challenge to golfers ever since. After the renovation in 1994 it has been consistently ranked as one of the nation’s top 100 courses by Golf Digest and known as one of the biggest challenges in the Hilton Head area. It may be a par 70 but the 6,873 yards on the card will let you know that it is no joke.

If you are as interested as I am in getting Hilton Head tee times you can check out these courses or the many others that are available. Just don’t go down there without your clubs, it’s torture!

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I have a close friend with a family vacation home in Arizona and he is always telling me that the courses in Arizona are amazing. So this afternoon I started looking around on the internet to see if all his hype was just hot air or if I needed to see if I could stow away with his family for a few days. I started with the area near where the family stays, Scottsdale.

The Scottsdale golf scene does offer many course options including the Champions Course at TPC Scottsdale. Any golfer knows that any course with TPC in the name is a rare opportunity to play one of the nicest courses available to a golfer. This TPC course has a player friendly slope rating of 112 that will allow anyone traveling with you, no matter how new to the game, the chance to experience golf at it’s finest.

I have always wanted to play a course designed by the great Arnold Palmer. While searching Tucson golf courses I came across Palmer Course at the Wildfire Golf Club. This course is quote the opposite of TPC Scottsdale. Posting a slope of 135 from the tips with a distance over 7000 yards this looks like a true test for any golfer. From the pictures the scenery doesn’t look like a let down either.

Hopefully I can remember the lesson I learned in Vegas and I schedule early morning rounds to stay out of the heat. The sun here is supposed to be at least as bad if not worse with temperatures reach over 100 in the shade during the Summer. If anyone out there is planning on playing in this region you have been warned, it is really, really, really HOT!!

I’m going to go call my buddy and see if his parents are using the place. If not, next stop Arizona!

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Sometimes I think I live a charmed life. It just so happens that an upcoming conference for my day job is going to take me to Hawaii. Since my new wife and I decided not to go to Hawaii for our honeymoon this will give me a chance to golf there without any guilt. This site that I recently came across, Hawaii golf made creating my golfing itinerary really easy.

One of the interesting things that I have found is the diverse types of courses that are available in Hawaii. Many are in the vain of Scottish links while others are carved into the forest giving it a totally different feel. It appears that even the “lower” end course have scenery that will not disappoint.

I used the Hawaii golf course search to find the Arnold Palmer gem at the Turtle Bay Resort near where my conference is. From the pictures and the description on the site it is a seamless cross of Saint Andrews and Bethpage Black placed right in the middle of the beautiful blue Pacific. This resort is also home to a Fazio course that has hosted the LPGA Tour’s Hawaii Open. This course will give even seasoned pros a challenge if you play it from the tips.

The site even allows you to search for packages, hotels and restaurants so you don’t have to go from site to site trying to find all the parts of your vacation. I have found that package search particularly handy to see if there are any deals to be had by booking everything together. It also allows me to compare the resorts where the courses are located so I can see the details side by side.

With a chance to play both of these courses I’ll be looking into my stay here and booking Hawaii tee times. If I can work out the time off after the conference this might just be a homerun. Besides, time away from the new wife will be made easier if I can occupy my time.

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I have to apologize to the readers. I never gave an update on my Christmas golf vacation that I wrote about in December because it didn’t happen. As everyone can attest to the holidays creep up on you and keep things from happening. That doesn’t mean I have given up on it and we are now looking at that location as a potential honeymoon location.

Since our vacation is going to be 10 days and we want to see more than just one city I looked into other possible courses to play in the morning while my fiancé is asleep. Three spots on the trip seem to offer some great opportunities to golf in Portugal. Algarve, Lisbon and Madeira all offer great weather and sights along with top notch golf.

Ocean views with some beautiful but brutal courses are on tap. I think I’ll still see if I can get over to La Manga but some other places like Aroeira Golf Resort in Lisbon look like paradise and seem to offer spas and some other things for the misses. Whether we pick Hawaii, Portugal or another location I have been promised that I can get a round in and I promise the readers that I will tell them all about it.

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