Golf course directories help traveling golfers locate courses

Link: http://www.travelgolf.com/departments/authorarchives/christianson.htm

Let me share a terrifying recurring dream I have:

I’m on the road, golf bag on my shoulder, but I don’t know where the course is. I ask the strangers walking past, but they look at me as if I were speaking Japanese. Lots of head-scratching and shoulder-shrugging, and no help at all getting to the course in time for a fast-approaching tee time. Then it turns out I am speaking Japanese, and I’m not wearing pants. But I digress.

What, pray tell, is the traveling golfer to do, when similarly caught out on the road with clubs in hand but no clue where to grab a quick round?

One option, of course, is TravelGolf.com’s own GolfGuideWeb.com. Armed with nothing more than Internet access, the wandering golfers in the U.S. can look up courses by state and city. And more impressively, thanks to our hard-working, well-traveled writing staff (just looking at us, you can tell we’ve been around the block a few times), you’ll find links to full course reviews and photo galleries of hundreds, nay, thousands of courses.

And, you ask, what if I’m not in the U.S., but instead traversing foreign soil? Well, we’ve got you covered there, too. Pretty much any course anywhere on this lovely orb is listed on WorldGolf.com’s golf course guide, which, again, contains links to myriad links worldwide, even those you can actually ask for in Japanese and get an answer.

Maybe, though, just maybe, you find yourself somewhere without an Internet connection. Like, say, at one of those ritzy resorts that want to supplement their $300 per night room rates with $10 a day Internet access. And, like me, you simply refuse to allow yourself to be nickel and dimed to death.

Or maybe you’re living a bad dream in, say, Oklahoma, where they don’t believe in evolution, global warming, or the Internet. Then what do you do?

For just these nightmarish occasions, Never-Search for Golf has developed an updateable software package that lists course information and an interactive map providing directions to all 18,475 golf courses in the U.S., along with driving ranges, golf stores and 9,000 golf instructors. The map can be used to plan golf trips, and includes other locations that are of interest to travelers such as airports, lodging, coffee shops and restaurants.

The cost for the personal version of the Never-Search product is $20, and various business versions for golf industry professionals ranges from $99-$495.

Maybe, just maybe, now those horrible dreams will subside….