Ireland Golf Trip 2020- Covid'd

Myself and 7 others are supposed to play all the SW tracks starting Fathers day. Most of us are still willing to go but no matter how pragmatic we try to be, there is some fear/doubt creeping in. What does everyone think.... Will the trip happen or not? Our final deposit is due on May 12th.

Ireland is managing this very tight/strict - I work with colleagues daily - the current sentiment from our business standpoint is August time frame assuming there are inroads made with a treatment/cure.

If I had to place a bet with Paddy Power I would say NO. I mention Paddy Power - because they themselves, gambling experts, are intimating an August time frame.

We have a trip scheduled for the end of September. Hope everything gets back to normal and you can make your trip.

This is almost exactly what I'm hearing from my colleagues in Dublin as well. I'm generally on video calls with Ireland 4-6 hours/day and they don't think there's any chance things will be close to normal before August We have a large project that was supposed to go-live in May but requires the team from the US to be onsite to remove risk and we are now optimistically hoping we can start cutover in mid-August as that's when we think that travel there might be realistically possible.

Ireland's lockdown is a lot more strict than it is in the US.

Not a chance. Get your refund and try and beat the queue of others switching their 2020 to 2021.

What he said!

I’ve got a tee time at Royal County Down in July, already paid and everything. Not sure if I’m going to be getting my money back.

Multiple sources reporting that The Open is canceled so I’d say this is bad news.

We have as well, I did the accommodation for 12 of us and have got all deposits and payments back.

My mate who organised all our golf said RCD was being the most difficult and weren't even offering a 12 month rebooking.

Whilst I'm sure the OP isn't going, I'm not sure how this all plays out. I can only hope that hotels/courses who choose to do the "wrong" thing have people vote with their feet and go elsewhere in the future.

^Over in a UK thread, Carnoustie are being really pissy about it too - you'd think the ones that already operate their visitor times as a proper commercial operation (RCD, Carnoustie, etc...) would be best suited to handle this and do refunds, but then maybe not.

We were planning to go to Africa in early August and I have already written it as a NO GO. OP, I think June to Europe is out of the question. I'd be shocked if anything is remotely back to normal by then.

Had a trip planned for Ireland for this week. Here is how is worked out:

Flight- cancelled by Aer Lingus. Can pick another flight with 0 change free or get a +10% voucher.

Loding (airbnb) - full refunds

Arglass - Full refund

Portmarnock - Full refund 

Portstewart - 75% refund or rebook in 2021

Royal County Down - Office will accept calls/emails to get 75% refund or credit for next 24 months on May 4 (this includes tee times through June, 30 2020)

Royal Portrush - 75% refund or hold credit for future booking

Think the 75% refund is a little bogus given the circumstances, but I know the financial hurt on these clubs will be immense.

I agree that the 75% refund is pathetic! I have our biannual trip scheduled for the end of Sept to SW Ireland. Hoping everything will be back to normal by then. The fact that they are charging you a 25% fee when THEY are closed right now so you couldn’t play anyways is just flat our robbery. Maybe contact your credit card company and file a claim.

One of the problems they will face with all of these deferred bookings is in the future they will have people playing golf for with fees that were collected a year prior. Which will hurt the earnings of the club at that time. There is no way around these clubs feeling the pain of this. I wouldn't be shocked to see some of them increase the prices of new bookings for next year to help soften the blow.

A friend and I have trip to NW Ireland last week of August. We didn't book any golf as it is only 2 of us and figured we would wait a bit until we solidified our rota. I think its about a 20% chance we go. I think travel will be back by then but expect some sort of quarantine which obviously doesn't work on an 8 day golf trip. Hopeful but realistic

Thank you for all the comments/advice. We postponed the trip till 2021. Luckily, all 8 of us didn't have any major plans for next summer so we simply rolled our deposits over to next year. Not sure yet how things will shake out with my flight, but since I booked with points, I'm pretty sure I won't have any issue cancelling.

Good to hear things worked out relatively easy for you. Just an extra year to practice low 5Is and hybrids/putters from off the green :-)

The biggest issue I see with foreign travel is will travel medical insurance be valid without a vaccine ? I have a year policy but I haven’t checked to see if I would be covered for Covid hospitalization in a foreign country.

Even if I wasn’t worried about Covid if I can’t get Travel medical insurance I wouldn’t want to go in case I got in a major car accident and was not covered for surgery for example. I couldn’t afford to pay out of pocket. I would rather just vacation in my home country where we have universal health care.

Agree @joe perry
We have rolled some of our Ireland golf into next year, being Australian we are fortunate that we have "reciprocal" health arrangements with a number of countries. Ireland is one, how these agreements play out post/during Covid19 will need some looking into prior to any travel.
Whilst I love travelling and playing golf in the US, suspect the costs of insurance will preclude this for sometime.

My July 28-August 9 trip (fully booked) with my middle son is looking very doubtful. I will keep monitoring the situation. First round is supposed to be at Lahinch on the 29th.

Our Open trip is canceled and July 15th to 25th trip to St. Andrews is looking not so promising.

I've been waiting for this trip a year.

I'm crushed.

It’s insane that courses aren’t giving full refunds since they aren’t allowed to operate. Further, I had an England/Wales trip planned for end of May/early April and one of the courses canceled my reservation since they weren’t allowing visitors. Complete BS if no full refund.

It is insane that they're not giving full refunds but the reality is - they just don't have the cash. It's not like these clubs just put your deposits in an escrow account and wait till you show up. Some of that money has been spent.

I cancelled my June 10 trip to Ireland about 2 weeks ago. Still figuring out what money we're getting back

^They might need to have a rethink of their membership subs the next couple seasons at least or maybe just a rethink overall. Some of them are ridiculously low, even by UK/Ireland standards. Especially as the SW courses have chased after the tourist money. Based on some Lahinch #s floating about, if you're getting 2.3mil EUR from visitor green fees and 1mil EUR from subs, that's a big gap to try and manage. That said, if you have a big rainy-day fund and your course is literally shutdown by gov't mandate, that is taking the p i s s to not give refunds.

Not happening (5% chance)

Just read that the Health Minister announced they have made great success at controlling the spread and are looking to open things back up very soon. They have been decreasing in cases and deaths since April 3rd. Hopefully by the end of the month they will begin to open things up again.

I hope you are right. We have a great trip lined up. But I am being realistic about it, and will play it day by day. I am also hoping to get to Mullen, NE this June...that also is up in the air.

My group is going to Ireland in late September. Playing Adare Manor, Doonbeg, Tralee, Lahinch, and Ballybunion.

I spent 7 hours on video calls with people from Ireland today and generally spend around that amount every single weekday. Not a single one of them agrees that things will let up any time soon and we talk about it a lot as it is fundamental to our business plans.

Also, I have no idea where you got your info but the stats here: https://covid19info.live/ireland/ indicate this isn't true. They've had three days since 03-Apr where the death total was lower than April 3rd and today was the highest death total they've had. This matches what I'm hearing from my work colleagues.

The optimistic view is that things may be back to somewhat normal in August. That's what they're hoping for and what we're trying to tie to our project plans.

I'd love for things to change. Again, not being able to go to Europe is costing me real money. It just isn't likely that it will happen in the very near term and we've already seen events in July canceled.

Ireland's coronavirus outbreak largely contained, health official says

Here is the article I was speaking of.