FEATURE STORY

Beware hotel arranged golf packages: Your enjoyment not the bottom line

By Chris Baldwin,
Senior Writer

(Nov. 27, 2004) - It can be an intoxicating deal. A hotel offers to set up all your golf during a stay in a hot spot like Las Vegas, Myrtle Beach or St. Andrews. With one phone call or one click of the mouse, your entire golfing adventure could be planned. No muss, no fuss.

The Sirens who lure ships in Greek mythology hold less allure.

• Heather Glen Golf Links • Glen Dornoch Waterway Golf Links Offers Perfect Blend of Lowcountry and Old Country • Pawleys Plantation: Still One of Grand Strand's Best Courses

Not so fast...Be aware. Be very aware of what you are getting into when you hand control of your precious golf trip over to a hotel. These prepackaged hotel deals are fraught with the danger of lower quality throw-in courses, illogical travel patterns and unexpected tie-down tee times.

"The hotels' priority is to fill their rooms and fill their golf courses," said Jerry McGraw of Carolina Golf Travel, an independent golf packaging company. "They're going to steer you toward playing five or six of their courses, no matter how good those courses really are or how spread out they might be."

McGraw obviously has a strong financial interest in arguing against big hotel golf packages. They are his competition. Still it is hard not to see the point, especially in golf meccas like Myrtle Beach and Las Vegas where there are so many hotel conglomerates with ties to so many golf course conglomerates.

New York golfer Kevin Rordian developed a distaste for hotel packages from his own experiences. Rordian used a package offered from a Las Vegas resort for a golf trip to Sin City. With 12 other guys in his group, he figured it would just make life a whole lot simpler.

"It was the easiest golf trip I ever planned and one of the most boring golf wise," Rordian said. "The hotel would recommend all these courses and we wouldn't find out until later that it was another course tied to the hotel company. They just made it so much easier to play their courses. There were a lot more tee times to choose from on their courses. They made it cheaper. And these weren't bad courses.

"They just weren't all the courses we wanted to play. So you'd leave Vegas feeling like you didn't get to do what you really came there to do."

Now Rordian plans all his own golf travel, using internet sites to book hotels and golf courses separately, based on his own research.

"It's a lot more time consuming, but it's worth it to me," Rordian said.

Choosing to go with a hotel's package is sometimes worth it if you are determined to play a specific, hard-to-get, high-profile course affiliated with the property. Just expect a sell on all the "championship caliber" courses linked to the hotel you've never heard of too. Some hotels are more forthright than others when it comes to their packages.

Village at the Glens (North Myrtle Beach) general manager Bill Lewis makes it clear to staying golfers when he is recommending an affiliated course. Lewis admits he pushes Heather Glens, Glen Dornoch Waterway Golf Links, Shaftesbury Glen Golf & Fish Club and Possum Trot Golf Course -- Village at the Glens' partner courses -- first, but feels no qualms about doing so because of the courses' quality.

We're very proud of our affiliation with Heather Glens and Glen Dornoch and we make that known," Lewis said. "As a golfer myself, I know when I send a group out to one of our courses they're not going to be disappointed. We have some very well respected courses that have drawn national praise. If I wasn't certain of the courses' quality, believe me I wouldn't be sending our valued customers out to play them.

"That doesn't make sense from a business perspective. In an area as highly competitive as Myrtle Beach it's all about getting the repeat customer and you don't get golfers to come back if you lead them wrong about the single most important thing to them -- The Golf."

Not all hoteliers are as upfront about their golf ties as Lewis. On a recent 10-day trip to Myrtle Beach, TravelGolf.com asked more than a dozen hotel/condo general managers and golf pros to recommend other area courses worth checking out. Inevitably, almost all of them only mentioned courses they had business ties with. Usually without mentioning a word about those ties.

This to a reporter, an occupation whose job description centers on double checking things like that. Think the hotels are more forthcoming with the general public?

A hotel's golf package often centers on the unexpected ties that bind. For example, buying a golf package through the St. Andrews Links Trust can guarantee you a tee time on the Old Course. But it also might require you to play the unknown and the undistinguished Strathtyrum Course, a 5,620 yarder that legends are not made of. The Old Course and Strathtyrum are both run by St. Andrews Links Trust of course.

There can be unexpected annoyances that come with a golf package set up by a hotel as well. Sometimes, the biggest problem is not the courses you're steered towards. Sometimes, it is where those courses are located. Just because the courses are tied together does not mean they are close together. A hotel package can leave you with an itinerary even Jack Kerouac would balk at.

Especially in areas like Myrtle Beach and Scottsdale where the best courses are spread far apart.

"Some of these hotel prepackages will have you playing a course in Pawleys Island, a course in Myrtle Beach and a course in Calabash (North Carolina) one right after the other," McGraw said. "So you're spending half your trip driving up and down 17, going back and forth. A lot of golfers, especially first time visitors, don't realize that when you say Myrtle Beach, you're talking 75 miles of beach area. Everything's not right across the street from each other."

McGraw says Carolina Golf Travel combats this problem by suggesting its clients concentrate on one or two areas relatively close together on a Myrtle Beach trip.

"Nine out of 10 people are going to come here next year too and probably the year after that," McGraw said. "So one year you do the North, hit the courses you really want to play there, the next year you do the South, the next year the Central area."

This is where independent package companies can hold an advantage. They want your money too, but they are not tied in to a specific set of courses they need to sell above all others. They can customize the trip you want.

"We'll tweak a package to get in a higher quality course," said JT Kobelt of Carolina Golf Travel. "That's one of the big advantages of knowing the area and being golfers ourselves. We know what courses are a little better in the same price range."

Graham Spears, the owner of the Golf Travel Co., a packaging service that specializes in Great Britain/Ireland golf trips, puts it even simpler.

"Would you rather buy a golf trip from another golfer or a hotel sales representative?" Spears said. "We've played the courses we're sending you out on."

The competing claims can get confusing, coming back to self consumer education.

"If you're not willing to do the work yourself," Rordian said. "You'd better know who's doing it for you."

Everyone has a sales pitch. Often the hotel arranged packages' sales push centers solely on the company's own needs. They've got empty rooms and empty courses and they are certainly going to work to put you together with both.

Suddenly, you're the unwitting package deal. No muss, no fuss.

Any opinions expressed above are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the management. The information in this story was accurate at the time of publication. All contact information, directions and prices should be confirmed directly with the golf course or resort before making reservations and/or travel plans.