The Royal Montreal Golf Club, Canada
Founded in 1873, Royal Montreal is the oldest golf club in North America, and many of its regulations are charmingly old fashioned in this 21st-century golf world. For example, golfers can wear shorts, but only in combination with high-top socks. Royal Montreal’s 80,000-square-foot clubhouse, tastefully festooned throughout with first-rate golf memorabilia and illustrations, oozes […]
Ardglass Golf Club, Ireland
The 1st tee of Ardglass Golf Club backs up the clubhouse, a nearly 700-year-old castle, and points the golfer toward a prospect as exhilarating as it is dangerous: a drive over 40 feet of imposing black cliff bordered by the Irish Sea on the left. Add first-tee jitters and loitering spectators to this mix and […]
Golf in Montego Bay, Jamaica: Round Up
On the 11th hole at Tryall Golf Club on the northwest coast of Jamaica, my ball lands beneath a tree with large round orbs popping out from the leaves. “Papaya?” I query my caddie, Howell. “Coconut,” he answers. “Not yet ripe.” Later, Howell points out breadfruit and mango trees. Then Cecil, another caddie, walks […]
Risk Reward Holes: Casino Golf Courses
Barona Valley Ranch Resort and Casino Barona Creek Golf Club Lakeside, Calif. Best gambling hole: No. 14, par 4, 316 yards “A short tight fairway, with a mountainous natural reserve to the right. Most of the time it’s downwind, so it’s appealing. I’ve taken everything from a 2 to a 9. That’s what makes […]
Historic Golf Vacation in Williamsburg, Virginia
When the Brits arrived at Jamestown in 1607 to establish the first permanent English settlement in North America, they could not have had golf on their minds. Four centuries later, golf still doesn’t necessarily spring to mind at the mention of Williamsburg, Virginia, but it’s at least gained a foothold in a region more […]
The Royal St. George’s Golf Club, England
The founding of England’s first major-championship golf venue might easily have been dubbed the Great Escape of 1887. It was conducted by a group of frustrated golfers from Wimbledon Common in the suburbs of London, where the game was played by two golf clubs on the same course—in opposite directions. The search for new ground […]
Redtail Golf Club, Canada
The toughest part is finding the place. There are no markers for the front gate. Road signage is minimal. The farm country of lower Ontario, Canada, scarcely provides any sense of identifiable landmarks to visitors. Redtail Golf Club opened in 1992, before it was fashionable to talk about “minimalism” in course design. The name […]
Tralee Golf Club, Ireland
The elderly gentleman clapped his hands and signaled thumbs-up as he chugged by in a golf cart on the 12th fairway of Tralee Golf Club. Considering I had just played a 9-iron lay-up and still sat 100 yards shy of the green on this long par 4, I wondered if he were complimenting me […]
California Golf Travel: Santa Barbara
Drifting north on El Camino Real, the “King’s Highway” that links California’s 21 colonial missions, I can sense Junipero Serra’s presence in the red-tile roofs and whitewashed adobe walls all around us. My wife, for some reason, cannot. “Nobody can walk that far for that long and not collapse,” she insists. But Serra, a […]
Golf Travel: Williamsburg, Virginia
History is at the heart of Williamsburg, from the restored 18th-century town that was the capital of pre-Revolutionary Virginia to the country’s second-oldest college. The history even extends to the golf—the area is home to one of the first island greens. But there’s far more to Williamsburg than the past: Lodging options like the […]
