Good news for golfers here in the States: Golfbreaks.com, the leading golf travel site in the UK, has expanded to offer Americans a full range of golf experiences across the pond at every price point.

And even better news, Golfbreaks is running a golf trip of a lifetime sweepstakes: a seven-night golf vacation to Scotland for four people that includes

• 2 nights bed & breakfast at Trump Turnberry (5-star resort)
• 2 nights bed & breakfast at Gleneagles (5-star resort)
• 3 nights bed & breakfast at Fairmont St Andrews (5-star resort)
• 7 rounds of Golf at – The Ailsa and Kintyre Courses at Trump Turnberry, The PGA Centenary (2014 Ryder Cup) Course at Gleneagles, Kingsbarns, Carnoustie, The Torrance and Kittocks Courses at Fairmont St Andrews
• Entry into The Old Course ballot
• Car rental for the duration of your stay

The company, which was launched in the UK in 1998, is focused, at its core, on making golf vacations (or “breaks”) as simple as possible for enthusiasts looking to play some of the 2,000 venues Golfbreaks sends clients to, including the Old Course, Carnoustie, Turnberry Ailsa, Royal County Down, Royal Liverpool, and Celtic Manor.  

I spoke with the U.S. arm’s CEO, Daniel Grave about the company history, objectives, and range of offerings.

Tell me more about this sweepstakes you’re running

If you go to USA.Golfbreaks.com, you will see it featured on our homepage. In essence, it’s a seven-night vacation with seven rounds of golf for four people. The trip starts at Turnberry where the lucky winners will play both courses, then they go on to Gleneagles, play Gleneagles and Carnoustie, then on to St. Andrews, where they will stay at the Fairmont St. Andrews for three nights, and play Kingsbarns and the two courses onsite (Torrance and Kittocks).

Whilst in St. Andrews, we’ll enter them into the Old Course ballot three days in a row to maximise chances of success. We’ve been running this incredible sweepstakes since the British Open…and it expires on the 14th of September.

Tell me a little about the company’s history

There’s four of us that started the business in 1998 in the UK, and we’re effectively a travel agency for golfers. Up until this point we’ve focused on selling golf vacations to British golfers, and send about 220,000 on a trip somewhere around the world every year. In fact we send a good number of British golfers into the States, where they come to play bucket list courses like Kiawah, Pebble Beach, Pinehurst, Whistling Straits and TPC Sawgrass.

About three or four years ago we made the decision to look into new countries and markets, and now have an office in Charleston SC and Copenhagen, Denmark.

To begin with in the U.S., we are offering American golfers trips back to the UK and Ireland, to play all those famous courses. Over time we will add more destinations, destinations a little closer to home for Americans: the Caribbean, Mexico, even Canada…Bermuda, Bahamas. And we’ll offer trips within the States as well.

How does the process of booking a trip through Golfbreaks compare to setting one up on your own?

Our core values are to save golfers time and money. When we set the business up, all we did was domestic UK golf trips: two, three night trips. So people would get in their cars and go off for a long weekend of golf, and we’d organize that for them. So right from the go, golf around the UK has been the core of our business.

Over the years, with the volume of business we send, we are able to negotiate the very best rates. So, we guarantee getting the customer the very best price. We will get them a better price than if they tried to do it themselves. And we will get them a better price than the competitors.

There’s often the misconception I find, especially here in the US, that if you’re going to use a travel agent, you’re going to pay a premium. That’s not the case with Golfbreaks.com…as we’ll guarantee you the best price and take away all the hassle of putting one of these trips together (that’s where we save you time).

Our HQ is in Windsor UK, where we have 140 staff, and about 50 of those staff are highly trained call center agents. They’re on the phone all day, every day speaking to clients, putting trips together. Making sure everything is seamless and all the details are taken care of. They’re experts! They’ve been to all these places. They know the product inside-out. And we have different teams that specialize in different destinations.

How is Golfbreaks different?

Where we tend to be different to our competitors here in the U.S. (sending Americans to the UK), is that we’re not just catering to the high end. In fact, one of our objectives in the States is to make the dream of playing golf in the UK and Ireland a reality for ALL golfers. A trip across the pond doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg.

Every American golfer wants to go over to Scotland and Ireland, but a lot of them just don’t think they could ever afford it. There are ways to make it possible, and we know how to make it possible. The big-name courses are always going to be the ones people want to go and play, but there are so many other wonderful golf courses that are a quarter of the price, and where you will get an equally amazing experience.

If you have one or two bucket list courses and pad out the rest of the trip with these hidden gems, you can make a really fantastic trip affordable. Wales is another example of a place that you may not ordinarily think of going on a golf trip, however it has some of the most incredible links golf courses: Royal St. David’s, Royal Porthcawl, Machynys Peninsular. Plus you have Celtic Manor, host of the 2010 Ryder Cup. Wonderful golf and amazing value!

What are your most popular offerings?

For the US golfer going over to the UK, unsurprisingly we are finding the most popular trips are to the St. Andrews area. Then the other popular destination is the southwest of Ireland. That’s where you have Tralee, Ballybunion, Waterville.

So I think our challenge is to broaden that. There’s so much more to it than those two destinations. If you go to the north and northwest of Ireland, for example, you’ve got some incredible links golf at a fraction of the price.

For the Brits, Spain and Portugal are big. In the winter months, that’s as close as you can go to get some sunshine. We have a lot of people who do Thursday to Sunday type of trips. Turkey has become really popular. During the recession, they were one of the few destinations doing all-inclusive. And the States, of course, is very popular. We’re sending a lot of British golfers into Scottsdale [Arizona] for example, as that’s so different to what we can get in Europe.