What's the Secret to Unforgettable Golf Travel Experiences?

Ready to take your golf game to the next level? In this episode of No Tourists Allowed, we share our secrets for planning the ultimate golf getaway. From scoring tee times at legendary courses like St. Andrews and Pebble Beach to navigating the logistics of international golf travel, you'll get expert tips for crafting a golf trip you'll never forget.

We dive deep into the world of golf tourism, discussing the pros and cons of using golf tour operators, the best ways to secure coveted tee times, and how to save money on a luxury golf vacation. We also share our favorite golf destinations around the world, from the classic links courses of Scotland to the hidden gems of Australia's Melbourne Sandbelt.

Whether you're a seasoned golf traveler or just beginning to dream about your first golf adventure, this episode is packed with practical advice and insider knowledge. You'll learn how to plan a golf trip that fits your budget and skill level, and discover new ways to elevate your golf vacation from ordinary to extraordinary.

So grab your clubs and get ready to tee off on the golf trip of a lifetime! Tune in now and start planning your next unforgettable golf getaway.

Introduction to No Tourists Allowed

Mike Putman: Welcome to No Tourists Allowed, a podcast where two recognized travel industry executives with a combined 71 years on the inside of travel and technology give up their secrets to the thing everyone wants to do: travel better, pay less, and see more of the world. Here are your hosts, Mike Putman and James Ferrara. Hello, everyone. I'm Mike Putman.

James Ferrara: And I'm James Ferrara, and I don't know about the spend less part. Mike, I just came back from Pebble Beach and you, as an expert golfer, know when you go into the store—and this is Pebble Beach, California, guys, and one of the great golf resorts in the world. You go into a store at a golf resort like that, it is no joke. I went to buy a golf shirt for my son. It was like two hundred dollars for a golf shirt. A hundred dollars for a hat. I'm going to print up my own stuff. Make up a name of a golf course and anyway, that's not what we're here to talk about. Welcome to No Tourists Allowed, everyone. We are here to talk about travel experiences, but we're here to talk about traveling in a certain way. We want to get you to think about not the big box brands and the usual tourist routes and pathways and byways of the world, but to think about going to less traveled places. We want you to travel in a way that gives you a more authentic sense of the place that you're visiting and just better memories. It’s a deeper, more meaningful way to travel without getting too hippy-dippy on you. We also like to have fun. Mike and I are here with almost a hundred years of experience and we’d like to share it with you. We bring some great friends and guests on with us to do the same, share their expertise in the travel business, and help you find your way around the world.

Planning a World-Class Golf Trip

Mike Putman: Absolutely. And today I want to talk a little bit about a somewhat unique topic: how to plan a golf trip. First of all, let me back up and say James said that I'm an expert golfer, so all of my friends listening will know that's BS. I'm not an expert golfer. I like to play golf, but I'm not an expert, for sure. I've been around the travel space, have a passion for golf, and I feel like I'm in a good place where I can help provide some information on how to plan a golf trip. One of the more difficult things about planning golf, especially if you're doing it on your own, is trying to corral four or eight people. There are these incremental components required of a golf trip that you don't have in a normal trip. Getting tee times at resorts, for instance. You’ll hear a lot of cocktail talk where people say, "Oh, I'm going to Ireland, do you want to go with me?" and then they don't have any idea of where to go or how to structure the trip. A big part of that revolves around getting tee times, especially at the exclusive resorts like Pebble Beach, which you were just at this week, or the Old Course in St. Andrews or any of those venues. There are several golf tour packaging companies out there. There's a couple out of Atlanta; Premier Golf is the name of one that does a good job. Really good people. But you end up paying a premium because most people do this kind of once-in-a-lifetime or a couple of times in a lifetime trip to Scotland. That's every golfer's dream. But getting tee times at those bucket list courses like the Old Course, Carnoustie, Kingsbarns, et cetera, they're not easy to come by. As a matter of fact, they're in very strong demand. The tour operators often get tee times in advance there, and it's really difficult to get that. You have this issue of, "All right, I can get a tee time at this time on this date," at somewhere like the Old Course, which is a very hard golf course to get on. Then you have to plan the rest of your trip around that. You have to talk to your buddies and say, "Hey, can you guys get off this week? I was able to score a tee time at the Old Course and we need to revolve our trip around that." It takes a lot of effort and a lot of planning. I've done a lot of these trips for my friends and it takes a hell of a lot of work.

Expert Strategies for Securing Tee Times and Logistics

James Ferrara: Are you saying you pay a little bit of a premium to go through one of these tour companies? Or do you have an option to build it yourself, or can you really not score the tee times otherwise?

Mike Putman: You can. There are some exceptions, but there are ways around it. I'm talking about St. Andrews because everybody wants to go play the Old Course. There are several ways to get tee times there. One is going through a tour operator. The second is through certain hotels in St. Andrews that get an allotment of tee times. They might make you stay three or five days, like the Old Course Hotel. If you stay there, you're paying a premium for your room, but they can get you on the Old Course. Or you can go into a lottery system, a ballot system, where you don't really have a confirmed tee time until you get over there. I will say I've been over probably twelve times and I've gotten on every single time. But a lot of people aren't willing to take that risk, especially if they're doing a once-in-a-lifetime trip. The premium is pretty dear, James. If you go with the tour operator, you're going to pay around thirty percent more than if you did it on your own.

James Ferrara: We have a couple of providers like Sports Empire and a few others at my company that we use. I know that these are premium to luxury trips, the way they're priced, and the experience is great.

Mike Putman: It's awesome. Other than the Old Course and probably Carnoustie, for a lot of the other courses, if you're an existing member of a club, here is what I do: I look up where I want to play, like if I want to play in Aaron, and I look up the name of the secretary. The secretary is typically the person at the club that's in charge. Look up his name and write him a nice email or a paper letter and say, "I'm Mike Putman. I'm a member of this club. My handicap is this. I'm coming over during this time period. Are there times you can let me play as an unaccompanied guest?" You always get a response and they're very accommodating typically. A lot of these clubs, especially in Scotland, fund the club off the visitor fees. Unlike the US, where you pay a high entry fee and a high monthly fee to become a member of a private club, in Scotland you might pay five hundred pounds a year to be a member. They rely a lot on these visitor fees. They're generally happy to get you out there to play and accept your money. It's a lot of work, but it can be a lot of fun putting the trip together. The other thing you have to worry about is how you get around. There are services that will drive you around. If you've got eight or twelve people, it makes sense to get a driver. You can rent a van and drive yourself, but you'll be driving on the left-hand side of the road and you definitely need a designated driver because they have zero tolerance for "drink driving" over there. You can’t even have one beer and be under the limit. You’d need a designated driver or to hire a service.

Top Global Golf Destinations

James Ferrara: Mike, those are actually great insider tips. Now, I've been to some great golf resorts around the world even though I personally don't golf. I have been to St. Andrews, I've been to Gleneagles, and I've been to Pebble Beach a number of times. Where else are the hotspots?

Mike Putman: For the US market, if you want a lot of golf at a low cost, Myrtle Beach is a great alternative, especially from October until March. That's their off-season. There are a lot of condos for rent and there are about a hundred and twenty courses in the Myrtle Beach area. It's a great inexpensive place and a lot of people from the Northeast drive down. There are also low-cost carriers that fly in there. Miami is a great location with a lot of accessible golf courses. Hawaii has really good golf courses. It’s five hours from the West Coast and maybe eight or nine from the East Coast, but that's some great golf. It is relatively expensive. The place that I think has the best golf in the world is in the Melbourne area of Australia. If you want to do another once-in-a-lifetime trip, Melbourne has three of the top 20 golf courses in the world within five miles of each other. These are all private clubs, but again, if you write the secretary, you should be able to get a chance to play a lot of these great clubs.

The Aesthetic Appeal of Iconic Seaside Courses

James Ferrara: What I love is one of these dramatic seaside courses. My summer house is near Maidstone Golf Club in East Hampton, which I believe is the oldest club in the United States, and also Shinnecock Hills in Southampton. I just came back from Pebble Beach, which, from a scenery point of view, has to be one of the most stunning courses in the world. It’s windswept with oceanside holes, waves crashing on the rocks, and fog rolling in. It is spectacularly beautiful. I used to live in San Diego, very near to Torrey Pines. I don't know if you've ever played out there, Mike?

Mike Putman: Yeah, and in that Carmel area where Pebble Beach is, there are several good golf courses, as well as Cypress Point. That is my second favorite golf course in the world, and it is almost impossible to get on. They say it's the hardest golf course in the world to get on, including Pine Valley and Augusta. In my opinion, Pebble Beach is overpriced. They require you to stay on property for three nights to be able to play the course. The course is around six hundred and fifty dollars and it is very scenic, but it's not a great golf course in my opinion. There are places like Bandon Dunes in Oregon that have a similar setup, but there's nothing else to do but play golf. There are five courses now and green fees are significantly less than what they are at Pebble, but it's right on the ocean with just as dramatic views.

James Ferrara: When I was a kid we used to go to Casa de Campo and La Romana in the Dominican Republic—another beautiful course along those striking rocky cliffs and the ocean down there. The aesthetic quality was very good.

Mike Putman: It is a top twenty in the world. It is a great golf course. Teeth of the Dog is the name of that.

Sports and Cultural Event Tourism

James Ferrara: Teeth of the Dog, that’s right. We're seeing more and more that sports and cultural events, particularly music concerts and festivals, are moving people around the world far beyond what they used to. Golf certainly is one of the prime sports categories for that. There's also Formula One, which is very popular. A friend of mine was in Monte Carlo recently for that and I saw it in Las Vegas last year. Soccer, or what they call football elsewhere, is driving people all around. Sports is such a communal thing. You get together a group of people and golf is so communal. When you're off the course, there's the rest of it: the dinners, the fun, a little bit of drinking, and cultural activities. I think it's a great sort of travel to explore. You’re still seeing history and architecture, but it's built around your gamesmanship and your golf experience.

Mike Putman: It's kind of for everybody, James. You've got sports travel in a participatory manner where you go and play golf, but you also have it where you're going to watch a golf tournament or a Formula One race where you're just watching. It crosses a lot of different age groups, backgrounds, and diversity.

James Ferrara: People shouldn't be intimidated by the idea of a golf trip. I was telling Mike this morning that while I was in Pebble Beach, this big golf event I was at has been held for twenty-seven years. This year, for the first time in twenty-seven years, someone got a hole-in-one on the number seven hole on the Pebble Beach course. The next day someone got a hole-in-one at Spyglass, and it turns out it was the guy's first time ever playing golf. It was only the second hole he had ever hit at. And he got a hole-in-one at Pebble Beach.

Mike Putman: I'm still letting that soak in. Right now I'm calling bullshit level.

The Economics of All-Inclusive Resort Living

James Ferrara: No, he actually received an award for it! So it's an opportunity for everyone. I wanted to share another story that came up this week in the news about a fella named Ben Keenan who lived in Seattle. He's a TikTok content creator. He had a challenge: could he live his moderate lifestyle at home, or could he go to an all-inclusive resort for one month for less money? He created this TikTok challenge. Expedia actually fronted the money for this in a partnership and sent him to Playa del Carmen in Mexico. The guy lived there for a month and the total cost of the trip came to four thousand nine hundred dollars. He compared that to living at home in Seattle, where his rent was two thousand dollars and his utilities, food, and everything else came to about forty-one hundred dollars. It was almost the same price living at an all-inclusive resort as it was staying at home. Ben recognized he booked this last minute, so there was probably some additional savings he didn't get to take advantage of. There is an old adage that you could send your parents on a round-the-world cruise less expensively than you could put them in a retirement home. The other learning from Ben was that you can't put a monetary value on having daily maid service, being on the water, having beach parties, and entertainment. It underscores the real value of these all-inclusives, especially when you catch them at the right time.

Mike Putman: Yeah, what a hell of a lot less work and effort, right? You don't have to take care of the landscaping or fix the roof. And it includes free room service too. I'll take that deal. Maybe when you retire you can just move into an all-inclusive resort.

Wellness and Spa Travel Destinations

James Ferrara: I wouldn't put it past me. Sticking with golf for a second: if you go on a golfing trip and everyone else golfs but you don't, what do you do? At Pebble Beach, you could either take the golf tee times or you could take the spa points. They have a world-class spa at Pebble Beach. I took the spa appointments and they were spectacular. Eighty or ninety-minute massages in this incredible facility with high-technique, experienced masseuses. They have an outdoor pool, a quiet conservatory, plunge pools, jacuzzis, cold pools, saunas, aromatherapy rooms, and steam rooms. There are even broader spas like Canyon Ranch. They have locations in the Berkshires, outside of Tucson, and one in Nashville too. They are on several cruise ships as well. It’s a much broader notion of wellness and self-care. At Canyon Ranch, it was not just about spa services, but also about exercise opportunities, including Tai Chi at dawn overlooking the desert. They have hiking, biking, cycling, and even boxing. They have a world-famous restaurant where you're getting gourmet food carefully designed around caloric intake. I was recently down in Tulum in Mexico. Hilton has a property there with a Conrad and a Hilton All-Inclusive. On the same property is the Conrad Spa. It is architecturally stunning with five-star treatments like heated stones and couples massages. Do you spa, Mike?

Mike Putman: I get massages. I might get an occasional whirlpool and cold plunge, but I do take them quite frequently when I travel. Moon Palace, just south of Cancun, has a great spa. InteleTravel had an event there in December that we both went to. They have a world-class spa and it is huge. Half Moon in Jamaica is my favorite resort in the world. They have these entries that go out into the ocean with open-air huts where you can have a massage surrounded by water. It’s a really cool experience with nice ocean breezes.

James Ferrara: All major destinations have spas now. Even Las Vegas has become known for them. In the fall, I'll be out in Napa Valley at the Mission Inn and Spa. Spa and wellness are a really important travel category, just like golf. People go in groups, like a girlfriends' weekend. Guy friends don't tend to do the spa together.

Podcast Giveaways and Travel Literature

Mike Putman: If you're a single guy, it's great to go to these spas because there are a lot of single women on these girlfriend trips. Tip from Mike Putman! But for many, this is a destination trip. People say, "I'm going to hang out at Canyon Ranch for five days to get my life in order and relax." It's important to do something nice for yourself, guys. Mike and I are working toward the last couple of weeks of our giveaway. We have a free all-inclusive vacation for two: four days and three nights on the island of Jamaica.

James Ferrara: It’s in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Maybe next week we'll finally reveal the actual resort. We've had a lot of entries. It's very easy to enter; just go to notouristsallowed.com. You can sign up for our newsletter and get multiple entries. This is not like the state lottery; there aren't a billion people. Your odds are pretty good.

Mike Putman: I highly recommend registering for the sweepstakes. It's our little way of saying thank you for listening. We appreciate you. While we're shamelessly plugging, here is my book, Money, Dreams and Chaos. You can find this on Amazon. It's an interesting read for those who know about my past journey with the travel company I was president of. We also have Paige McClanahan's book. Paige was a recent guest and her book is out. James was nice enough to send me a copy.

James Ferrara: That's Paige McClanahan's new book, The New Tourist. Paige is a well-known travel writer for the New York Times. Her book really dovetails with what we talk about here. The thesis of the book is to be aware of how wonderful travel is, but also be aware of the consequences of your tourism. She has countless examples country by country. It’s a really important message. We do not get fifty cents for every book sold; we just like it and think you'll like it too. Please come to notouristsallowed.com and send us a note about a topic you'd like us to address or a book you would recommend.

Conclusion and Farewell

Mike Putman: We really do appreciate you listening in and sharing the message. Our numbers keep going up in terms of subscriptions and listenership. Thank you for giving us a little bit of your time each week. I think we'll be signing off, James.

James Ferrara: Just remember, a couple of weeks left before we give away that free all-inclusive vacation in Jamaica. Thanks again for joining us at No Tourists Allowed.

Mike Putman: Thank you for listening to another episode of No Tourists Allowed. We'll see you next week. No Tourists Allowed is produced by Podcast Studio X.