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 many golfers drive in. Until you consider the price that many rental car companies are asking for these days (three days in a rental car can often be more than your whole roundtrip airfare). Then, it’s suddenly a whole lot clearer. Especially if you have a group of about four golfers and plenty of hands to share the wheel.

Add in the fact that Myrtle Beach is just a straight shot for anyone along 95 and the convenience of a flight (especially with some of the airport screening today) isn’t such a landslide. Hooters Air probably should have thought of this.

This brings up another concept though: The romance of the road trip.

Is there just something about driving somewhere that makes the journey filled with more excitement than a quick flight in?

Have your favorite golf trips been by air or pedal to the ground?

TravelGolf.com’s Tim McDonald often drives through the swamps of the South. But then his Hybrid breaks down or gets blown off the road and someone has to go pick him up.