"What If You Could... Have the perfect group golf vacation, save
money and have a sensational time setting it up?" Instead of
buying "the package", design your own optimum, personalized
vacation.
Remember last year?
You waited all year to get together with your friends for your
annual golf vacation. It was supposed to be perfect, but you
bought "the package" and your outing turned out to be simply
adequate. You all had such high hopes, but you had to take what
the package provided.
Sound familiar? Have you been on the receiving side of a less than
perfect golf vacation? In all fairness, most golf packages are
good. Some are great. But they truly are packages designed for the
mass market with little flexibility and no individual flair.
A standard golf vacation package provides lodging and one round of
golf per day, including a cart. The lodging usually means motel or
hotel accommodations with two people per bedroom. In most cases,
you can choose from several different courses, and select your
advance tee times. They will even throw in a continental
breakfast. The prices are fair, but varying from the standard
package starts adding cost in a hurry.
Again, "the package" will yield a good to great vacation, but we
need to discuss the perfect vacation. Envision this:
-A beautiful vacation house with a separate bed or bedroom for
each person.
-Gourmet dining each evening.
-As much or as little golf as you want, where you want and when
you want.
-Evening entertainment.
-Maximum camaraderie.
I have been setting up this type of annual golf vacation for my
old high school and college friends since 1988. Over those 18
years, we have refined Our Event to what we think is the perfect
annual outing. Our first few years were terrific even though we
had to keep the costs down. Each new year improves on the last.
We have settled on a full seven days, Saturday to Saturday. In
general, we schedule 36 holes per day, and modify that day by day
to wind up with an average of about 27 holes per day. Our smallest
group was five gents one year, and the largest group was sixteen.
The perfect group size is eight, but anywhere from six to twelve
works great.
We buy most of the food and beverages the day of arrival to
support breakfasts, snacks, sandwiches between rounds, and gourmet
evening meals for the entire week.
Your perfect group golf vacation is not going to be identical to
ours, but the general organization will be. There is going to have
to be a "go to guy" that organizes the event. My guess is that
will be you. You will need to:
- Get the ball rolling early.
- Have everyone stay in the same house that has a full kitchen.
- Get the shopping list together ahead of time.
- Have a general schedule and loose assignments.
1. Get the ball rolling. Pick out a window of time and get
the word out to everyone you think might be interested AND not
interested (next year, they may be). I send a fun, whimsical email
about five months ahead of a proposed block of time. It is written
such that the wives enjoy the comedy as much as the guys. If you
are not a writer, there are examples in my upcoming free Ebook.
Additionally, this book will take you through setting up and
conducting the whole event from scratch.
Follow up emails get commitments and solicit recommendations and
special requests. Armed with all this, you will select the ideal
house, set up tee times, and arrange rental vehicles. Further
emails from you will ask what food, snacks and beverages they will
want for the outing. Here is a good time line:
-5 months: Announce.
-3 months: Receive all commitments and solicited recommendations.
-3 months: Let everyone know when to fly in to coordinate travel.
-2 months: Arrange house, tee times and rental cars.
-1 month: Receive all food, snack, and beverage requests.
-1 month: Confirm house, tee times and rental cars.
-1 week: Finalize food and beverage list.
Zero hour: Have the time of your life.
2. House with a full kitchen. This allows several things:
- Preparing your own evening meal. Every group has at least one
"chef".
- Rehashing the day as a group (yes, this includes an appropriate
amount of trash talk and begging for strokes on upcoming rounds.)
- Having evening entertainment as a group. We watch a sports event
on TV, watch videos, play cards, tell tales and get caught up, or
all of the above.
- Getting sandwiches, snacks and beverages ready for the next day.
3. Shopping List. In my free Ebook I provide a sample
shopping list and sample emails to send requesting input. Your
various emails to the group should provide a "fill in the blank"
type of requested reply. You will ask what they want for
breakfast, what they want for sandwich lunch, what they want to
drink for the week, and any snacks they like.
4. General Schedule and Assignments. Your first year will
be a terrific learning experience. Your "chef" will emerge and
others will gravitate to where they are needed. Putting together a
list of what needs to be done and having volunteers will work just
fine. Over the years, you will find what works best.
Think about bringing a laptop and uploading each day’s results on
your website so that the unfortunate people that did not make the
trip can live vicariously by following the daily action. If you
don’t have a website, a free blog will work about as well and will
be much easier to update. An idea that our group has not yet acted
on is having a masseuse come in one evening later in the week to
help our aging muscles.
You will have almost as much fun setting up this event as you will
have during your vacation. I set up a little eight page website
with history, photos, schedule, past scores, etc. to hold
everyone’s interest and attention throughout the year. An example
is in my free Ebook.
Building your own special vacation not only allows you to really
tailor your outing to your group’s tastes, but also allows you all
to get together as a true group for a great week of camaraderie.
As a bonus, it should wind up being less expensive! Once you set
your own up, I doubt you will ever buy "the package" again.
