Star Power: 5 Golfers, 5 Destinations

The Goal: To collect as many Best Places To Play stars as possible in 4 days

Photo by Stephen Szurlej

There are two kinds of golf trips: the type where you try to cram as much golf as you can into the available daylight hours and ... well, there's really just one kind of golf trip, isn't there?

Golf Digest's Best Places to Play ratings, based on input from readers like you, are a great way to make sure your trip combines quantity and quality. More than 3,000 public and resort courses appear in our Best Places to Play database, each rated from 1 to 5 stars. You can find these ratings in our Course Finder. It's searchable by region, course name, designer, price range and more. Spend some time exploring the Course Finder and you'll notice that many regions of the country are richer in Best Places to Play stars than others. These clusters--the game's Omega Centauris, if you will--are ideal spots for golf-intensive getaways.

In that spirit, we recently assigned five writers a star-laden destination each and told them to create the best possible itineraries. The goal: to "collect" as many stars as they could in four days. Here's how they fared. (All rates as of mid-February.)

Myrtle Beach

Strand and Deliver

In Myrtle Beach, it seems every third driveway is a golf course that's on somebody's top-10 list, because, well, it's true. Like the underpromising and overdelivering Little Pigs BBQ on Highway 17, Myrtle Beach gets the main mission right: It's the golf, stupid.

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By Mike Stachura

Southern Alabama

The Real Deal

One of the best things about a golf trip that starts in Mobile and ends in Gulf Shores, Ala., is the variety. You get Mobile's brawny, rough-edged Magnolia Grove, tail end of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, combined with the more coastal, linksy flavor of Gulf Shores' courses. This is no "Groundhog Day" golf trip.

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By Peter Finch

Florida

The Sunshine(?) State

Amid-winter tee time for a single anywhere in Florida usually involves a potluck pairing and much patience with the slow-moving snowbirds. I was prepared to face a double dose of those challenges when attempting to play as many good public courses as possible from West Palm Beach to Port St. Lucie.

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By Pete McDaniel

Phoenix

This Desert Rose

I still can't believe there's not a single 5-star course in all of greater Phoenix. There are plenty of 4½-star courses, though, and during three days in golf's winter paradise, I made my way around five of them. Collecting even more stars would have been easy if I hadn't run out of gas (figuratively), a result of my decision to insist on playing every course on foot.

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By Ron Whitten

The O.C.

California, Here I Come

The St. Regis Resort in Dana Point, Calif. (5 stars in the Mobile Travel Guide, if you're counting, and we are), sits near the southern end of what is known as the Orange Riviera. For any golf venture to Orange County, it's a spectacular place to start -- but only after knocking off four Best Places to Play stars at Oak Creek Golf Club in Irvine on your way.

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By John Strege