With an impeccable reputation spanning 35 years in the luxury travel sphere across England, Ireland and Scotland, Carr Golf is adding some big-time destinations to its inventory.
Marty Carr, the company’s CEO, said the allure of world-class golf, unmatched scenery and client requests for bucket-list trips to Australia and New Zealand just became too difficult to overlook.
“Where we have the pints of Guinness (beer) they have beautiful wineries,” Carr says, contrasting the European 19th hole experiences with the land Down Under. “The courses are so spectacular, and the landscapes are unique that only certain parts of the world have. And there is certainly remoteness to them that adds allure. When God made coffee he certainly didn’t pick locations that were easy to get to so the remoteness is part and parcel of the whole golf experience there.”
Carr says the company’s exclusive excursions to Australia and New Zealand will be between 10-14 days, if not longer.
“It depends on how aggressive you want to get. Some golfers want to even do 20 days because it is a long journey,” he says. “If you’re coming to Ireland or Scotland you can get here from the United States in 5½-6 hours, so you could execute four to five days whereas these trips you can’t. So they tend to be longer, they tend to be more extensive and spread out, and they tend to be more expensive.”
How expensive?
At least $15,000 for a minimum two-week trip, plus airfare, Carr says.
“It is a once-in-a-lifetime bucket trip for most people, whereas avid golfers come over to Ireland or Scotland maybe every year or every second year,” Carr says.
The peak golf season in Australia and New Zealand is opposite of Ireland and Scotland, running from January through April.
“It’s counter seasonal for us, so when it’s winter over there it’s summer over in Ireland, which means we can allocate our resources and make sure the experience on the ground matches what golfers would expect here,” says Carr, whose company is based in Dublin, Ireland.
Despite focusing on European experiences for more than three decades, Carr said the company began looking at the Australia and New Zealand opportunity prior to COVID-19.
“We had been thinking about it for quite some time but got derailed when COVID hit,” Carr said. “But as we all recovered from COVID we began to see the impact it had on travel, so we managed to regroup and got back on track. And we began to see that our customers and friends were traveling down to Australia and New Zealand on their own anyway, so our direction became evident and very clear. We have such loyal clients that enjoy the reliable experiences we offer and they asked us, ‘Why don’t you guys do it?”’
Carr notes that the American architect who has made the most impact in Australia and New Zealand golf is arguably Tom Doak, who has designed some of the world’s top 100 courses on the islands.
Doak’s first design in the area was the world-renowned Cape Kidnappers in New Zealand in 2004, followed by Barnbougle Dunes Golf Club and the Golf Club at St. Andrews Beach in Australia in 2005.
“I made 11 trips that way over two years to build those three golf courses, but they were all just beautiful sites,” Doak says. “That’s a long way to travel and I wasn’t doing them unless it was really something worthwhile. But they are all spectacular and they are all open to the public. All the (golf) magazines began to feature them because you could get on a plane today and go there if you wanted to and play.”
And then in 2015 Doak designed Tara Iti Golf Club in New Zealand, a golf course that has been ranked as high as second in the world over the last decade.
The popularity of golf Down Under has soared over the last decade, meaning the golf tour operator business has become ultra competitive. “These are extraordinary links experiences,” Carr says. “So we’re all in. We have a host of knowledgeable people and have formed some really strong, personal partnerships down there. One thing is for sure with us is we’re going to look after our customers.”
Creating an itinerary for golf travelers to a place like New Zealand can be a bit more challenging for Carr and his staff than Ireland.
“You’re dealing with a lot smaller properties and you’re dealing with a lot tighter supply on the golf course side. So, it’s a matter about getting your oar into the water early,” he says.
Carr Golf’s first trip to the area will be in January 2026, with 16 golfers headed for the experiences of the lifetime in New Zealand. Carr, for one, will be there for the ride.
“Most of our customers are serial travelers, so we’re very comfortable that it’s a very similar offering to what we do in Ireland,” he says. “We’ve already had a huge response from a number of our clients. So we’re very positive about creating a new piece of our business.”