The post This epic $100,000 golf-cruise itinerary is loaded with Top 100 courses appeared first on Golf.

The post This epic $100,000 golf-cruise itinerary is loaded with Top 100 courses appeared first on Golf.

For those with a wealth of talent, there’s 72 holes of PGA Tour competition. For those with plain-old wealth and a taste for travel, there’s 72 days at sea on a golf cruise that starts at $107,000 per twosome.

In partnership with leading golf travel operator, PerryGolf, the luxury cruise line Azamara is offering the “2023 European Golf Cruise Medley,” a blowout excursion aimed at an upscale market brimming with pandemic-induced, pent-up demand.

Combining six voyages into a single extravaganza, the Golf Cruise Medley will stop at 47 ports in 11 countries in Northern Europe and the Iberian Peninsula over the span of 72 days. The golf itinerary features 29 rounds at an all-star roster of courses, including such GOLF World Top 100 tracks as Royal County Down, Royal Dornoch, Kingsbarns and Royal Portrush. Twenty courses that rank among the top 20 in their respective countries are also on the rota, including Lofoten Links, in Norway, and Oitavos Dunes, in Portugal.

Along with a tantalizing smorgasbord of golf, the cruise will offer first-rate sightseeing, highlighted on the golf front by weekend attendance at the 151st British Open at Royal Liverpool, for those onboard for the British Isles portion of the voyage.

Of the many cruises his company operates, this stands alone for the number of back-to-back departures it marries into a single vacation, said PerryGolf president and co-founder Gordon Dalgleish.

“As the world emerges from the pandemic, and people are demonstrating their desire to get out of the house, we felt this to be a timely idea,” Dalgleish said.

The cruise will begin next year in Copenhagen on July 10, and end in Lisbon on Sept. 19. The price per golfing couple starts around $107,000.

For more information and availability, click here.

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The post R&A: Trump Turnberry will not host Open Championship in ‘foreseeable future’ appeared first on Golf.

The post R&A: Trump Turnberry will not host Open Championship in ‘foreseeable future’ appeared first on Golf.

The R&A announced in a statement Monday morning that they will not host any of their championships at Trump Turnberry for the foreseeable future. The announcement comes on the heels of the PGA of America’s Sunday-night decision to move the 2022 PGA Championship from Trump Bedminster in Bedminster, N.J.

“We had no plans to stage any of our championships at Turnberry and will not do so in the foreseeable future,” Chief Executive of the R&A Martin Slumbers said in a statement.

Although there are no R&A events scheduled the be hosted at Turnberry in the immediate future, the announcement makes it clear that the governing body has no plans to take any of their championships to the historic course owned by the outgoing president of the United States.

Turnberry last hosted a major championship in 2015 as Inbee Park won the Women’s Open Championship by three shots. The Open Championship also has a storied history at Turnberry, hosting the championship four times, most recently in 2009.

Donald Trump bought the course in 2014 for a price of $60 million and it was renamed Trump Turnberry.

“We will not return until we are convinced that the focus will be on the championship, the players and the course itself,” Slumbers said. “We do not believe that is achievable in the current circumstances.”

The announced exclusion of Turnberry from the Open Championship rota shrinks the list of courses from 10 to nine. The 2021 Open Championship is scheduled to be hosted July 11-18 at Royal St. George’s in Sandwich, England.

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The post President Trump’s quest to host an Open Championship at Turnberry, explained appeared first on Golf.

The post President Trump’s quest to host an Open Championship at Turnberry, explained appeared first on Golf.

The political and golf worlds collided on Tuesday when the New York Times reported that President Donald Trump, who has long had his eye on hosting an Open Championship at his prized Scottish course Trump Turnberry, reportedly instructed his British ambassador to help make that a reality.

According to the New York Times:

The American ambassador to Britain, Robert Wood Johnson IV, told multiple colleagues in February 2018 that President Trump had asked him to see if the British government could help steer the world-famous and lucrative British Open golf tournament to the Trump Turnberry resort in Scotland, according to three people with knowledge of the episode.

The piece was widely circulated online, so let’s run through some of the basic questions golfers may have after reading the article.

Why is this news?

Outside of the whole everything-the-president-does-is-news mindset, there are basically two key questions that arise in the article that make it newsworthy:

First, to what extent did President Trump “push” Ambassador Johnson to intervene on his club’s behalf? The report cites three unnamed sources with “with knowledge of the episode,” but it’s unclear the extent to which — and how — the President would’ve instructed this to happen. It’s important to consider that, because it leads to the next question:

If this is something the President pushed for, to what extent would this be an “inappropriate” and an “unethical use of the presidency,” as his advisors reportedly warned? Any politician using governmental resources to influence and bolster their private interests obviously brings with it a host of further ethical questions that would need to be answered, including whether it would violate the “emoluments” clause.

Why does President Trump want an Open Championship?

Because, simply, it’s the Open Championship, one of the most prestigious events in golf. Which course wouldn’t want to host an Open Championship? Hosting major championships is something Trump has been eyeing long before he ascended to the presidency, and he’s made headway in those regards: his courses have hosted regular PGA Tour events, majors on the LPGA Tour and Senior circuits, the 2022 PGA Championship is coming to his Bedminster course in New Jersey, but both the Open Championship and U.S. Open have still alluded him.

Does Trump Turnberry deserve to host an Open Championship?

Focus on simply the golf for a second: Of course Turnberry deserves to host an Open Championship. Its iconic Ailsa Course, a four-time Open host, was beginning to wane until Trump purchased it and poured more than $10 million into redesigning the layout (to near-universal plaudits from experts). To that end, Trump Turnberry sits at No. 17 on our GOLF Top 100 Courses in the World Ranking, the fourth-highest Open rota course behind only St. Andrews, Royal Portrush (a new addition to the rota), and Muirfield.

It’s also been a while since Turnberry hosted one — 2009. And with no Opens scheduled there through 2024, by then St. Andrews will have hosted three Opens, and Royal St. Georges, Royal Liverpool and Royal Troon will have each hosted two since the Claret Jug was last awarded at the Ailsa Course.

So why hasn’t it hosted an Open Championship?

Martin Gilbert, the chief executive of Aberdeen Asset Management (lead sponsor of the Scottish Open), said it best:

“Politics aside, Trump would be an ideal venue — but you can’t put politics aside.”

The post President Trump’s quest to host an Open Championship at Turnberry, explained appeared first on Golf.