There is a growing number of golfers who now skip the airlines and ship their golf bag via a turnkey third party vendor. And an upstart company out of Miami just joined the fray.
Juan Barrero, a 26-year-old software engineer, founded Bag to Tee in 2019 and has methodically built the small company with a heavy emphasis on customer service.
“Our first mission was to bring equal or more value than what is out there today, with lower prices and with a company model of using technology to automate processes internally,” Barrero says. “Our mission is to start to innovate; bring more tech into this space.”
Barrero and his team are in the stages of developing a hardware tag that golfers will place in their bags during shipping for real-time tracking.
“Technology in our space hasn’t changed in the last 10 years and we’re looking to attack that piece of the business,” he says. “Our real-time tracking technology would be independent of what UPS or FedEx carriers provide with their online tracking status.”
Starting the company less than five years ago, Barrero was able to survive the COVID-19 downturn in golf travel and is now looking to capitalize on the current golf boom.
Bag to Tee employs 10 people and has shipped more than 10,000 bags in the United States. As of now, the company will focus on domestic travel.
“We’ve been growing a lot in the last couple months because golfers are happy with the product that we are putting out there,” Barrero says. “And at the same time we’re happy to be cheaper than the other competitors in this space, and I would say with better customer service.”
On the company’s website blog, there is a price comparison of a golf bag shipped from Salt Lake City, Utah, to West Palm Beach, Florida, with five-day ground service. Bag to Green states it would cost their customer $69, followed by Ship Sticks, the No. 1 player in the golf bag shipping space, $85; FedEx, $108; and UPS, $112.
“Our goal is to be the go-to brand for shipping hundreds of thousands of clubs a year,” Barrero says. “And how we’re going to differentiate ourselves is in our tech. There are AI tools that are starting to sprout, which will enable our team to have one employee almost do the work of four or five employees. So, we might grow from 10 to 20 employees, but hopefully that’ll be enough to do what 100 employees were doing five years ago, and then we could be shipping a million golf clubs a year.”
VIETNAM A GOLF DESTINATION? YES
Scott Resch has played all over the globe, from the Hawaiian islands to Scotland to South Africa to Australia, but he chose one destination to focus on when launching his new golf travel company — Asia, and in particular Vietnam.
Resch, a former journalist and public relations executive who lived in Asia from 2007-2010 and has personally walked more than 60 courses there, started Utah-based Asia Golf Trips in September. He has already taken one group to Vietnam over the winter and has a second trip planned in mid-April.
Those trips are to Vietnam, a destination many may not know has captured the world’s best golf destination award at the World Golf Awards twice since 2019.
“Vietnam has the highest concentration of new designer golf courses in the world,” Resch says. “When you’re in the company of Portugal, Scotland and Australia, that speaks loudly to just what it is that Vietnam has to offer. I have played everywhere else in the world and I have no problem whatsoever saying that Vietnam stacks up just as well as the destinations we all think of first when it comes to the best golf spots in the world.”
One of Resch’s five-star guided tours costs between $5,500 and $7,500, and does not include airfare.
“Vietnam is on one of the most beautiful coastlines,” Resch says. “The courses are designed a lot like we’re used to seeing in places like Scotland, but the difference being you’re not going to get 38 degrees and rain blowing up your nose and having to wear seven layers of clothes. The quality of the topography of the land where they’re building these courses is tough to beat.”
Other attractions in Vietnam are no language barrier, tremendous food and a welcoming population, Resch says.
“For some of us the first thing we think of is the Vietnam War, but somewhere between 75 percent and 80 percent of the population in Vietnam is under 35 years old,” he says. “So you’ve got this really young, energetic, enthusiastic population that for the most part knows that the Vietnam War happened, but it’s not a part of their everyday lives, their everyday thinking. They’re all just pushing forward, forward, forward into the future.
“Vietnam has seen sort of the development around neighboring countries like Thailand and they want to be part of the conversation that Vietnam is this great up-and-coming country, too,” Resch added. “And so you feel that everywhere you go. One of the great comments I got from one of my customers on this first trip was that you could not believe how just genuinely hospitable everyone was towards him.”
Resch says he plans to concentrate on Vietnam trips for a few years before possibly adding another Asian country or two to his destinations. His first choice would be Thailand because of the variety and the volume of courses.
WORLD AM BACK FOR 41ST YEAR
More than 3,200 players from across the globe are expected to participate in the 41st PlayGolfMyrtleBeach.com World Amateur Handicap Championship, Aug. 26-30 along the Grand Strand in South Carolina.
Registration for the 72-hole championship begins on Feb. 15. Players who register by March 21 will be eligible to win one of more than 50 random drawing prizes valued at more than $10,000 with items like TaylorMade clubs and Amazon gift cards.
While the World Am format will look familiar to returning participants, there will be small changes, including the return of tee times, replacing the shotgun start from years past. An already impressive golf course lineup will be bolstered by the return of three Legends courses — Heathland, Moorland and Parkland — the Mystical courses, Man O’ War and Wizard, and the newly renovated Pawley’s Plantation.
The World Am, which will be played on more than 50 Myrtle Beach area golf courses, flights players based on age, gender and handicap and is open to all golfers 17 years of age and older with a verifiable USGA handicap.
ODDS AND ENDS
Travel provider Scottsdale Collection says there are just a few spots remaining for its Golf & Music Tour to Scotland in June 2025. The cost is $6,995 per person double occupancy. The scheduled eight golf rounds include Carnoustie,the Old Course and Dumbarnie Links, the new links course just south of Saint Andrews. … Primland, an Auberge Resorts Collection in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, is offering guests a fourth night stay for free through Sept. 1. The 12,000-acre resort offers more than 60 activities, including golf at The Highland Course at Primland. Opened in 2006 by renowned golf course architect Donald Steel, the picturesque mountain course recently ranked as the No. 1 public course in Virginia by GolfDigest. … Vancouver Island has been ranked as the top North American Island by Conde Nast Traveler magazine eight times. But did you know there are 12 golf courses on the Canadian paradise that are opened year round? One of the highlights is playing at Bear Mountain Resort, where Jack and Steve Nicklaus co-designed the Mountain Course — the first ever collaboration between the Golden Bear and his son.