Do you want to go on a golf cruise? So your golf bag lives in the trunk of your car, ready at hand to be a friend on days of boredom and tedium? And when you hear the words “shootin’ iron,” you always think of your sand wedge.
You burn to experience some of the best golf in some of the best golf spots in the world, but you simply can’t make the PGA cut?
Your best golf vacation alternative is to clear-cut the mashie away, sell the niblick on eBay, lay in a full set of graphite shafts, and go on a GolfAhoy golf cruise www.GolfAhoy.com Go on a golf cruise?
Would golf on a cruise consist of nothing but the tee and a water hazard three-quarters of the size of the Earth? Not quite. Aside from going to places where the golf is world class, there are golfing opportunities aboard today’s modern mega liners that will make it hard to even want to leave the ship when you’re in port.
Cruising has come a long way since “onboard golf” meant driving a bucket of balls into the briny deep. That’s great for your long game, but expensive and boring after a while (and no longer environmentally responsible, anyway).
If your landside golf game serves mainly as an excuse to get to the 19th hole and talk the game over, your onboard golf game will probably suffer (if it even has a chance). There are very few golf courses where hot food and cold drinks are mere steps away from where you’re driving or putting. And what, with the blue sky above, the blue ocean around you, and maybe a blue Curaçao in your hand the lure to lounge can be irresistible.
Aboard, you can find mini golf (no, not the kind with the windmills) where real turf and real sand traps surround a challenging nine- or eighteen-hole putting course.
Quite a few cruise lines have GolfAhoy golf pros aboard to help you with that hitch in your swing. The niftiest attractions are the full-on simulators, the golfer’s answer to the video game, wherein the golfer (you) tees off into a giant canvas screen, on which the fairway is projected. A computer records the strike and calculates distance, trajectory, and hook or slice. You’re then presented with a new vista from your ball’s lie, and you get to keep on until you hole out. All without a caddy, golf cart, or spikes. Pretty nifty, huh?
But for the true golf nut, the cruise experience is all about going places in a style where you can tread on actual fairways, dig your way out of actual rough, and actually blow that birdie putt on a real green. And the places!
You’d think there was some ancient genetic heritage in the human psyche that requires the building of golf courses as a necessary part of the habituation process. Of course, U.S. ports such as Galveston, Miami, Hawaii (where you can golf on some of the most intricate golf courses anywhere, one of which — at a thin-air altitude of 4,000 feet — delivers a bonus to your drives), Los Angeles, and New Orleans, to name a few, have plenty to offer the dedicated linkster. And you’d expect actual resort ports like Cabo San Lucas, Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta, and especially Bermuda (a certified golfer’s paradise, with five championship 18-hole courses to choose from plus a Golf Academy for practice) to have plenty of choices to drive the fairway.
But how about going to Spain to play 36? Santander port is a noted playground where world-class tennis tournaments are held, but golf is treasured, too. Or perhaps Malaga will tempt you, with one of its 38 local courses.
The Dominican Republic is said by some to have the best golf facilities in the Caribbean (a very tough call, considering what’s on offer at some of the other ports). Perhaps the siren call of Fiji is limited to one of the 18 golf courses to be found there. Back in Europe the Dublin environs have no less than 50 to choose from.
You begin to get the picture. Whether you’re taking a cruise just to take a cruise, or are really fanatical about finding places around the world to play your favorite game (and are looking for the most luxurious way of getting there) booking passage on a floating resort may be just the satisfaction you’re looking to find. Fore!
Visit www.GolfAhoy.com or call them on 239.344.9187 to book a golf cruise anywhere in the world.
