James Bond Golf Trip
England to Vegas to Miami to The Bahamas to Jamaica and beyond
The first thought that jumps to mind when mentioning James Bond in the same phrase with golf, is the match that Connery's Bond played against Auric Goldfinger in the film of the same name. Although dubbed as Royal St. Georges, Sandwich, Kent, England in the movie, the golf scenes were actually filmed at Stoke Park Golf Club (formerly Stoke Poges) in Slough, Buckinghamshire, England. Stoke Park was revisited by the Bond series in Tomorrow Never Dies, where the clubhouse doubled as the interiors of the Hamburg hotel.
Royal St. George's Golf Club*
British Open Host 1981, 1986, 1993, 2003
WorldGolf.com Review: "...springy turf, spectacular dunes, murmuring surf, savage rough and singing skylarks… not a traditional out-and-back routing, random direction changes hole to hole vary wind direction and leave you almost lost among the dunes… magical, rich in history… *It's a private club and you must book in advance (a letter of introduction from your local country club pro is usually a good way to approach this). Stay at the Royal Hotel (www.theroyalhotel.com), exceptional restaurant, magnificent beers, or bed down at The Black Pig (www.theblackpig.co.uk), a modest B&B with homemade meals and an ala carte evening menu."
Stoke Park Golf Club (http://www.stokeparkclub.com/) Weekday: £110 Weekend: £180 Telephone: 01753 717171
WorldGolf.com Review: "A WorldGolf Select course… has been recognized as the finest parkland course in England… designed by Harry S. Colt… long, with 8 par-4's over 400 yards… the 12th at Augusta was modeled after Stoke Park's 7th… 27 holes."
Stoke Park
Assuming you'll want to keep your Bond/golf obsessions stateside, here's a sample itinerary that will take you to a few of the more notable U.S. filming locations for the Bond series:
What better place to start than Las Vegas, as seen in 1971's Diamonds Are Forever. And any Bond golf trip wouldn't be complete without bringing your best Bond girl along (or attracting a new one during your adventures).
Believe it or not, the Circus Circus Casino featured in the film is still there (www.circuscircus.com), but recall that Bond actually stayed at the Tropicana (also still there, so book a room at www.tropicanalv.com). In your Vegas travels, swing by the Riviera Hotel & Casino, where the exteriors shots for the scene where Bond meets Plenty O'Toole were shot. Also, the Las Vegas Hilton was featured as the Whyte House casino. One can imagine Daniel Crag's modern-day Bond thinking most of the Strip casinos being a bit too gauche, plus a bit too high profile for a secret agent. Somehow I could see James at the Red Rock Resort, just outside of town. Cool mod rooms, and jaw-dropping waitresses in bathing suits at Sandbar. Just ignore the club-like bowling alley.
To recapture the feel of Bond's Goldfinger match, tee it up at Royal Links GC (www.watersgolf.com), modeled after great British Open rota holes, including #7, a 466 yard par-4 based on the 13th at Royal St. George's. And be sure to reserve a Par Mate caddy… imagine a Bond Girl giving you yardages and replacing your divots ($225 plus tip). Don't forget to buy a box of Slazengers before you tee off.
Party at Teatro, which looks a bit like a backdrop for the opening credits of Moonraker. It's a spaceship inside a casino, sporting an intimate atmosphere, sexy drink cart grrls, and a red rock/female silhouette slide show. Continue the opening credits/female silhouette theme at Maxim-recommended and bordello-inspired Cathouse bistro and lounge (@ Luxor). Just try to concentrate on your dinner when the backlit frosted glass window reveals the silhouette of a gorgeous woman dressing herself in lingerie. The whole room oozes seduction.
From there, hop a first class flight to Miami. The globe-trotting Bond also played cards with Goldfinger at the pool at Miami's Fountainbleau Hotel (www.fountainbleau.com). Feel free to drop into your Tony Montana accent while poolside; it's also where the pool scene in Scarface was filmed. The Fountainbleau's Lobby Bar was a Rat Pack hangout, so one would assume it's almost cool enough for James Bond too. And forget channeling Daniel Craig's Bond here; alas, the "Miami" scenes from Casino Royale were actually shot in the Czech Republic.
Bond would want to play his Miami golf somewhere sophisticated, with no expense from the Queen's bounty spared, so book at tee time at Doral Golf Resort & Spa's TPC Blue Monster course, (www.doralgolf.com). Rated 4 1/2 stars by T&L Golf, a PGA Tour stop for 45 years, and widely regarded as Miami's best. James would eschew touristy places to dine, so skip the line at Joe's Stone Crab and take your Bond girl to the sensual B.E.D.("Beverage, Entertainment, Dining", 929 Washington Ave). Even the most buttoned-up patrons can't resist the urge to plop down on king-sized mattresses (the sheets are changed between meals), losing their inhibitions with heady champagnes. Or try the aphrodisiac menu at sexy Tantra.
For those of you willing to join Bond in his globe-trotting, pack a bag for the resort of all Carribean Resorts, Atlantis (www.atlantis.com), Paradise Island, Bahamas, featured in the 2006 version of Casino Royale as the hotel in the background when James gets off the plane.
Kubla Kahn would have been jealous of this place. Italian marble polished to a high sheen everywhere, gorgeous ceiling murals, and dual staircases leading down to a high-ceilinged, sub-terrainian restaurant surrounded by a 100-foot wall of glass looking into the aquarium. The walk through the shopping promenade into the casino begins to make it feel a bit like Vegas-plopped-on-the-beach, so this is the perfect place to stage your own version of Casino Royale with a game of Texas No Limit Hold 'Em among friends.
Again, don't forget that Bond actually stayed at the Ocean Club (www.oneandonlyresorts.com).
Ocean Club GC
A new owner put $100 million into the resort in 2001, resulting in a super luxurious resort that even the highest of high rollers will appreciate. This intimate hotel (106 rooms) oozes class and personal service. The rooms are sublime: furnished in mahogany and teak, with strawberries and champagne delivered every afternoon. Naturally you'll have to reserve a beachfront villa, so rent the actual "James Bond" suite from the movie (Suite 1805, ~$700/night).
It also offers an excellent choice of restaurants, a Balinese spa, and a pool nestled in a garden inspired by Versailles.
Or, Bond stayed at the Best Western British Colonial Beach Resort in Nassau in Never Say Never Again. Play golf at the Ocean Club's Tom Weiskopf course ($185 & up), also redone in 2001. Ocean views on nearly every hole of a routing of two opposing loops, so the wind is constantly coming from a different direction. The course features approach shots over inlets and pink-sand beaches, a surprising amount of uphill and downhill terrain, wavy greens, and scattered freshwater lakes add even more drama. Double-0-Seven doesn't strike me as a 36-hole-a-day or even a 36-holes-in-a-weekend kinda guy, but should you get the itch, also try the newer Blue Shark Golf Club (www.bluesharkgolf.com). The fifteenth and seventeenth holes are the highlights of this complete redesign by Greg Norman of what used to be the South Ocean Club course on New Providence Island. Known as the "blue holes," they straddle giant lagoon sinkholes connected to the ocean by subterranean channels. The rest of the layout, part of which overlooks the Atlantic, features Norman's familiar white sand bunkers and crushed-coquina waste areas. If you can bring yourself to leave the confines of the resort, eat a meal at the restaurant at the Buena Vista Hotel in Nassau. This location was used for the exterior shots of the Madagascar Embassy in Casino Royale. Bay Street in Nassau was featured in 1965's Thunderball, in a scene where James introduces Felix Leiter to Paula and Pinder, as well as in 1983's Never Say Never Again. Connery's Bond also had dinner at Café Martinique, Paradise Lagoon, in Thunderball, and partied at the Kiss Kiss Club in Nassau in the same film.
Continuing with the Carribean theme, head over to Jamaica, mon.
James Bond was born on Jamaica, in tiny Oracabessa in the parish of St. Mary. It was here that Ian Fleming brought 007 to life, in 1952, writing Casino Royale, the first in the series, by lamplight in a ranch overlooking the sea. Even though Bond is a fiction, it makes sense that there's some Caribbean DNA in the guy—it's discernible in his barefoot bravado,and also in his inevitable return to a lounge chair under the palms, drink in hand (you know the one), a babe massaging his shoulders as the credits roll.
Stay at:
Goldeneye
A discreet island getaway for well-heeled playboys and girls. Also the former residence of Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond. The house cocktail is a blend of dark rums sweetened with pineapple juice and lime. DOUBLES FROM $895. ORACABESSA, ST. MARY; 800/688-7678 OR 876/975-3354; www.islandoutpost.com
Play at:
WHITE WITCH, Ritz-Carlton Rose Hall, St. James; 876-518-0174. Yardage: 6,748. Par: 71. Slope: 139. Architects: Robert von Hagge and Rick Baril, 2000. Greens Fee: $159. T&L Golf Rating: ****1/2
Despite Jamaica's notable golf riches, the new White Witch is clearly the best of the bunch. Named for Annie Palmer, the enchanting mistress of the adjacent Rose Hall Plantation who was reputed to have eliminated 3 of her husbands before she herself was done in by her lover, the course certainly casts a spell as it spills up and down the hills high above the sea. Many holes demand long and scary carries over chasms filled with rocks, thick vegetation and dark places where the wild things live. Outcroppings of limestone thrust out of the fairways to create visual, if not actual, hazards. 2 of the par-3 holes feature stomach-dropping shots from elevated tees to water-fronted greens far below.
ALSO PLAY: You can no longer see local Johnny Cash roaming the Wyndham Rose Hall Resort & Country Club's refurbished Cinnamon Hill Ocean Course ($80-$125; 876-953-2650), but you'll still have to walk the line to avoid the chasms of this Robert von Hagge and Rick Baril layout. Perennial favorite Half Moon Golf Club ($130; 876-953-2211) is a long stroll courtesy of Robert Trent Jones Sr.; and, just down the road, the Tryall Club ($40-$115; 876-956-5681) has completed a thorough renovation, restoring this famed oceanfront gem to the shape it deserves.
See also: T&L Golf's Jamaican Golf Trip
If you're thinking of heading to Cuba because you're lucky enough to have a wife/grrlfriend who can be talked into (and pull off) duplicating the scene where Halle Berry's Jinx walks out of the ocean in that tiny little orange bikini in Die Another Day, here's the bad news: That "Cuban" beach is actually in Spain, called La Playa de la Caleta, Cadiz, Andalucia.
Then get your globe-trotter on, and book a flight to the famed mushroom rock of "James Bond Island", as featured in The Man With The Golden Gun. JamesBondLifestyle.com says the real name of the island is Koh Khao Phing Kan in the Phang Nga Bay, part of the Phang Nga province in Thailand. The beach where Nick Nack opens the bottle of champagne is down an unmarked trail which is only accessible at low tide, on the southwest corner of the island.
Phuket Golf
At first glance. golfing and the ocean do not seem to go together. However, when you combine this popular sport with extraordinary beauty of the Andaman Sea and its long coastline, what you get is a golfing experience unlike anywhere else on earth.
Thailand 's southern provinces of Phuket, Phangnga and Krabi have long been the destinations of people looking for rest and relaxation. Sea, sand and sun are in abundance, complementing great seafood, unspoiled national parks and a unique culture. For those that pursue an active lifestyle and enjoy the challenges of gofing, the three provinces offer perhaps the utimate high.
Phuket, Phangnga and Krabi all have world-class golf courses some designed by renowed international architects and star golfers. The courses are set among a variety of exciting surroundings like amidst green mountains and by the azure sea. Wherever they are, all have modern facilities and impeccable services. Green and caddie fees are always very affordable. Some courses boast excellent cuisine and accommodation. All can cater to any program for groups large and small.
This publication gives you valuable insight into the golf courses in the three provices, but there is nothing that can compare to actually playing on one, or a few, of them. We believe that after one visit, you will likely return for more glorious golfing by the Andaman Sea.
Loch Palm Golf Club
Vichitsongkram Road Kathu District Phuket 83000
Tel: 321929-34 Fax: 32197-8
Designed by Sukitti Klangwisai
Loch Palm Golf Club will become a fast favorite with all golfing enthusiasts. The 18-hole, par 72, 6,434 yards course sits amid beautiful rolling hills, providing a scenic backdrop to the lush green fairways.
Phuket Country Club
97/4 Vichitsongkram Road Kathu Phuket 83000
Tel: 321365-71 Fax: 321721
Designed by Sukitti Klangvhisai
Phuket Country Club established in 1989, is the first and one of the finest golf courses built in Phuket, over a reclaimed tin mine site. The stunning beauty and elegance of the course, together with the typical Thai charm and hospitality will make your golfing here a joyful & memorable occasion. The Club has been the host to KOSAIDO THAILAND OPEN 1992 & PRINCE BERNARD CUP tournaments. PCC is also very conveniently located - 10 minutes out of Phuket town and 15 minutes to Patong Beach!
Blue Canyon Country Club
165 M001, Thepkasattri Road, Maikaw, Thalang, Phuket 83140 Thailand
Tel 6676-327440-7 Fax6676-327449
Designed by Yoshikazu Kato
Blue Canyon Country Club, located at Mai Khao on 730 acres of prime land, is recognized as being amongst the most exclusive golfing establishments in the region. Cradled in a secluded, verdant valley, against a magnificent backdrop of majestic mountain views, the Blue Canyon Country Club basks in Phuket's tropical sunshine. The Club is just minutes away from Phuket International Airport and the beautiful Nai Yang Beach and about 29km from Phuket Town.
Banyan Tree Phuket Golf Club
34 Moo4,Srisoonthorn Rd., Cherngtalay, Talang,
Phuket 83110
Designer:Max Waxler & David Abell - 18 holes Par#71 6850 yds
Banyan Tree Phuket Golf Club is a resort style 18 hole golf course located within the Laguna Phuket development. Situated on the exclusive Bang Tao Bay on the western shore of Phuket Island, this par 71 layout stretches 6,850 yards from the championship tees. The front 9 holes of this Max Wexler designed golf course opened for play on 7 December 1991. The back 9 holes were opened in August 1992.Carved out of the existing sand hills, the front 9 holes, a par 36, meander through a once flourishing coconut plantation. Players must be exact on their tee shots, as water comes into play on 5 out of the 9 holes.
Thai Muang Beach Golf Club
157/12 Moo9, Limdul Rd, Thai Muang, Phangnga 82120
Designed by Dye Designs
The par three 17th hole has layout that spreads to the water, while tee-off is at the other side. At the left of fairways there are bunkers all the way.The knockout hole is the par four 18 th-the-fairways are laid along the Andaman Coast with off to green. A sea breeze while playing golf, what an experience. Newest of all the only real Andaman sea-side courses located in Thai Muang district in Phang-Nga Province (where is James Bond Island located) about 40 km. From the airport.
Mission Hills Phuket Golf Resort & Spa
195 Moo 4 Pla Khlok, Amphur Thalang, Phuket 83110
Tel: (076) 310 888
Fax: (076) 310 899
Designed by Nicklaus Design
Mission Hills Golf Course group has opened the new third golf course in Phuket, Thailand and named "Mission Hills Phuket Golf Resort and Spa" following in Kao Yai, Nakornrajchasima and Kanchanaburi. New world golfer's destination, Mission Hills Phuket Golf Resort and Spa is an opening 18 holes ocean views and an ongoing 9 holes bay views night golf course, designed by the world class golf course's artist, Nicklaus Design. Measuring 6,806 yards from the back trees, the golf course is fulfilled with the best selected grass, Paspalum Sea Isle 1 for fairways and Paspalum Sea Isle 2000 for greens. One island two sharing greens, one hole two greens and beach bunkers are outstanding featured to challenge even the most conservative golfers.
What To Drink: You can't do a Bond golf trip without ordering at least a martini or three "shaken, not stirred." Once you get over the novelty of that, shift gears to the drink Bond was inspired to order in Casino Royale, named after his femme fatal: The Vesper. "Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice cold, then add a large slice of lemon peel. Got it?"
Or, from JamesBondLifestyle.com, "What did Bond drink besides the 'vodka martini shaken not stirred' clichés? He's had Miller Hi-Life Beer, Americanos, Ouzo, Raki, bourbon (lot's of that), vodka and tonic, rum, whiskey, mint juleps, sake, and others. He is an international boozer. So, those of us who like to drink doubles like double-o-seven have a wide variety of potations to choose from. Just read the books, watch the movies."
[Fat Guy Note: I have not taken this trip or explored any of these courses/locations. As always, proper research and reservations are required. I'm just the idea guy on this one.]
Random Fat Guy Thoughts: In compiling a list of accessible locales to get your 007 on, it occurred to me that there's most certainly a marketing opportunity here… A 007 Resort & Casino. Couldn't you just picture one of these on the Strip in Vegas? Lounge by the pool, get your martinis shaken not stirred, scuba dive, ski, boat, you name it.
Common areas would be replicated from sets from Bond films… guest suites themed after each of the Bond movies… décor all in the debonair 007 style.
There's a theme park angle… electronic shooting ranges which mimic scenes from the movie… drive a tank, shooting your way across a pseudo battlefield… video driving games to elude the bad guys in your Aston Martin… stunt shows reenacting fight scenes… virtual reality role playing games… the list is endless.
There's a shopping angle here too… push the "official" merchandise from the latest Bond flick… clothing stores in the same vein as James' famous style… spy gadget shops… a tuxedo store… accessories for mixing the perfect martini… a spy-themed book store with every spy novel out there, along with everything Ian Flemming ever wrote.
There's a style makeover angle… massages from geishas in costume… haircut shave facial mani and petti to look like 007… style classes on how to dress like Bond… tux fittings… classes on things to look for in how clothes fit… grooming tips… you name it.
There's also a self-improvement angle… martini mixing classes… self-defense techniques… shooting ranges for those who've never fired a gun… Bond workout classes… Bond diet instruction (how to stay under 2000 calories a day and still enjoy a martini)… how to tie a real bow-tie… practice your Bond-style pickup lines on random female volunteers… poker lessons… language classes… sex tips… I could go on.
And of course, a nightly screening of one of the Bond flicks, say, on a projection screen poolside. The place would attract single women and couples like flies, with all these guys boosting their confidence and getting in touch with their metrosexual side. You could even base a travel agent on Bond-themed packages to the locales listed above.
Hmmm… how does one go about getting about $300 million in start-up capital these days?
Fat Guy Note: Nearly a year after writing that, I stumbled across a website that duplicates my idea in cyberspace, minus the resort. Check out www.jamesbondlifestyle.com. See their James Bond travel page for more movie locations and trip ideas.