If the travel company Fairways to Heaven is half as good as it advertises, then it should at least get customers to golfing purgatory, right?
All kidding aside, you don’t have to confess any of your golfing sins — i.e. club throwing, cussing or cheating — before taking a trip with the company that books overseas travel.
David Reid, the CEO and managing partner, did fancy the name when he purchased the travel firm in 2014, and admits he sort of fell into the golfing travel gig after a 30-year career in financial services.
“I ran my company’s international operation for five years over in London, and I met the owner of this business in 2013,” Reid says. “He was looking for some capital, so I gave him a little capital to keep him going and then he just came to me and said, ‘Look, I’m, going to get out of the business, why don’t you buy it from me?’ I knew I was going to retire (from finances) in 2016 so this has been just a great way for me to do what I love.”
Fairways to Heaven specializes in custom, turnkey international golf travel from the United States to such locations as England, Ireland, Scotland, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. The trips cost between $3,500-$8,000 for six rounds of golf, plus lodging, meals and other amenities, but does not include airfare.
“It’s everything from tee times to whiskey and tasting dinners,” says Reid, who added that the company booked 85 trips in 2023 with 800 golfers participating. This year is tracking toward more than 1,000 golfers.
PREVENTING THOSE GOLFING BLUES
After packing the clubs and gear for that upcoming golf trip, there is one other essential that could keep you on the links and not in bed with a cold or the flu.
The new product is called UltraBlu, and it has been on the market for about eight months. The San Francisco-based company uses a UV-C LED ultraviolet light source to sterilize, disinfect and kill viruses, bacteria, molds, and other pathogens, including COVID-19, on any surfaces in seconds. The hand-held unit is small enough to fit into a pocket or slip into a zipper compartment of a golf bag. The cost is $65 — or two for $99.
Once activated, UltraBlu can clean any surface, including your hands, phone, golf clubs, grips or balls.
“Anything in terms of travel, even when you’re on the plane and you want to clean the trays, whatever,” UltraBlu co-founder and CEO Robert Nathanson says. “When you’re done cleaning the tray, after 10 seconds, you snap it on your phone and it will charge three times faster than any other charging device.”
The unit is powered by a lithium ion battery.
“Golfers play golf for 4-5 hours and they need a fully charged phone, and there are some germaphobes out there who are even wearing gloves still,” Nathanson says. “We’re on Amazon and we’re just crushing it on every avenue as far as travel goes because it really does sanitize any surface in under 10 seconds.”
VEGAS + GOLF + BACHELOR PARTY?
Nicknamed the “Uber for Lawn Services,” LawnStarter is into rankings, and the Austin, Texas-based company just came out with the 2024 Best Bachelor Party Destinations for Golfers.
Agree or disagree with the findings, the online platform that helps customers reserve lawn care and mowing services through a website or a mobile application, apparently took its research serious and to the next level.
The final results factored in such items as golfer-friendliness, bachelor party-friendliness and the all important “hangover cure index,” among 12 total metrics.
Las Vegas (who is surprised here?) was the top dog when LawnStarter compared the 200 biggest U.S. cities based on three categories — Play, Stay and Party. Rounding out the top five were Orlando, Houston, Los Angeles and San Diego.
“Nashville and New Orleans were suspiciously absent from the top 25 due to relatively lower Play rankings, considering courses are fewer and farther between in those cities,” LawnStarter editor Jeff Herman said. “And golfers in the know will see Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, as an egregious snub from this list, but it simply missed the cut for not being large enough.”
NOTES
Prince’s Golf Club, Royal St. George’s and Royal Cinque Ports have joined forces to offer a unique championship links experience — the Hagen 54. The name takes its inspiration from Walter Hagen’s now-famous 1920 Open Championship practice round, stretching over parts of each course, hopping the fences as he went. The inaugural Hagen 54 offering enables golfers to enjoy each of the links while staying at The Lodge at Prince’s, which housed many of the world’s best golfers during the 2021 Open Championship. … Did you know that beautiful Carlsbad, California, has great golf but is also known as the golf equipment capital of the world? It plays home to most of the top club manufacturers like Titleist, Callaway, TaylorMade, Cobra and Honma, among other brands. Golf aficionados and club geeks who visit the area can experience the best in custom club fitting through some of the game’s top performance centers like the Titleist Performance Institute, Ely Callaway Performance Center, TaylorMade Kingdom and Scotty Cameron Putting Studio. … The Bermuda Tourism Authority has a champion promoting the island’s golf offerings. Hazel Clark is the director of sales and business development for the Authority. She is a five-time NCAA track champion and three-time U.S. Olympian, and her father was the inspiration behind the 1989 hit movie “Lean On Me.”