Sunday, August 06, 2006

Golf Vacations: How Does A Golfer Live Without One?







OK, All Right, Yes, it is almost here… What?!  My golf vacation!!! 





For those many non-golfer friends of mind let me
explain.  There are not very many things
golfers experience that make them feel like they did when they were ten and
their parents reported that the family was going to Disneyland.  Or when they were six and were invited to a
birthday party at Six Flags.  Those kinds
of adrenaline pumping, can’t sleep at night, ‘I want to go now’ kind of feelings
kids get when they are REALLY excited.





Well, OK, if you did not get excited about those kinds of
things when you were a kid then it is going to be tough to get you to
understand what excites an adult golfer. 
So, hang in here.  I am going to
try.





Outside of making a Hole-In-One during a match play
tournament to win the match 2 and one, for a golfer, going on a golf vacation
has to be the closest thing to those gitty feelings experience in early
childhood.  Of course if you are a golfer
who travels a lot and plays golf all over, the level of excitement of playing
golf out of town is a little lower.





I am kind of one of those golfers who does get the
occasional opportunity to drive a few hundred miles to play golf somewhere here
in Texas, or maybe make a family visiting tour of another state and sneak in a
couple of rounds with the brother-in-laws, so the thought of going to play golf
out of town does not really produce any feelings for me other that the thoughts
that revolve around the hassles of packing and getting to wherever it is I am
going.





But, a Golf Vacation is totally different.   The
marriage of the two words, Golf and Vacation, pretty well sums up in a simple
package the two things that define Relaxation….  Golf, the only thing a golfer really would
like to do and Vacation, a time when there is no work or daily chores that have
to be done.   





Now there is a level of relaxation that is defined by the
adjective (or is it a pronoun?) that describes the vacation.  There is the lowly generic Golf Vacation that
could mean you are going to sit in your backyard and play your club the entire
week, or the high excitement outings that are reacted to with a WOW! when you
say you are taking an Out-of-Town Golf Vacation.  But the golf outing that will bring golfing
buddies to their knees, begging to go with you, is when you put a specific
destination in front of the words Golf Vacation.





And in my case it is the Palm Springs Golf Vacation.  Yes, I can hear the popping of arthritic
knees right now from all of my friends out there who are pleading to want to
go…and the yawns from the non-golfers who have not a clue on what the big deal
is. 





Well at the risk of inflicting more mental distress to my
golfing friends by describing more details on what Palm Springs
claim to fame is, I will continue to explain to my non-golfing associates on
what is special about Palm Springs.





Palm Springs…the Mecca of Southern California golf.  Palm Springs
is where the mega golf communities started. 
The desert location was started as a play ground for the Stars, or Hollywood
celebrities who were looking for someplace to go and get away from the Hollywood
crowds and who were bored with the Las Vegas
glitz.  Over time the area has grown to
have more golf courses per square mile than anywhere in the country.





Bob Hope, one of Palm Springs’ most prominent residence, use
to say that the golf courses were so close together out there he could stand on
a tee box with a nine iron and four balls and hit a ball in four different
directions and be in play on four different golf courses.  He said he found this out just trying to hit
the fairway of the course he was playing on… Next to Fred Couples, Bob Hope
stands pretty tall in my thoughts when it comes time to think about golf and Palm
Springs
.  Freddy
being the reining Skins King and Bob being the best comedian ever.





Yes, there are golf courses of all shapes and sizes, from
the Palm Springs Country Club that hailed as the Rat Pack’s party hangout to
the monster PGA West Stadium course that tests the best golfer’s skills.  





But there are other things about going to Palm Springs that
makes golfers drool and that is the after golf watering holes.  Ah Ha!, did I hear a non-golfers chair roll
up closer to the screen to read this thread? 





Yes, golfers are known for their 19th holes,
Caddy Shacks and Card rooms where the drinks are large and beers are cold.  And I hear Palm Springs
has a few.  And since it is going to be
REAL Hot, I can guarantee that if there is a cold beer anywhere in the Coachella
Valley
I will find it.





OK, that should give you a feel of what makes Palm
Springs
so exciting to golfers.





Now, I am not sure if it is the thinking of all of the golf
I am going to play that is getting me pumped or if it is the hunt for the best after
golf venues that is getting me excited. 
Either way, the only thing I am putting on the agenda for an entire week
is… Golfing, Eating, Pooling and trying to find the ultimate Martini and I
might even try to do it all at the same time…’Mommy, can we go now!!?’ 





Of course you can go if you want to.  And if you don’t get to go, Yes, I will tell
you all about it.





I have another week to some more writing done on my next
book, attend a ton of more meetings on launching my seminar/workshop, be on
more phone conferences on getting my web-site overhauled and get everything all
packed up but I can’t tell you how excited about taking a Palm Springs Golf
Vacation…..





Scot Duke,  President of
Innovative Business Golf Solutions, provides over 31 years of corporate
management experience to helping small businesses improve their marketing
strategies. As author of: How To Play Business Golf, Mr. Duke outlines the
steps to sucessfully using golf as a business tool.  To learn more about Mr. Duke, IBGS or to
purchase How To Play Business Golf visit 
www.innovativebusinessgolf.com



 


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