Tag: travel

Man it gets hot in Charleston.  It’s the humidity that does it.  Despite the heat, Charleston is a very pretty city.  The people are great.  The food is very tasty.  The downtown area was a fantastic place to walk around and watch people.  That’s where there’s a little market where you can get souvenirs.  The market is covered and stretches several blocks.  It looks like it used to be a farmers market.  And the bars in the area are really cool.  We went to a rooftop bar which had great atmosphere and cool drinks.  The good looking chicks didn’t hurt either 🙂  But the most important thing is the golf is great!

All anyone can talk about is Kiawah Island.  It’s obviously the main attraction and for good reason.  It’s ranked in the top five of courses throughout the United States on most lists.  It’s a little pricey, but if you want to play the best in Charleston, and one of the best in the country, this is the place to go.

We didn’t play Kiawah Island.  I’m not saying I won’t, but we didn’t play there this trip.  There are a lot of nice courses in the Charleston area.  We played another nearby course called Wild Dunes.  We played the Links Course, which was apparently rated pretty high by Golf Digest Magazine.  It was a community course, one of a few.  It was also water front and well maintained, but for a more reasonable price than Kiawah.  The last half of the back nine held the feature holes, and ran along the water.  As you might expect on the eastern coast, there were sand dunes and reinforcing fences.  Of course, there was also wind.  These were some beautiful holes and they even come with an audience looking down on the eighteenth hole from an adjacent hotel.  The 18^th is their signature hole and is beautiful!  Don’t wear yourself out too much and save some for the crowds.  This picture is from their website .

The clubhouse was also very nice and well equipped.  It was built fairly recently and you can tell when you walk the grounds, but the golf course didn’t look too immature either.  The staff was also helpful and friendly.  Thankfully, there wasn’t much of a crowd when we were there, and it was during the busy summer.

They had very reasonable rates at Wild Dunes and be sure to ask for military rates if you qualify.  Overall, had a great experience!  Wear sunscreen!

Vegas is always fun, but it’s even more fun with the abundance of golf.  There is so much golf in Vegas.  It’s got a lot of options for adding golf to your vacation in lots of ways.  It gets a little chilly in the winter and very warm in the summer, but the weather is great most of the year (that has become a criterion for where I want to spend my time).  I’ve even played when it was 105 degrees in the summer, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.  It’s a dry heat..

But the two biggest problems with golf in Las Vegas are the cost and the fact that when you’re on vacation there are so many other things to do!  This past trip to Las Vegas, I found the solution to both of those problems:  The Callaway facility just south of the airport on Las Vegas Boulevard.

I played the nine hole par 3 course at the Callaway facility and it was speedy and cheap.  We teed off at 11 am.  That was perfect because it was close to the strip so we didn’t have to get up super early and there were a bunch of open tee times to choose from when I called earlier that same week.  Most holes fall between 110 and 135 yards, so it’s really a short game course, except for the one 185 yard hole at the end.  But the course was in pretty good shape and picturesque enough to enjoy.  There was water scattered throughout and a few bunkers to make it interesting.

The first thing I liked about the Callaway facility is the convenience and short time commitment.  It only took about an hour and a half to play, and we were taking our time.  Even if there’s a slow group, it wasn’t a huge deal because the holes are short and there are only nine of them.  I was in Vegas with a bunch of people that didn’t play golf, so it was a perfect little golf outing without excluding people from a whole day.

The second thing I liked about this option was that it was cheap.  It only cost $30 to play compared with $100-500 to play a full round of golf at most of the other courses.  Of course, if you go to Vegas in the dead of summer or winter you can get great deals on most championship golf courses anyway, but 30 bucks is tough to beat.  It’s especially good if you’re going with people that don’t play a lot and aren’t willing to pay the big bucks for a nicer course.

Granted, the Callaway facility was only a par 3, so if you wanna play a full round of golf this isn’t the place.  However, if you’re hung over and you just wanna hit some balls, this may be the place to go.  It was the right choice for me this trip and I’d play it again!

A few friends and I went to Myrtle Beach this weekend to play the Grande Dunes golf course. Driving into Myrtle Beach was interesting for several reasons, including the abundance of tourist paraphernalia and shops, almost Vegas style lights and billboards, and strip clubs. In addition, it wasn’t very crowded because it’s still winter and the weather was terrible all weekend. We were supposed to play one of the three courses at the Legends, but got rained out.

But regarding the golf, there were so many golf courses to choose from! We chose the Grande Dunes after checking out all the various packages available. There are really an abundance of golf packages to the Myrtle Beach area. If you do a google search, you’ll find numerous websites and vacation companies to serve you. Call a few and see what the deals are in your price range. You can find packages at all different prices. We ended up staying in a three bedroom condo-style room at Long Bay. Despite the terrible weather and winter season, there were a good amount of people roaming the halls of the hotel. The room was nice and clean. The staff were very nice, although busy. And we had a beautiful view of the beach. There were people on the beach even in the cold, rainy 45 degree weather. It was a plus that the pool was indoors. All-in-all, I would recommend this hotel and stay there again.

The Grande Dunes was gorgeous. The people were nice and very helpful. It’s a nice layout that is kept in very good shape. The course is forgiving with a only few trouble spots where you’ll be hitting over a waste bunker or water. The fairways are wide with the exception of only a few holes. The distances are good and tees go all the way up to 7,618 yards from the back tee and has a rating of 77.3 and slope of 142. It’s also won several awards such as Golfweek Magazines Americans Top 100 Residential Courses in 2005. The locals all know it and some said they thought it was the second best course in Myrtle Beach. Given the rain that we saw that weekend, I can say with certainty that the drainage on the course is fantastic! We were expecting cartpath only conditions, but were told to scatter and were able to drive to our ball on all fairways! That was very helpful, especially with the GPS machines installed in our carts.

We had a great time in Myrtle Beach, despite the weather. We would’ve liked to play more, but we had a great time regardless.