The best airports for golf travel and which ones are a hassle | Courses

The trouble commences in the elevator after leaving my apartment. Apparently, it is extremely hard for contemporary people to see a golf-journey bag and not make a remark. You know, like, “I’m jealous! Where are you going?” How dare they? Then the Uber driver glares at me like I’m trying to carry an alligator into his Camry. Take it easy, chief. If it does not suit in the trunk, I’ll place it in the entrance seat.

Traveling with the sticks can be a headache, but it’s worth it when compared to the choice: not taking part in golfing or, even worse, participating in with a rental established. There are perks, albeit modest kinds. For occasion, I’m under no circumstances tempted to take a have-on, and I can pack two pairs of socks per day instead of just one.

The moment you get there at your location, you’re equally glad and relieved that your golf equipment created it, but the process can be a logistical nightmare.

If there’s any type of line at the baggage drop-off, you are screwed. Most vacation luggage are not pretty ergonomic. I know mine isn’t. There is no excellent way to set it down, and you just cannot relaxation your backpack on top of it like you can with a suitcase. If you stand the golf equipment up vertically, you possibility anyone knocking them above with just the slightest nudge. Then you get to the front of the line, and the agent won’t enable you lay the golf equipment down on the scale the man or woman thinks you are hoping to fudge the quantities and can make you stand them up straight. Just can’t we all just help save ourselves the work? I’m not a tour player my bag ain’t 50 kilos.

In some airports, these kinds of as New York City’s JFK, you have gotta carry your golf equipment to the oversize baggage space. If there is no attendant there, tricky. Hold out till there is.

When you land, your first occupation is to determine out no matter whether your clubs will appear out with the normal baggage (which is lousy simply because handlers toss suitcases close to if they believe they’re loaded solely with outfits and sneakers) or in the oversize area (superior because they know if they break a little something oversize, they are likely to hear about it).

These times, around 80 percent of airports sequester the golf bags from the ordinary luggage, but the oversize bags seem to be to normally arrive out final. I could publish a novel with the time I have invested anxiously ready for my green vacation bag to get there. It’s a significantly nervy knowledge in the United terminal at Los Angeles Global due to the fact the oversize-baggage portion is dangerously shut to the community sidewalk. Though the location is roped off, the attendants by no means look particularly bothered about who’s grabbing which bag. At the time you lay eyes on yours, you need to pounce. Really don’t even get me started about the rush of adrenaline when checking to make positive your driver didn’t get snapped in fifty percent. (Searching at you, Maui’s Kahului Airport. Also searching at myself, for becoming dumb adequate not to buy 1 of these umbrella contraptions for defense).

Subsequent will come the rental automobile, a course of action I have come to dread in big-town airports—Charlotte and Dallas come to mind—because they are too unfold out. It is no fun to test to wield that burly sack as a result of a crowded terminal. At Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson, you are going to occasionally have to stroll the equivalent of 18 holes whilst continuously searching for pathways like an NFL functioning back . . . only to head up a walking escalator and wait around for an annoyingly not-small tram trip to select up your car or truck. In Denver, you have to trip a tram to the baggage declare and then capture a shuttle to the rental-auto centre. The Florida airports I frequent—Jacksonville and Orlando—get significant kudos for acquiring the rental-motor vehicle garage across the street from the terminal.

As a rule, the lesser the airport, the less complicated the practical experience. My golf equipment were being waiting for me in Charleston, S.C., Columbus, Ohio, and The Bahamas, and they definitely know how to deal with a golfing bag in Augusta, Ga. But the gold normal of golfing-club travel is the Monterey Regional Airport in California. Of course, it ticks all the boxes—small, welcoming employees, simply available ground transportation—but the genuine purpose it stands alone is a straightforward a person: If you’re there, and you have brought the sticks, probabilities are you’ve received some unbelievable golf in your upcoming.