Cyprus Holiday Apartments

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Tailoring your own luxury golf trip needn’t take long & you’ll typically end up with more quality for your money. Renting a holiday property gives you true liberty, over both the hours you keep & the courses you choose to play; many golf resort packages only include a couple of rounds at a specified course, which tends to feels restrictive when you’re surrounded by championship fairways. Avoid smaller but cumulatively significant costs by taking your own clubs, finding a reliable supply of lake golf balls for sale & making sure you don’t pay over the odds for taking your golf bag abroad; many airlines, including Cyprus Airways, now transport them for free, but it’s worth checking nonetheless.

Planning versus spontaneity

If you’ve time, a teetimes booking website or even calling the courses themselves should reap significant green fee discounts. Many courses charge less during the week (especially if you’re not holidaying during peak season) & offer deals via booking sites that you may not get elsewhere. Deals that include a “free” sandwich may not actually constitute value for money, but anything that offers a percentage off the list price is worth investigating.

That said, there’s only so far you can go when researching a destination online before you visit. Once you get there, you may find other golfers recommending courses you didn’t find during your research, or even criticizing one that has recently gone downhill. So, at the very least, it’s worth leaving a proportion of your holiday unbooked, letting you take advantage of local intelligence on the fly.

Taking your family with you

You may well be the golfing Brady Bunch, teeing off cheerfully together each weekend. There are usually several Cypriot golf courses offering free lessons for children; Minthis Hills & Secret Valley both do so at the time of writing. Aphrodite Hills has a good academy offering beginners’ lessons & masterclasses covering all aspects of your play, from short game to course management. They offer couples & group lessons, too.

Alternatively you could coach your family yourself, although this requires a certain personality, not to mention a big gap between your group & the impatient stag-do fourball behind you. Time on the driving range might be a better option. Remember to keep it fun & playful, & avoid going into too much technical detail to begin with. Let your students understand what’s going on through their muscles, before you drench them in theory.

Most importantly, don’t become angry with yourself for any weakness in your own play. However badly you slice, your drive looks skillful to your uninitiated family; shouting at yourself for being rubbish will make them heartily discouraged about their own performance, not to mention sad about your temper.

If there are family members who couldn’t care less about golf, you must dedicate several days of your holiday to non-golf activities with them; they’ll only learn to resent the game even more if you don’t. In this case, the longer you can spend on holiday the better; you’ll get satisfactory golf, & they’ll get plenty of family playtime.