Buddy Trip
Special Offer for April 2011
Your home at the home of golf
We have never offered a deal like this at Monarchs House before but if you are ready to take your first trip to St Andrews and Scotland in April 2011, we have a special offer for your group of eight. Just write to us at info@monarchshouse.com for more information. And don’t forget, staying with us in 2011 also enters you in a drawing for a free week in 2012.
How’s that for getting teed up?
Monarchs House Announces Partnership
As anyone who has ever captained a golf trip knows, planning a golfing holiday with your mates can be at the least, challenging and at the most, exasperating. There’s organizing, scheduling, orchestrating, administering, and accounting to do to ensure for a seamless trip. For 10 years, Monarchs House has always lightened a golf captain’s burden by taking on much of this workload but for 2011, we have not only removed much of the captain’s challenge but also made the process a bit of fun as well.
We are pleased to announce a partnership with GolfTripGenius.com. GolfTripGenius.com delivers intuitive, easy to use, web-based software that makes great golf trips even better. The genius edition of the software, available to Monarchs House guests at no charge, helps a Captain with tournaments, parings, scoring, statistics, leader board, and tournament and trip accounting. As an added benefit, if you carry an iPad, you also get dynamic, on course tournament scoring. Once your trip is over, please accept with Monarchs House and GolfTripGenius.com’s compliments a wonderful full color remembrance of your trip. Shortly, we will link to a sample here. Captaining a golf trip has truly never been easier.
If you want to learn more about planning a golf trip and being a captain, GolfTripGenius.com has written, what we think is, the seminal piece on the subject. You can read it here.
We are delighted to add another great feature for our guests’ enjoyment at Monarchs House, your home at the home of golf and with GolfTripGenius.com on board, they make a great golf trip better.
Buddy Trips
Buddy trips are a wonderful way to have both a great time and get some economies of scale on the cost side. The only issue with this type of trip is in the details and the details are what makes a trip marginal or fantastic. The first and most important decision that needs to made above and beyond anything else is who is going to be the lead person on the trip. You cannot do this with more than one person heading up your group. Look at this person as your benevolent dictator.
At the outset, the lead person should attempt to coalesce opinion from the rest of the travel team. These are the types of questions that need to be asked with a deadline for response:
* How much golf does the group want to play during the time frame of the trip?
- * How much money do you want to spend on golf?
* Do you want to walk or take a cart/buggie on the courses?
* If you want to walk, do you want a caddy?
* Do you prefer to stay local or take road trips within the context of your trip?
* Do you prefer to travel by taxi, van or bus?
* Are you allergic to any type of food?
* How much are you budgeting for the trip (exclusive of airfare)?
Once your fellow golfers respond, you can then begin building your trip. You shouldn’t ask for any more input while you are constructing the trip. You are the benevolent dictator who is now responsible for eight people’s happiness including yourself. If you do the work early, you can enjoy the trip while you are there. Remember, you can’t please everyone and no one should be allowed to ruin the trip for the rest of the group.
Once you have put in place all of your tentative bookings, circulate the worksheet to the rest of your group. Give them a deadline for their comments or suggestions. Once agreed upon, either by consensus or flux, this becomes your trip. If someone complains during the trip (and someone always will), tell them as firmly and politely as you can that this plan was circulated in advance and anything that is changed now is subject to penalties. Also, point out that you worked on this plan in advance so that you could enjoy the holiday in the same way that he/she is. You have to assume the role of autocrat or your golf trip will fall apart and you will be miserable.
The key to buddy trips, no matter where you go, is the advance work. Keep everyone informed early and your troubles should end before they even begin.
