A Good Deal More

A tour operator should ask what you want from a hotel as well. "Where do you normally stay on a business trip?" says Brice. "That's what I want to know. Then we can match up your expectations. I'll give you a prime example: When you say 'bed and breakfast,' most Americans say that sounds pretty good. My experience is they're not very good at all. You're dreaming of a New England B&B, or one in Napa, with some great restaurants nearby and a lot of charm. They're not often like that in the British Isles."

The ideal tour operator will be full of current, first-hand knowledge about everything: courses, hotels, roads, pubs, green fees. If you get the sense tour operators are just reading from a brochure, try lobbing some questions at them, suggests Gordon Dalgleish, president of PerryGolf in Wilmington, N.C. "Say, 'I don't know my geography of Scotland very well. Can you give me a sense of the travel times between courses?' " Another approach: Try engaging tour operators in a conversation about their favorite courses in the area. That will give you a sense of whether they truly understand golf trips . . . or whether they're just order-takers.

In 2007, Dalgleish played "mystery shopper," anonymously contacting seven rival tour operators by e-mail. "From a competitive business stand-point, it was very encouraging," he says. Two of the seven itineraries he received were rudimentary spreadsheets with a minimum of information. Three proposals suggested the tourists fly from Glasgow to remote Machrihanish, seemingly unaware of the Kintyre Express, a high-speed ferry that makes the trip from Troon in an hour, and at a fraction of the cost.

Making the cut
When the proposals start to come in, there's a good chance you'll be looking at a wide diversity of prices. In Dalgleish's mystery-shopper test, the bids ranged from $5,300 to $7,800 for the same seven-day trip to Scotland, not including airfare. Well, it wasn't the "same" trip at all, of course. Which is why, when comparing your bids, you should turn a magnifying glass on them to see what sets each apart from the rest:

Hotels "The trick with accommo-dations is rooms," says Sam Baker, president of Cincinnati-based Haversham & Baker Golfing Expeditions. "You need to know exactly what you're getting."

An itinerary that says you're staying at Ye Olde Golfers Inn isn't good enough. It should specify a room type, a bed type, whether you have a roommate and whether there is an adjoining shower and/or bathtub. John Wineman, a retired entrepreneur from the Chicago area, recalls arriving at a St. Andrews inn several years ago expecting eight private rooms for his group's two foursomes -- and finding the inn didn't even have eight rooms total. "For what we were paying, sharing rooms was not right," he says.

Another time, the same tour operator (since replaced) booked Wineman's group into the tiniest accommodations he'd ever seen. His roommate went downstairs to ask about getting a private room and found it would be only a small extra charge per night. They all decided to get private rooms.

Because every hotel uses different names -- Gleneagles has Estate and Classic rooms and Whisky suites, among others -- Dalgleish suggests visiting a hotel's website and clicking on "rooms" to see what your firm is really proposing.

Courses As with the hotel portion of your itinerary, you want to make sure the golf courses are the ones you expect. When it says "Ballybunion," does that mean the beloved Ballybunion Old or the Cashen, circa 1982? When it says "Lahinch," will you be playing its Old Course or its Castle Course, built in the 1970s?

There's often a lot of confusion -- and misinformation -- about tee times on the Old Course at St. Andrews. The best, most economical way to book them is to contact the St. Andrews Links Trust (www.standrews.org.uk) in September of the year before you're going. Didn't plan your trip so far in advance? A few tour operators have a limited number of guaranteed times on the Old Course for sale. Others arrange them (at a high price) through a third-party outfit called the Old Course Experience. (See "A Scalping at St. Andrews from July 2005") Another option is to place your group in the daily lottery, or "ballot." Many groups get on the Old Course this way, but it's not a sure thing. You'll only find out whether you have a tee time the day before you play. If tour operators say they can get you on the Old Course "guaranteed," demand to see an actual tee time. Otherwise, you're probably taking your chances on the ballot.

Transportation Just because your tour operator says a van "seats eight" does not mean it seats them comfortably. On one of his early trips to Scotland, John Wineman recalls being met at the Glasgow airport by "a slightly extended bus." Loaded with eight guys, their luggage and their golf bags, it looked like a clown car. The group did not get any happier when they learned one of their drives would take more than five hours.

"I tell Americans, 'Always take the biggest car possible,' " says Brice. Some companies "will try to rent you a 'Category A' car for your foursome." That's "four guys crammed into a car with their clubs on the roof." A simple solution is to look at online pictures of what the tour operators are proposing you rent.

Crisis management Let's say something goes wrong -- a buddy misses a connection on the way, for example, or a golf course has no record of your reservation. Will you have a person dedicated to fixing these problems, or will you get whoever picks up the phone when you call in? It's worth asking.