Invest in yourself in St. Lucia, earn a $1,000 return

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Hotels are giving incentives like crazy. They just want your business. The latest comes from RockResort’s The Landings St. Lucia. Book five nights through the “Invest in Yourself” deal, and you’ll get a resort credit of $1,000. This makes it a lot easier to book a few spa treatments, eat like royalty or hit the greens. You can also apply the credit to activities on the water, from snorkeling trips to sailing and waterskiing lessons.

The entry point is $490 a night, which gets you a Deluxe Harbor Front Villa suite. Your home away from home will have two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room, which works well if you travel with a family or a group of friends. So, if you need a break from the grind, this is it! Get down to St. Lucia, and invest in a little relaxation.

[Photo via RockResort’s The Landings St. Lucia]

Another war-torn golf course?

by Tom Johansmeyer on

It’s becoming pretty clear that the U.S. government equates golf with peace, freedom and stability. The best way to “ruin a good walk” is on its way to Baghdad’s “Green Zone,” which is what the comparatively safe part of the city is called. The Joint Contracting Command Iraq, Mission Support Division is trying to find the equipment necessary to construct a driving range on Phoenix Base in this stressful part of the world. Since I’ve never met relaxed golfer, this could only serve to escalate anxiety levels in an already scary place.

As you know, Green Zone golf would not be the first instance of our exporting a game that leads to high spending, frustration and marital discord. The United States has already plopped a one-hole golf course in the Korean DMZ. The only question that remains: will the new Iraqi course snatch the “most dangerous golf course in the world” title from Panmunjom?

All the joking aside, anything that makes our troops happier is okay with me. Hell, give ’em a cigar to smoke while the smack golf balls past checkpoints.

[Via Washington Post, scroll to the bottom of the page when you get there]

Destination on the edge: golf on the DMZ

by Tom Johansmeyer on

The small golf course in Panmunjom is often called the most dangerous in the world. Nestled between North and South Korea – which are technically still at war – sending a ball off the fairway means that it probably won’t be retrieved.

Welcome to the strangest place on earth. Panmunjom is the heavily militarized “truce” village straddling the Military Demarcation Line that cuts down the middle of the Korean peninsula’s Demilitarized Zone. The most famous image from this corner of the world, of course, is that of soldiers squaring off across from each other, each rigid and ready for the worst. Not far from this scene of perpetual anxiety, worries turn to backswings and short games.

Camp Bonifas, the U.S. military installation in Panmunjom, is home to a one-hole golf course, mostly for the benefit of service members stationed in this dangerous spot for a year at a time. The 192-yard par three “course” is free to anyone interested in playing but is generally unavailable to outsiders. Once you’re on Camp Bonifas, according to Erica (who prefers to keep her last name private), it’s pretty easy to find “The World’s Most Dangerous Golf Course,” as the locals call it. There isn’t much of anything on this army post, and there are only so many places you can go.

“It’s a fairly flat one-hole course,” Erica recalls, “so it serves as a novelty, not as somewhere to play an actual game.” The location, however, is what makes it unusual. “There isn’t anywhere else in the world that one can golf while gazing across the world’s most armed border. It’s surreal to say the least.”

I can see why she feels this way. As you approach the golf course, the sign that welcomes you announces with no equivocation: “DANGER! DO NOT RETRIEVE BALLS FROM THE ROUGH LIVE MINEFIELDS.” Never have the implications of shanking a drive been so severe!

If you’re up in Panmunjom for the DMZ tour, don’t plan to squeeze in a few rounds, however short they may be. But, if you’re getting ready to spend 12 months of your life in the Joint Security Area (well, 11 months, as you’ll have 30 days of leave), bring a putter and a nine iron. That’s all you’ll need.

[Photo via Nagyman on Flickr]

%Gallery-40658%

Delta adds 7,000 seats to Augusta, GA for Masters

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Every April, golf fanatics descend on Augusta, GA to sneak a peek at the best-manicured lawn in the country. The Masters Tournament fills hotel rooms and keeps local bartenders busy. If you haven’t been through the airport down there, then you have no idea why Delta has decided to add 7,000 seats between Augusta and its Atlanta hub, not to mention daily service to LaGuardia and JFK in New York. This 50 percent increase in seating capacity is necessary. There aren’t many flights into Augusta from anywhere. So, for a week and a half every April, the rules have to be changed.

According to Bob Cortelyou … yes, the Bob Cortelyou (senior vice president of network planning at Delta), “you talk about the Masters, no airline is better positioned to carry fans from around the world to this premier sporting event than Delta.” And, since Bob Cortelyou says it, it must be true!

When you are flying home, don’t get to the airport too early. Dining options are extremely limited, and you are guaranteed to be bored out of your mind. I only flew through once, and it was a drag. Of course, an event like the Masters is bound to force more people through that airport in a week than these folks see all year. Do the math: small airport + much larger crowds than usual = miserable you. Bring a book. Hell, bring two.

Kashmir to rebrand itself as a golf destination

by Iva Skoch on

Kashmir probably does not evoke emotions of vacationing and relaxation in most people. After 18 years of militant violence, Kashmir wants to rebrand themselves from a heavily militarized Himalayan region to a global golfing destination.

According to this article in the NY Times, Kashmir’s government believes that golf will attract tourists who spend more than the penny-pinching backpackers who still come to trek in the mountains and stay on Srinagar’s latticed wooden houseboats. The state is spending $6.2 million to build a golf course in the winter capital, Jammu, to be completed later in the year, the fifth course in the region, and an international airport is scheduled to open in the summer.

My question is, Is there a country out there, which is supposedly not a golf destination nowadays?