Throwback Trip: Pebble Beach 2014 Summary

Review original planning and trip details of Throwback Trip: Pebble Beach 2014

Highlights

Every course we played was amazing
Didn’t run into any major hitches during the trip
The golf was fantastic
Planning the trip was almost as fun as going on it… almost
Did I mention the golf was great?

Lowlights

Having to pay to check the golf bags
Quality of the hotel and breakfast in the hotel in Monterey

Wins

Everything went smoothly from a logistics point of view
- Hotels worked out. We found good food easily
- Golf course choices were excellent
Met our goal of minimizing out of pocket spend without sacrificing the travel experience
Used my first ever signup bonus for excellent value
Weather mostly held out. Some periodic fog and sprinkles but nothing to dampen our spirits or cause any inconvenience or delays. Probably helped us because others wimped out!

Regrets

Next time try to combine the itineraries so everyone can get free checked bag
- Only cost us $150 total and the differing outbound itineraries ended up working in our favor
The hotel in Monterey work out okay, but wouldn’t choose it again
- The hotel is no longer in the same chain, so we couldn’t if we wanted to
Not enough rest time. Needed a day with no golf in the middle to recharge a little

Takeaway

This trip was amazing in so many ways. The golf was spectacular. Our golfing… well, we got our money’s worth! As a shared father/son bonding experience it was also fantastic. While I was already close to everyone, the trip really brought us closer together. We now have so much we can reminisce on whenever we are together… and we do!

There’s no getting around the fact this trip cost us a lot of money. The Pebble Beach portion of the trip alone cost us over $7,500 just for the three rounds of golf and the two nights lodging. That said, the Pebble Beach portion of the trip was over 3/4 of the total cost of the trip, including food. We stretched our money to play some other fantastic courses and have som great experiences in addition to Pebble Beach. The trip would not have been nearly as memorable without the Pebble Beach portion of the experience though.

By using miles for the airline tickets we saved nearly $1600 and the hotel points saved us over $600. By economizing where it didn’t matter to us (fancy food and luxury hotels) and searching endlessly for the best deals (car rental) we were able to go on a trip we wouldn’t have been able to otherwise afford. For us, the golf and being able to play at these fantastic courses was the point of the trip and OUR reason for going.

Of the six course we played, I get asked which ones I liked the best. They were all amazing, though if I have to rank them I would order them:

Pebble Beach
Spyglass Hill
Presidio
Links at Spanish Bay
Half Moon Bay
Bayonet

I would have no problem playing any one of those courses again and would jump at the opportunity. I think most on our group would have a very similar ordering, especially for the top two. I really enjoyed the Presidio, though it was the course I had my best round on and that may have bumped it up a spot or two. We all really liked Bayonet, though we all agreed it wasn’t quite as special as the others. It didn’t have the same level of unique settings or history as the others.

If we ever go again, we’d likely try to play the fourth course at Pebble Beach, Del Monte Golf Course that we haven’t played yet. We would probably try to extend our tips by a couple days and have at least one day off from golf to rest and recover. We would probably split between San Francisco and Monterey again and choose some of the courses we didn’t get to play during this trip. There are so many fantastic courses in the area.

I would also take a cart more often rather than walking every round like I did this trip. While I play better walking, I was pretty drained for some of the later rounds. We would definitely get a minivan again as it was the perfect vehicle to comfortably haul all our stuff around for the amount of driving we had to do.

Going back to Pebble Beach has made it onto our bucket list!