Tiger Woods won the Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year award in this silly season of end-of-the-year honors. Now, this award only ranks slightly above that spelling bee trophy you took in first grade. Hence, the lag time in even feeling the need to talk about it. But it’s still a complete farce. I have nothing against Tiger Woods. He’s clearly the greatest golfer of all time. Heck, I predicted he’d win all four majors, the real Grand Slam, back in February. But he didn’t. And athlete of the year deserves to go to the star who almost did, the most dominant ... full post »

I didn’t expect to like Greg Norman’s Australian Grille in Myrtle Beach. It’s a chain restaurant after all and chain restaurants stop being impressive to most people by the time they’re out of college. Unless you live in Buffalo or something. I didn’t want to like Greg Norman’s. How much can one man get anyways? Majors winner, majors choker, wine maker (though a tad overrated there), personal jet pilot, own clothing line tycoon, golf course designer, turf specialist (he claims to be the company behind the turf in two Super Bowls and the 2000 Olympics on his website) and home beef ... full post »

I know that many TravelGolf.com readers spend Christmas in a strip club. And don’t forget the employees. Cheap Bastard wouldn’t recognize “Feliz Navidad” if it wasn’t being sung by the g-string chorus of Jasmine, Candy and Destiny. Tim McDonald once fell in love with a stripper in Santee (see her picture here), which caused him to unapologetically tout a breathing armpit as a golf destination. So consider this a little Christmas gift, a light to the path of enlightenment. Masters - the super promoted mammoth strip club in Myrtle Beach - is about as high quality as the Champions Tour. And has many ... full post »

There are many things you can take issue with Donald Trump over. Fighting with Rosie 0′Donnell isn’t one of them however. The Donald is clearly in the right in this battle between attention whores. O’Donnell started it by blasting Trump on The View - a show that’s basically Rosie sitting there making a fool of herself while other largely clueless women try not to cringe. O’Donnell was upset, as the entire free world knows by now, because Trump had the nerve to tell Miss USA she couldn’t be drinking herself into oblivion and acting like a sailor on shore leave while she ... full post »

Having put together several TravelGolf.com Top 10s myself, for hot spots like Arizona, Las Vegas and Southern California, I know the care and work that goes into them. Head pros, regular golfers, travel industry types and golf packagers - who may actually play more golf than anyone in their locales - are consulted. And I wouldn’t want to question a Myrtle Beach Top 10 from Tim McDonald, who knows the Grand Strand like the Cincinnati Bengals know jail. Still … Barefoot Resort Fazio Course deserves a spot in any Myrtle Beach Top 10. This visual wonder which forces plenty of interesting shots with ... full post »

A while back, I wrote a story about Scottsdale being branded Snottsdale by some put-off visitors and newspapers. I argued that the City Council should embrace this reputation rather than feign outrage over it. After all, high-end golfers don’t seem to mind attractive women who love plastic surgery, drinking and jumping into hot tubs. Or an atmosphere where the caviar rolls. Well, it turns out there’s an exception to this Scottsdale as Snottsdale paradise. Not with the golfers. With the women. If you’re a mom, you might need a smidge more perspective. You probably don’t want to leave your 2-year-old son in your BMW ... full post »

You don’t go to Myrtle Beach for fine dining. There are a few exceptions, but this golf mecca doesn’t deliver Scottsdale’s often surprisingly inventive cuisine from up-and-coming chefs or Las Vegas’ showy, over-the-top celebrity chef spinoff casino restaurants. And Myrtle Beach is a lot more than 686 miles from Manhattan. And you know what? There’s absolutley nothing wrong with that. Who cannot get on board for good cheap golf, often unbelievably cheap hotels, beer laws that would make the Bush twins grin and a strip club on every other corner? Myrtle Beach is the type of town where you want to embrace ... full post »

This is the second straight December I’ve been on a long holiday season golf trip. Now my only question is: Why don’t more people do it? Whether it’s Palm Springs or Myrtle Beach, the pluses of the holiday golf trip are fairly universal. Tee times are wide open - even on the courses that are always packed. I had Myrtle Beach National King’s North almost all too myself. On a 60-degree December day. The prices are also way down from the usual high seasons great weather time. Even though the weather’s still great. In Myrtle Beach, they may let you on for three ... full post »

Spend any time in Myrtle Beach and you’ll run across tons of golfers who’ve driven in from up and down the East Coast. From Washington D.C.. From New York City. Heck, I ran into one group of golfers who drove in from Boston in a beaten up Camry. That’s a 15-hour, four-minute, 899-mile haul by the hardly always reliable calculations of Maquest. Of course if you watched the Patriots get mauled by the Dolphins Sunday, you may have wished you hit the endless open road too. With plane fares to Myrtle Beach still relatively cheap, it is something of a mystery why so ... full post »

You can get better service in an Applebee’s in Myrtle Beach than at one of those charming corner cafes in Paris. In fact, service throughout most of Europe is a largely forgotten, ignored or misinterpreted word. I was reminded this when I read this week’s TravelGolf.com newsletter intro from BTuck. For those who need a refresher course, BTuck is the frat boy our Castle Baron Boss hired to crisscross Europe who spends his time crushing beercans on his forehead, chasing Polish beauties, bragging about his golf game and generally making the U.S. as many friends as Charles Barkley has in Angola basketball. ... full post »

To take issue with Tiger Woods choosing Dubai as the location for his first celebrity architect design, you either have to be a long-time resident in fantasyland or a high school teacher stuck in 1950s Buffalo (wait, was that too specific?) Dubai isn’t some little dust spot on the map. That kind of talk is the same type of attitude that has Americans living at McDonald’s when they’re on an overseas vacation. People from Buffalo might want to expand their horizons beyond the Anchor Bar (great place by the way, of course you need a traveling spirit to experience it if you ... full post »

Michelle Wie takes her lumps even as she collects millions in hype money. Tiger Woods hears criticism that’s both deserved and absurd. Heck, even Chris DiMarco has at least one vocal regular critic. Yet, Annika Sorenstam muddles through a season, meekly cedes the Player of the Year title to Lorena Ochoa, losses more award streaks than an old home run hitter in the steroids era … and practically no one says a word about it. Can you imagine if Tiger saw a five-peat Player of the Year award run end? If another player doubled Tiger’s victory total for the season? The words Tiger ... full post »