Golf trips, planned by
someone who knows golf

A golf trip isn't a normal vacation with golf attached. The tee sheet drives everything — where you sleep, how far you drive each morning, what time you eat, and how many people you can realistically keep together. Book the trip in the wrong order and you end up with a great hotel forty minutes from a 7:10 a.m. tee time.

My background is in the golf industry, and that's the lens I plan through. I know what a buddies trip actually needs, why the third day is the one that breaks people, and which resorts are worth the premium once you count what's included.

Scotland and the Old Course

St Andrews is the trip most golfers ask about first, and it's also the one most likely to go wrong if you plan it like a normal holiday. The Old Course is closed on Sundays, and access works through a few different routes that need very different lead times.

• Advance Reservations — St Andrews Links Trust opens applications for the following season, and these are the times you build a whole trip around. This is a book-a-year-out proposition, not a few-months-out one.
• The daily ballot — roughly half of Old Course tee times each year go through it. You enter two days ahead, entries close at 2:00 p.m., and results come back around 4:00 p.m. You cannot enter as a single golfer, and there's no ballot drawn on Friday because the course is closed Sunday.
• Everything around it — the ballot is a coin flip, so the rest of the itinerary has to work whether or not it comes in. That's the actual planning problem, and it's the reason a Scotland trip benefits from someone holding the whole picture.

The same logic applies across the rest of a Scotland or Ireland itinerary: courses, lodging, and drive times get sequenced together, with a fallback for the days that don't break your way.

Bandon Dunes and the walking resorts

Bandon is a different kind of planning problem. The resort is walking-only — riding carts are limited to guests with a documented medical need, arranged in advance, and a caddie has to drive. Complimentary push carts are available, and caddies are encouraged.

That single policy reshapes the trip. Thirty-six holes a day on foot is a real physical ask, and it changes how many rounds a group should book, how the days are spaced, and who in the group is going to want an afternoon off. Getting that wrong is the difference between a trip people talk about for years and one they quietly endure.

Domestic golf destinations

Not every golf trip needs a passport. Sea Island, Pinehurst, Kiawah and the desert resorts all deliver a genuine golf week with far less travel friction — which matters when you're moving eight people, or when half the group is bringing family along.

These are also the trips where advisor perks tend to show up most visibly: room upgrades, resort credits, breakfast, and early check-in on the day you land off a red-eye and want to play at noon.

Group and buddies trips

Group golf is where planning earns its keep. Eight to sixteen players means split tee times, rooming lists, a few late flight changes, and at least one person who commits in week three and drops in week seven.

• Tee times sequenced so the group actually plays together rather than in scattered pairs.
• Lodging that fits the group — a house, a block of rooms, or a mix depending on how the trip is being paid for.
• One point of contact for changes, instead of sixteen people emailing a resort separately.
• Transfers and ground logistics, which is usually the piece nobody remembers until the morning it fails.

What this costs

My planning comes at no additional cost to you. I'm compensated by the hotels, resorts, and suppliers when you book through me, which means the trip generally costs the same or less than booking it yourself — and often comes with amenities that aren't available on a public rate.

The longer answer, including how advisor compensation actually works and when it's worth using one, is on the how it works page.