A big farewell from Island Golf Holidays

A big farewell from Island Golf Holidays

We shall be retiring from the world of golf travel at the end of 2024. From 1 January 2025 we will no longer be operating holidays overseas or the UK.

Island Golf Holidays has been operating since 2017 and at the age of 62 Maureen and I have decided to retire and thus move onto a new chapter in our lives. This will involve a move from southwest Scotland up to the northeast to the beautiful region of Sutherland, which is nearly 1 hour north of the Capital of the Highlands, Inverness, buying a new house in the seaside golf town of Dornoch.

After 40 years of working in the golf holiday industry I felt it was the right moment to call it a day, the last 7 years running our own business has been the most rewarding, mainly because of the reengaging with the customer, being able to offer such a personalised level of service.

Working for bigger companies over the two decades from 1997 to 2017, meant that as the man in charge you lost the daily contact with your clients, but at Island Golf Holidays because of the relative smaller scale of the business, I was able to talk to customers every day and build up a level of trust and friendship which seemed unrivalled and so rewarding at the same time.

I would therefore like to thank all the Island Golf Holidays customers since 2017 for their incredible levels of regular business and their trust in me personally to look after them for many wonderful top luxury trips all over the world. It has been an incredible privilege to have been your travel organiser over these 7 years.

Some of my favourite worldwide destinations

With 40 years of experience in the world of golf travel, I have been lucky enough to have travelled extensively, visiting many stunning hotels, regions and golf courses. One of my regrets is that I did not travel to Asia until 2015, but certainly I will remember my tours of Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia in 2015 and 2019 as two of my very best trips. The highlights of these 2 visits would be from a golfing point of view the Rain Forest / Ocean courses on the Indonesian Island of Bintan, close to Singapore and the outstanding resort of The Datai on the Malaysian island of Langkawi (where one of the world’s oldest Rain Forests touches the Ocean).

Culturally I will always have fond memories of my visits also to the ancient and remarkable Temples of Angkor Watt in Siem Reap and the old town of Hoi An in Vietnam, but the 24-hour junk cruise of Halong Bay was also incredible, neat Hanoi, Vietnam.

Another regret I have is not to have visited Japan in my working career, this was scuppered by Covid in 2020, but I was lucky enough to organise an extensive all ladies golf and cultural tour of Japan in 2023 which allowed me to do extensive research on this stunning country.

It would be remiss of me to not mention our own love affair of Jamaica and the quality golf resort venue at Half Moon near Montego Bay, we had a period of at least 5 years where we organised a lot of couples to a venue which had become our own personal favourite place to travel to. The Dominican Republic also from the point of view of the pure golf factor and the pure beach factor became an absolute pleasure to sell golf holidays to, especially from January to May, Tortuga Bay and Casa de Campo offered some of the finest and most exhilarating golf courses in the world, together with outstanding beaches and accommodation.

Finally, our best selling and most successful destination anywhere at Island Golf Holidays has been to Mauritius and particularly the resorts at Heritage Telfair at Bel Ombre and the Constance Prince Maurice near Belle Mare. Our best-selling hotel in the entire world over our 7 years of trading has been to Heritage Telfair – an incredible fact considering it is more than 12 hours flight from London Gatwick! Another regret I have is not to have played the golf course La Reserve Links which launched in 2023. I may get there in 2026, if I am lucky enough.

Closer to home – my favourite places in Europe

When I started selling Belek in Turkey in 1989 it only had 1 golf course and 3 hotels, I have seen it be transformed over the last 35 years to what it has become in 2024.

55 hotels and 16 golf courses! Indeed, I have probably sold more golfing groups to Belek than anywhere else. Our own personal favourite has always been the Gloria Serenity Resort which has been transformed since April 2023, we have taken a few lovely holidays to this venue. My favourite golf course being the tough original Faldo course at Cornelia! With the PGA Sultan also running a very close second.

In my early career back in the 80s and early 90s most of my holidays sold were to the Costa del Sol and the Algarve. I have superb memories of the Lisbon region and its exceptional golf courses, Cascais being my favourite Portuguese seaside town.

More recently the outstanding 36-hole golf resort in Sicily with its two championship courses designed by Kyle Philips sticks in the memory as one of my favourites also, but the destination has been handicapped by a lack of flights to Palermo. Finally, however my favourite  venue in Europe are the resorts we have been selling at Costa Navarino in Kalamata, Greece, namely the Westin, The Romanos and more recently the exceptional W Costa Navarino. The 72 holes in this destination are eye catching, exhilarating and so scenic and challenging, The Olympic and Hills courses are inspiring. Simply this is the best European Golf Resort destination in 2025!

Short breaks & the golf holiday boom 1996 – 2010

In my younger days of my career, I oversaw new product development for Eurogolf, 3D Golf and Elegant Golf Resorts, this involved riding the wave of the new Tsunami of golf courses and golf resort hotels exploding across France, Spain, Turkey, Portugal and Ireland and long-haul venues also like Mauritius. This period was so exciting and there was so much happening around the world in this golf boom period, I travelled up to 8 weeks a year, exploring and facilitating sales to new venues, it was incredibly rewarding.

During this era, I would have to say my own favourite country was France, the country increased its number of golf courses from 200 to over 450 and the destination is so rich in its diversity of scenery, cuisine, culture, weather and types of golf courses and hotels. My own favourite region originally was Le Touquet, Hardelot etc, but latterly it became the exciting region of Biarritz, up to Bordeaux, known as Les Landes, Seignosse and Moliets being my favourite golf courses.