Regardless of whether you’re a newcomer to the sport or a die-hard golfing fanatic, teeing-off at the vast stretches of pristine green that are the world’s finest golf courses is the exact definition of the perfect holiday for many around the world. Technically, this definition hasn’t made it into the Concise Oxford English Dictionary yet, but we think it’ll only be a matter of time before this oversight is remedied. The equation still remains: luxury vacation = golf, and it’s nigh on impossible to argue with that sort of logic.

In the past, there used to be one crucial question when it came to planning a luxury golfing vacation, and that centered on the choice between the links or the accommodation. Which one will it be? A great golf course or the best hotel? In an ideal world we wouldn’t even need to ask that question (of course the best hotel would have an unbeatable golf course, but perhaps that’s another one for the category of “definitions thatshould be included in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary“), but for many seasoned golfers and eager novices it’s been a compromise that has been made all too often when choosing from hotels in San Francisco, San Diego, or Las Vegas.

But if you’re looking for the pick of the bunch when it comes to resort golf course in North America, you shouldn’t go past the Pinehurst Resort in Pinehurst, North Carolina, or the Fairmont Chateau Whistler in British Columbia. For traditional links, Scotland’s Old Course Hotel in St. Andrews is simply divine, although you can’t scoff at a new experience like playing accompanied by a Himalayan panorama, an opportunity offered at the Gokarna Forest Golf Resort & Spa in Kathmandu, Nepal. The top choice in Continental Europe is undoubtedly the Hotel Guadalmina Spa & Golf Resort, in Marbella, Spain. These are among the best hotels in the world that provide exceptional golfing facilities with fantastic accommodation for singles, couples, or families.

Showtime Golf is proud to announce San Diego golf vacation packages for 20 of the top golf courses in the San Diego, California area. Showtime works with over 20 golf courses in San Diego, California and the surrounding areas to provide tee times, golf tournament reservations and golf vacation packages to businesses and individuals booking golf vacations in the San Diego area.

San Diego, CA (PRWEB) September 9, 2009 — Showtime Golf announces San Diego golf vacation packages and tee times for 20 of the top golf courses in San Diego and the surrounding areas.

San Diego Golf Vacation Packages

“Showtime Golf is proud to announce our San Diego golf vacation packages. We have worked with local San Diego golf courses to ensure that our all inclusive golf vacation packages offer the greatest value for your money. What separates Showtime Golf from other golf booking services is our commitment to customer service. We strive to provide our customers with world class service and our local expertise allows us to provide our customers with the best possible golf vacation packages, at the best price possible” said co-owner Ryan Van Der Vorste.

Courses are rated on a 5 star scale and range from resort friendly courses such as Riverwalk Golf Club to much more difficult golf courses such as the world renowned Torrey Pines. Each and every course offers top of the line rental clubs including such names as Titleist, Callaway, Cobra, Taylor Made, and more!

You may book your individual tee-time up to 120 days in advance online or Showtime Golf can assist with planning your golf travel package, corporate golf tournament or group outing up to 2 years in advance!

Tee times can be booked online using Showtime’s online golf reservation system. Select up to 5 golf courses that you would like to play. Enter the date, time and number of players you wish to book and press submit. Showtime Golf’s friendly staff will help find a course to fit your specific criteria including price range, driving distance, course difficulty, and much, much more!

The online reservation system will show you the golf courses you selected with their tee time availability. Once you’ve selected the golf course and time that works best for you, you fill in your personal information and you will receive a confirmation e-mail with 5 minutes of submission.

“We truly feel that our online reservation system and golf vacation packages offer the best value for anyone looking to book a San Diego golf vacation” said co-owner Cory Anderson.

If you are traveling to San Diego and wish to book tee times, tournament reservations or golf vacation packages, contact Showtime Golf for the best golf in San Diego!

About Showtime Golf: Showtime Golf is a complimentary service offering San Diego tee-times, tournaments and golf vacation packages at San Diego’s finest championship golf courses. Showtime Golf’s free service offers tee times which include green fee, cart fee, range balls, yardage book, and discounts of 20% in the pro shop at participating courses.

Showtime Golf
691 Shenandoah Ave.
San Marcos, CA 92078
Phone: 866-661-2334 ext 1
Fax: (760) 437-3239

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http://www.prweb.com/releases/sandiegogolf/golfvacationpackages/prweb2833954.htm

I have no awareness of why I have torn through five different golfing books in the past month.  There have been no injuries, no layoffs from work, no two-week vacations on tropical islands with nothing to do.  Simply put, in the time that presented itself, I became a voracious reader.  Without delay, here are five worthwhile golfing books that you can pick up in a local new , used or online book store.

THE RUB OF THE GREEN (1988)  You’ll have to find this one on abebooks.com or some other used book seller.  Long out of print (the second printing was 1989), it shouldn’t be.  The initial offering from William Hallberg, RUB tells the story of Ted Kendall, an Ohioan who absorbs his mother’s death and deflects his father’s inequities to earn a college golfing scholarship and PGA Tour card.  He also earns an 18-month stay in prison.  Hallberg tells parallel tales of Kendall’s prison and golfing lives.  Suffice it to say that a life-changing event takes place within prison confines and that the two stories ultimately merge in a complex way.  Hallberg has a wide vocabulary that enables him to not sound pedantic, ever.  Reading this book is an easy undertaking, even with a few unfortunate holes along the way.  The most glaring is, how did Ted Kendall become an agronomy expert?  Other than that, a great volume.

GOLFING WITH GOD (2007)  Roland Merullo spins an other-worldly tale about a mission assigned to a dead club professional by none other than the creator ownself.  Fairly contented in his cloud-side condo and challenging celestial country club, Hank Winston is shaken from his doldrums by an assignment:  help God recover her/his game.  Merullo seems unsure of certain fictional elements, such as how to handle platonic/sexual love between God and Winston.  After all, the Christion god invites all to love her/him.  The hints at sexuality between the two figures are awkward, adolescent, and either misguided or unneeded.  Unlike Hallberg above, who describes two specific scenes of sexual encounter with expertise and confidence, Merullo embarks on certain tangents for which he lacks the confidence necessary to conclude.  In spite of these flaws, the basic story is an unexpected and interesting one, and is also worth the investment of time and cash.

MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN (2006)  Bob Mitchell must be a professor at some New England college or university.  He imbues his protagonist, a professor of comparative literature, with all the characteristics of his own world, circles and life.  There can be no doubt that writing in the voice of a completely different self is unnerving and demanding beyond all comprehension.  Nevertheless, it is the mark of a great writer and great writing.  Would that we might have such a taken risk here.  MATCH is the story of a dying man given the opportunity to play a match against God for his life.  On the first tee, instead of facing the Almighty, Elliott Goodman (really?  couldn’t do any better than Goodman?) faces off against an unforeseen foe that is anyone but God.  The Almighty sends emmisaries, famous figures of history, to combat Goodman.  The novel employs a didactic technique to teach Elliott and the reader a series of life lessons.  It never descends into preachy, superior tones.  As one might guess, the selection of influential historical figures is limited to 18 (for the number of holes in the match) and could easily have excluded some and included others.  Somewhat controversial and certainly readable.

JENKINS AT THE MAJORS (2009)  Please take a moment to read the following series of quotes:

“It’s entirely possible that Dr. Cary Middlecoff gave up dentistry becuase people couldn’t hold their mouths open that long.”

“And now hes was the PGA Tour’s first player to draw an indefinite suspension for using too many Elizabethan words in front of innocent listeners.”

“Finally, on Sunday morning, the USGA felt compelled to make a citizen’s arrest of Bobby Clampett, a fine amateur, for conduct considered ‘demeaning’ to the Open.”

“Pate had said to Ben, ‘Gentle, you’re my pick tomorrow.  I believe you can rope-a-dope that old hook yours right into victory lane.’  It was noted by a listener that Jerry had put three different sports into one sentence, proving he’d gone to the University of Alabama.”

“It was a wondrous moment in golf.  Harry Vardon was inventing the grip again.  Arnold Palmer was hitching up his trowsers again.  Bobby Jones was impregnably quadrilateraling again.”

I have at least six more pages marked for similar ejaculations but, really, can anyone…does anyone write this way, anymore?  Does Dan Jenkins even write this way, anymore?  No, of course not.  Read this volume chronicalling and recapping 50 years of his covering golf’s majors and you will visit the bygone days of a bygone writer of immeasurable and unequalled comedic brilliance.

A DISORDERLY COMPENDIUM OF GOLF (2006)  In the days of B.I. (Before Internet), you had to travel to Toronto to read Lorne Rubenstein’s thoughts on golf.  Now, you can visit The Globe and Mail’s website and read his work any of seven days each week.  It might not be something new, but it will be his own.  For some unknown reason, Rubenstein and co-editor Jeff Neuman took it upon themselves to abandon their wives and write a misguided encyclopedia on the happenings of golf.  The thing is a beast and can be read in so many directions that it feels like a work of magical realism by some over-tall Argentine writer named Cortazar.  This is not a bad thing.  On one page, you’re reading about Harry “Beer Bottle” Bradshaw and WHAMMY, on you go to 1899 Rules of Etiquette, Golf’s Myths Exposed and (say her name three times fast) Jenny Chuasiriporn.  The COMPENDIUM is the perfect bar room tome for settling bets, creating dares, and challenging curmudgeons.  If you have only one golf reference work on your book shelf (you should purchase many, but far be it from me to tell you what to do), this one is my winner.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 14, 2009

aboutGolf Names Chuck Faust President and Chief Operating Officer

MAUMEE, OHIO—aboutGolf, the world leader in indoor golf simulator technology, has named Chuck Faust as its new President and Chief Operating Officer, announced aboutGolf CEO Bill Bales.

Faust—who officially began his new duties on April 27—is leading and directing aboutGolf’s entire scope of daily operations. Bales remains the company’s CEO, with a heavy focus on research and development. Bales also will continue to be actively involved with aboutGolf’s business development.

“Chuck, who has already proven to be a valuable asset, is a critical part of realizing aboutGolf’s full potential,” Bales says. “He will ensure that we continue to delight our customers as we experience continued growth, while allowing me to focus on research and development. Chuck is tasked with ensuring that we are doing right by our customers and our employees. Driving efficiency and effectiveness, growing revenue and increasing profitability will follow if you focus on who you are serving.”

Faust—who comes to aboutGolf from the Silicon Valley has spent more than 25 years in various Operations, Finance, and General Management roles in the high technology industry.  Most recently he served as General Manager of Global Shared Services Strategy and Executive Vice President for North American Shared Services for Fujitsu Limited, a $52 billion global IT products, services and technology company. While at Fujitsu, Faust’s leadership and abilities were recognized through a nearly 20-year career of promotions and exposure to a broad range of technology businesses. 

 “aboutGolf is truly an innovative and driven company,” Faust says. “I am honored to be part of a family that is so dedicated to its customers and its purpose. As a golfer, this opportunity is a dream. As a businessman…well, it is a dream, too.”

Faust hails originally from the state of Michigan where he attended Adrian College and received his BA in Mathematics and Business Administration and then continued his education at Texas Tech University, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude with an MBA in Finance.

“With a solid foundation based on my vision for aboutGolf,” Bales says, “Chuck and I, together, will lead aboutGolf into the future.”

aboutGolf is a 20-year-old Maumee, Ohio-based company that has been dedicated to golf for its entire history. aboutGolf is the world leader in indoor golf simulator technology, producing PGA TOUR Simulators, 3Trak launch monitors and Henry-Griffitts Custom Fitting. Historically, aboutGolf also produced Microsoft Golf, Greg Norman Ultimate Challenge Golf and World Tours, which is the world’s most-widely-distributed golf simulation. aboutGolf® is a registered trademark of aboutGolf Limited, Maumee, Ohio.

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For more information and product images contact:

Mary Beth Lacy at: 760-346-6942, email: mb@mblacy.com

AboutGolf Ltd.

352 Tomahawk Drive

Maumee, OH 43537

Phone: 419-482-9095

www.aboutgolf.com

The California Tax Commission is re-examining a proposal to extend the sales and use tax to golf play and services.

The golf tax was a near certainty at one point during the budget discussions in the beginning of the year; and was successfully stopped with the power the golf industry and individual golfers like you working together to protect our great game.

Such a proposal was not included in this year’s budget agreement and for good reason: It would impose a risky and inequitable burden on a golf industry in California that has been particularly hard hit by the economic downturn. An additional tax on playing golf and golf-related activities would cause significant harm–reducing play, slashing golf and service economy jobs, and shutting down courses that are already operating on slim margins.

Moving forward, we will be calling on you again to help defeat this unfair tax, and with your support, we know we can achieve success. Please stay tuned to the website for news updates, and possible calls to action. Continue to spread the news to your fellow friends and golfers, getting them to join the coalition if they haven’t already.

California’s broken budget system will not be repaired by breaking the state’s golf industry. As the Governor’s Executive Order creating the commission rightly said, “California’s long term prosperity requires that employers and entrepreneurs invest, remain and grow in the state…” A tax on golf will do just the opposite, reducing jobs at golf courses and in the hotel, restaurant and service industry.

For more information visit www.forecalifornia.com

Well, the 2008 US Open has come and gone. Not without excitement, but nevertheless, it has come and gone. Now, Torrey Pines is back to preparations for hosting their annual Buick Invitational. Something missing? Yeah, simply put: “Tiger.” San Diego is sunny and beautiful and moving up the coast to La Jolla even gets prettier! We all can’t wait to see what the PGA Tour has in store for 2009 despite the absence of Tiger Woods. We’ll miss him at Torrey Pines in La Jolla February 2-8, 2009. Here are some facts about the Buick and Ticket info. You better come on down to San Diego for this event despite Tiger’s presence…where else would you rather be in February?

2008 BUICK GOLF FACTS

• Buick’s 2008 PGA Tour line-up:
  • Buick Invitational: Held at Torrey Pines Golf Course in La Jolla, Calif. (Jan. 21-27).
    (2008 winner- Tiger Woods) Television: The Golf Channel, CBS
  • Buick Open: Held at Warwick Hills Golf & Country Club in Grand Blanc, Mich. (June 23-29).
    (2007 winner- Brian Bateman) Television: The Golf Channel, CBS
• Buick has donated more than $33 million to local charities through sponsorship of its PGA Tour events.
• Buick Open: $8 million (since 1982) to benefit the Easter Seals, American Red Cross, American Lung Association, Boy Scouts of America, Whaley Children’s Center, local hospitals, and fine arts programs.
• Buick Invitational: $12 million (since 1992) to benefit the San Diego County Junior Golf Association, Boys and Girls Clubs, Pro Kids Golf Academy, Big Brothers and Sisters and other community and university sports programs.
• Other tournaments – $17.5 million, Buick Challenge (1990-2002), Tampa Bay Classic presented by Buick (2001-2002), the Buick Classic (1990-2004); Buick Championship (2004-2005).
• Buick Touring Pro: Tiger Woods (since 1999)
• Buick has been the Official Car of the PGA TOUR since 1984.

Individual Tickets

Important Information

• The first day of the tournament, Monday, February 2 is free.
• Individual tickets and season badges grant access to ground entrance.
• Youth 12 & under admitted free at the gate when accompanied by an adult.
• Active Military and their immediate family are admitted free at the gate with current active ID.
• There are no refunds or exchanges.

If Purchasing Online

See you in “Sand” Diego!          -Sandman