Treat your favorite foursome to an adventure that could go down in golf history. Wide World of Golf, a tour operator based in Carmel, Calif., has designed a 12-day vacation that will take your group to four fabulous courses in two hemispheres via private jet.
The first leg of the tour takes you to the Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon for two days and two nights. There you will play on Pacific Dunes, one of the most acclaimed new courses in North America. Its spectacular use of the natural landscape, including its four holes set atop cliffs facing the Pacific Ocean and its dune-style bunkers, has earned it favorable comparisons to Cypress Point. Away from the course, you will be treated to a private tasting of award-winning Pinot Noir wines from Oregon’s Willamette Valley.
After conquering Pacific Dunes, you will fly to the island of Lanai in Hawaii for two days at the Manele Bay Hotel, where you will meet your next challenge: the Jack Nicklaus– designed Challenge at Manele Bay. Truly Hawaiian and truly vexing, it combines magnificent golf and stunning natural vistas, and utilizes the Pacific Ocean as a devious water hazard on its signature 12th hole. Greg Norman’s Experience at Koele also waits to test and beguile you. Aside from its breathtaking landscapes of Hawaiian flora and fauna, it has the distinction of lying 2,000 feet above sea level. When not golfing, you will relax with massages and later enjoy a horseback ride that culminates in a sunset Champagne dinner on a private beach.
Next comes three nights at Kauri Cliffs Lodge in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands, where you will enjoy fishing excursions as well as a wine-pairing dinner at the superlative Huka Lodge. The highlight of the trip begins on the morning of the final day in New Zealand: You and the rest of your foursome will golf at Kauri Cliffs Golf Club, considered one of the best courses in the Southern Hemisphere. Fifteen of its holes provide dramatic ocean views, and six are positioned on the cliffs that give the resort its name. Once you have finished your round, you will board your private jet and fly to Monterey, Calif., arriving in time to tee off that afternoon at Pebble Beach Golf Links. Your foursome will become perhaps the only golfers in the world to play select courses in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres on the same day.
The final three days and nights will be spent in northern California, with the group staying at the Lodge at Pebble Beach, savoring wine-pairing dinners at local restaurants, and taking a wine-tasting tour with Ridge Watson, a Carmel Valley winemaker and brother of golf pro Tom Watson. More rounds of golf will be played at Pebble Beach’s Spyglass Hill Golf Course and Clint Eastwood’s Tehama Golf Club. Noted golf photographer Joann Dost will cap the experience by taking a portrait of your foursome at Pebble Beach. It is not the sole souvenir of the trip, however. Each traveler will receive a complete fitted outfit from Tehama Golf Apparel and a case of choice wines from Oregon, New Zealand, and California.
Price: $321,600 for four people.
Contact: Wide World of Golf, 831.626.2400, bill@wideworldofgolf.com
The price is based on a trip for four, but as many as eight can be accommodated. Also, carts or caddies are offered at every course.
