The first time I lugged my golf clubs aboard a cruise ship, fellow passengers smiled in amusement and a lady incredulously asked: "Is there a golf course aboard the ship?" Somehow, it didn't seem like a fit, and few cruisers back in the 1980s connected golf with cruising.
Since then, however, cruise lines have added thousands of new berths on dozens of new ships, putting them more and more into fierce competition with land-based vacation attractions and popular resort activities such as golf. More than six million golf vacationers from the U.S. alone spend several billion dollars annually on golf-related travel. I like to travel, cruise, and play golf, and my own cruise vacation plans usually call for plenty of shore activities, including drives along lush tropical fairways shaded by volcanos, putts on greens overlooking the sea, and approaches through valleys cut by glaciers.
The compatibility of golf and cruising has become obvious to anyone who does both. Clubs are delivered to your stateroom with luggage and sit at the ready for whenever you decide to play. Tee times and transportation are arranged either by ship personnel or onboard golf tour operators working with the line, eliminating any language problem or communication foul-ups. Instruction, practice sessions (sometimes with elaborate equipment and simulators), and even tournaments are often provided by onboard pros. But best of all, you can play several courses in a variety of venues over a very short period of time without ever schlepping your clubs through airports or on buses. I once played five courses in four days on Bermuda, and five courses in seven days on different islands in the Caribbean. I've hacked away on myriad courses from Anchorage to New Zealand, Finland to Mallorca, Acapulco to Cabo --all while enjoying every other aspect of cruising.
Today virtually every cruise line has some form of golf program or accommodation process to lure and assist golfers at all levels of play. After several years of experimentation, some partnerships between lines and golf tour operators have faded, while others have bloomed. And although some cruise lines that pioneered golf, like American Hawaii Cruises, have either gone out of business or downgraded golf efforts, others have taken the little white ball and put it in play around the world.
Royal Caribbean Cruise Line launched the first comprehensive golf program with "Golf Ahoy!" I remember driving balls off the fantail of the old Sun Viking on a 1986 Caribbean cruise, and playing with the captain at the Carambola course in St. Croix. Hitting balls off a ship is no longer permitted, but with more than 60 courses on dozens of islands to choose from, the Caribbean still makes geographical sense, and today more cruise golf is played here than anywhere in the world. I've played at least two dozen courses in both the Eastern and Western Caribbean, mostly on cruises. A few years ago I even wrestled my clubs into a bobbing tender from Windjammer Barefoot Cruises' Polynesia as I headed off to challenge the lush and mountainous Four Seasons' course on Nevis.
RCCL was also the first to offer pre- and post-cruise golf packages in Florida and Puerto Rico along with opportunities to play 21 different courses on eight itineraries. Nevertheless, cruise passengers were not always warmly welcomed on some of these courses, and not all of the courses were up to usual American standards, a situation which has much improved since those early days.
The new Cozumel Country Club, for example, may be the first course ever designed and built specifically with cruise passengers in mind. It is the island's first and only golf course, a $12-million Jack Nicklaus-designed project that opened all 18 holes in November 2001. The course is owned and run by ClubCorp International, a golf resort operator with such prestigious properties in the U.S. as Pinehurst and the Greenbriar. Mike Feild, director of operations for ClubCorp in Latin America, says he expects 20,000 rounds of golf will be played on the Cozumel course in 2003, 45 percent of them by cruise-ship passengers.
"It was built with them in mind," says Feild. "Carnival makes six to seven calls a week, along with other lines such as Holland America, Celebrity, NCL, and Disney. The total number of passengers arriving in Cozumel in 2003 is expected to be 1.8 million, not to mention 700,000 crew-members, many of whom also play golf."
This is a far cry from the past, when some lines were discouraged by the unavailability of tee times for passengers, as well as courses that were either substandard or erratic in their maintenance. In the past decade, improvements have been made on many Caribbean courses, with new ones having opened in popular destinations such as Aruba, Barbados, and Belize--where passengers are flown to a spectacular island course. Mexico, where not long ago golf was only for the elite, has many new resort courses along both the Caribbean and Pacific coasts. Puerto Vallarta, for example, which had one course 20 years ago, now has six, including two opened in 2001 by ClubCorp.
Carnival Cruise Lines, which only put its toe in the water regarding golf a few years ago, now offers a complete golf program on all its 17 ships. They partner with Elite Golf Cruises, a Fort Lauderdale-based golf packager, which offers 40 different golf venues throughout the Caribbean, Mexico, Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada, and Europe. Onboard options--such as lessons, lighted practice cages bolted to the deck, sophisticated simulators, video tracking of your swing, and other novelties to keep die-hard golfers happy--have been installed. Callaway club rentals, shoe rentals, and accessory purchases of golf balls, gloves, and apparel are available onboard for anyone who wants to play once or several times.
Vacation golf has always been costly compared with snorkeling, diving, tennis, and other sports. Although Carnival offers a links experience beginning at $60, it costs $140 a round to play at Cozumel Country Club. And there are ways to spend a lot more, especially if you buy an all-inclusive package that includes both a cruise and golf on several courses. Kalos Golf, a golf tour operator based in North Carolina, charters the tall ships Sea Cloud and Sea Cloud II, plus riverboats River Cloud and River Cloud II, for golf cruises along the French and Italian Riviera, in Spain, Portugal, and Northern Italy, and along the Danube and Rhine rivers. Eleven-day trips offer at least six rounds of golf with sightseeing and other activities for non-golfers. All-inclusive rates vary from trip to trip, but begin at about $4,800 per person. PerryGolf, another luxury golf packager, offers seven-night cruises in 2003 aboard the 122-passenger Clipper Adventurer and 48-passenger Lord of the Glens, with five rounds of golf in Scotland, and an optional three-night stay at Royal St. Georges to attend the British Open. Cost: $5,500 per golfer plus $950 for the British Open option.
While golf charters on smaller ships have been successful, some upscale lines with medium to large ships have replaced outside operators with their own programs. Wide World of Golf, a major international luxury golf tour company based in California, severed a 10-year relationship with Seabourn Cruise Line and Cunard Line at the end of 2001. Although they sold 23 golf cruises aboard eight ships in 2000, the numbers were tapering off.
"The amount of work and costs on our part to set up components of the program became too great for the number of golfers produced, which sometimes numbered four to six on certain cruises," said WWG spokesman Neil Kirsch. Wide World of Golf still organizes luxury, escorted golf tours aboard the new 92-passenger Sun Bay I to Spain and Portugal, with an all-inclusive golf package that adds $1,395 per golfer to the $5,000 fare for an eight-day cruise.
Luxury golf with plenty of pampering still prevails among the high-end lines. Seabourn passengers still play golf, but like many luxury cruise lines, Seabourn has integrated the game into other shipboard activities and shoreside excursions. Silversea Cruises' "Silver Links Golf Series," launched in 1998, offers golf packages aboard select sailings of all of its ships, and a new "Silver Links 365" golf program features golf activities every day of every cruise aboard the Silver Shadow and Silver Whisper. Golf package prices start at $2,050 per guest in addition to the regular cruise fare. Crystal Cruises, which teed off its "Par Excellence" series in 1999, offers more, than a dozen cruises covering more than 30 golf courses around the world this year.
