The Golden Bear and yours truly at the grand opening of Nicklaus' Moon Palace Signature course several years ago.

I’ve written a lot over the past two years about why I think Mexico’s Mayan Riviera is such a great golf and tourism destination (click here, here, here, or here), and one of the top resorts there is the upscale all-inclusive Moon Palace (read more here), compete with a 27-hole Nicklaus Signature design that is one of the region’s best.

Ever since I first visited the Moon Palace for the course opening, they have unveiled one improvement after another, adding a third nine, deluxe golf course villas, and now, a Jack Nicklaus Academy of Golf, the first in the entire Caribbean basin. This is especially notable because while Mexico has lots of great golf resorts, it has very few destination academies for instruction, and what could be a better setting for mastering this crazy and infuriating game than in a place that dispenses free margaritas from sunrise until well after sunset?

The academy opens in two weeks, on August 15, 2011 and will be joined by a sibling academy at Palace Resort’s Playacar golf property, down the road in Playa del Carmen, the biggest city and beating heart of the Riviera Maya, in September. Both locations will offer state of the art facilities with Nicklaus Academies Analysis Software and high-speed video for capturing the swing, ball flight monitors, simulated indoor driving ranges, computerized putting lab, custom club and golf ball fitting protocols, plus of course, actual instruction.

There will be 13 different teaching programs tailored to single digit players and, hackers and newbies alike, including Welcome to Golf, Equipment Fitting Sessions, Couples Only Schools and Corporate Programs.

It gets better: until Christmas, all Palace Resorts properties are running a very aggressive special that adds a $1500 resort credit to vacation packages, and this credit can be applied towards the golf academy programs, lessons, and greens fees, and since all the food and booze is already included, there is not much else to spend it on besides the spa. Optionally, guests can forego the credit and instead choose to add unlimited golf to their stays. The travel business is hurting and this is a great incentive to head South of the border before December 23.

To book lessons or get more info, email the Golf Academy directly (golfacademy@palaceresorts.com). Otherwise visit the Moon Palace site or for general reservations or info on other Palace Resorts, visit the main website.

This may be the most beautiful golf hole on earth - but you have to go to Mexico to find it!

Quick, do a Google Search for “Mexico’s Best Golf Courses,” and in the Top 5 results you will see the special guest blog I did for the website of Delta Vacations.

I have long been a champion of golf in Mexico, which has among the highest average quality of courses of any country in the world, and my Delta blog is a handy quick and dirty overview of the best regions to go and the best courses in each. I’ve also covered Mexico a lot on my own blog, so to read more, click here, here, here or here.

But remember, whatever you do, if you got to Mexico, DO NOT BRING YOUR iPhone! This is going to be even worse if AT&T, who loves to screw its customers, succeeds in buying T Mobile.

Anyway, here’s why I did the guest appearance: Delta Vacations can be a pretty great deal for the traveling golfer. They are not alone. Other airline vacation sites, including Continental Vacations and United Vacations can help you get to the tee faster, cheaper and with more opportunities for free travel.

The layperson may not know this, but with few exceptions, the airlines typically do not run their own vacation sites, but rather sub them out to third party tour operators or large travel packagers. This gives the public the best of all worlds; access to below market plane fares coupled with a vast inventory of hotels, resorts and transportation providers, all offering the vacation operator low, negotiated bulk rates.

Think about this for a second: no matter how internet savvy you think you are, at the end of the day, does it make any sense for any hotel in the world to offer you a lower rate than the guy at Continental Vacations who is booking a hundred rooms with the same hotels, year in and year out. Nope.

Guess what? There's a lot to do off the course as well, like these Mayan ruins at Coba.

As an expert travel writer and very frequent traveler who almost always makes his own very detailed arrangements, for many years I was skeptical of “package” vacations. But last fall, I used Delta vacations for my trip to Munich’s 200th Oktoberfest, an awesome experience about which I have written several blogs, and posted lots of pictures. After having tried every possible alternative, the combination of the airfare, ground transfers and hotel was impossible to beat on my own, and unlike some consolidator and other below the radar fares, you not only get all your miles, you usually get bonus miles when booking with one of these airline vacation sites. As I have mentioned before, frequent flier miles are an increasingly valuable currency for the frequent or golf traveler, since if you can make “status” on an airline these days, it eliminates all the newfound charges for baggage, better seats and what not, which can really add up. Using an airline vacation site for your next trip won’t just save you money on the trip, it could help save you a hundred bucks or more on baggage fees on all your other trips going forward. And you could be that person sitting in the emergency row aisle seat who is already reading the paper when you finally get on and head to your crowded middle seat and fight for overhead space that is already taken.. Finally, this is not just true for the airline you frequent, but for all the airlines in its alliance, like Sky Team for Delta or Star Alliance for Continental. It just makes sense.

One more thing: if something goes wrong on the trip tor gets changed or I miss my flight, I want to be calling Delta Vacations to make the changes, not SomeGolfTrip.com.

In addition, these packages almost always include transfers, something a lot of people don’t think about. Flying into Cancun to play Mayakaoba? A cab is gong to cost you well over a hundred bucks roundtrip, but since you don’t pay till you get there, it is easy to not count that cost when comparing deals. Trust me, I’ve done the legwork and sites like Delta or Continental Vacations, which offers lots of golf packages here and abroad, might not have the best deal every single time, but they are definitely worth a look.

For centuries Tulum has boasted some of Mexico's finest Mayan ruins. Now it has Mexico's newest golf course.

Loyal readers know I am a big fan of Mexico’s all-inclusive golf resorts and their all-inclusive approach to golf, with cart girls (and cart boys) who seem devoted solely to serving as much booze as possible, along with chips, sandwiches and whatever else your heart delights, all included in the greens fees. This is a refreshing change from the usual golf course F&B rip-off and represents one of the unsung bargains in golf, along with a fun experience, and helped make Mexico one of the top choices for my Eat, Pray, Love alternative, Eat, Drink, Golf.

Now I have an insider secret for you to save lots of pesos if you act fast.

There is  new upscale all inclusive resort in Tulum, part of the Riviera Maya, a top choice  already for both golf and general tourism in Mexico, and as I have mentioned before, Tulum is also home to some of the most impressive Mayan ruins, as it was the only Mayan city ever built on the coast. To read more of my pieces on the joys of golf in the Mayan Riviera, click here, here, here or even here.

Anyway, the new resort is the 700+ acre Gran Bahia Principe Golf Resort & Spa community (from the well established all-inclusive Bahia Principe group), which includes the brand new Gran Bahia Principe Sian Ka’an Condo Hotel, which is a mouthful. The notable highlight is the quietest new golf course South of the border, a Robert Trent Jones II 27-hole design plus a 9-hole par-3 course.

Behind this entrance lies one of the best deals in golf!

Right now, 100 condos are available for rent at Sian Ka’an, and the first 18 and the executive course are open. All-inclusive rates at the condo hotel vary but are great deals (as low as $60 per night!), though the website is mainly devoted to sales, and booking is tricky. Alternatively, Bahia Principe operates three full-featured all-inclusive resorts in the immediate area, and is currently offering all guests unlimited free golf on the new course.

Yes, you heard right: unlimited free golf! Believe me, this is not normal, despite the term “all” inclusive.

But you do not have to stay at one of these to enjoy the bargains. Any visitor to Mexico can take advantage of the grand opening special, a daily fee visitor rate of just $65 per person, including cart, golf and yes, everything you can eat and drink. I can’t say it any better than the press release which describes the included extras as:

“ex. Sandwiches, sodas, beers, whisky, tequila.”

PS: If you do go to Mexico, remember, DO NOT BRING YOUR iPhone!

Tom Fazio did a good job with the very limited piece of land at the Wynn resort in Las Vegas, especially considering that it is in the middle of the city with a distracting monorail going around. But the second best golf resort in the Western US? Are you f*cking kidding me? I will admit it is the second best golf resort in Las Vegas. Number one US course Bandon Dunes? Did not make the list. Red Sky Ranch? Nope. Shadow Creek, perennial top ten? Nope. Sun River, Oregon? The list goes on and on and on.

What follows is no mere rant. Rather, it is a continuation of annoyance after years of following the golf and travel industry’s top polls, ratings and rankings.

Five years ago, I was put in charge of launching a series of travel polls for Cigar Aficionado, a high-end luxury lifestyle magazine. We wanted to do something different – and better – than the alternatives on the market. After looking at the major polls in other magazines, I saw significant flaws, and developed a methodology to avoid these pitfalls. I continue to serve this roll as the contributing travel editor, and have produced several polls on the best hotels, resorts, and yes, best golf travel. In the intervening years, I have watched the majority of polls and rankings, especially the Golf and Golf Digest Top 100 lists, improve. There are still questionable calls, and maybe too much emphasis on history, but all in all the differences have become more subjective than objective.

But not at Condé Nast Traveler.

I have nothing against the magazine. It is well produced, with pretty pictures, and occasionally even includes a story of interest. My parents have a subscription and as I suspect many readers do, keep the copies in the bathroom to read during important business. I saw a poll once saying that less than half the readers own passports, and based on the reader poll responses I can believe this. The problem with CNT’s polls isn’t just that they are poorly executed, edited and unscientific, which they are. But the real problem is that they are important. People in the travel industry take them very seriously, hotel GMs are promoted or scolded based on rankings over which they and the quality of their operation have little or no control. Likewise, industry anecdotes suggest that these polls are among the most acted on – award a property and people will go. If the polls were accurate, or even mediocre, this would be okay, but they are so horribly flawed that they are in affect sending readers off, in many cases, to waste their time and money.

Not every hotel, cruise line, spa or golf resort they recommend is bad. It’s just that they portray them as the best of the best, the top choice on earth or in a geographic region. Once in a blue moon they are, but more often they are merely good or even very good properties elevated way above their proper status. At the poor end of the spectrum are choices that simply do not belong on any “best” list for any reason but still show up.

Ireland's Doonbeg is not the nation's best, but it is a very good golf course on an incredible piece of land, and virtually every golf travel expert agrees that the Lodge at Doonbeg is among the handful of finest golf hotels on earth, making it a standout in Ireland, where many top courses have no lodging. But did it make CNT's top foreign resorts list? Nope, it got beat out of the World's Top 10 by three "resorts," and I use the term loosely as CNT does, in Canada, and another three in Mexico. Scotland and Ireland combined landed just three spots. It's worth noting that CNT's Top Ten Foreign Golf Resorts include one that has only a par-3 course, and one, unbelievably, that has no golf course at all. Mexico has lots of great golf resorts but even they don't make this list - Doonbeg got beat out by the Hilton Los Cabos, which is not even top ten in Los Cabos!

Here’s the nitty gritty:

I have three big problems with the poll, reasonableness, methodology and accuracy.

Over the years I have looked into the polls’ methodologies and they simply suck. A single respondent can make the difference between a property being ranked among the best in the world or being left off the list (in the small print of the new golf poll, they say that a minimum number of unique respondents were required, but don’t say what that was. Based on past experience, my guess is one). If you follow the rankings from year to year, you’ll notice that in the resort and hotel poll, the same property pretty much never wins more than once. In the real world, the best hotel on earth would likely hold that title for more than 12 months, or at least drop from first to second or third. But in CNT-land it is routine for a hotel to win and then disappear from the charts. One year the Four Seasons Nevis, a wonderful golf resort in the Caribbean, won for “Best Resort North America.” Several months later I visited for a story and found this reasonable. It may or may not have been the best, but it was good enough to make the argument. The following issue it was not even on the list. Since I knew that the amount of time between my visit and the production of the next issue could not have been more than a few months, I questioned this, directly from an editor I knew at CNT and got a simple explanation. They use an average of reader rankings, and the year before, just one respondent had included the hotel, given it a perfect score (10 or 100, I can’t remember the scale at the time) and it got a 10 (or 100). The following year no one who took the poll (it’s a notoriously small sample) stayed at the hotel so it was unrated. That’s it. The best resort on the continent the magazine is published on went from first to worst thanks to one reader.

To make matters worse, they have little control over who the one reader is. It could have been the GM’s wife. The poll has been mailed (now online) to a selected (and small) subgroup of subscribers. I’ve gotten it, and I’ve not gotten it. They ask you to limit your responses to places you’ve visited in the past 12 months, but they have no way of knowing when and if you ever visited them. Surely someone who honeymooned at a favorite resort 30 years ago is still going to be inclined to rate it favorably. Likewise, what do they think hotel employees, management, friends of management, investors, employees of suppliers, marketing companies associated with the hotel – or their competitors – are going to do in terms of honesty? There are no apparent safeguards against this, and in fact, I have heard numerous stories within the hotel industries of concerted campaigns to get ballot recipients to vote for (or against) particular properties. Likewise I have similar stories from reliable sources, which could be mere rumors, of editorial changes to the poll results to reflect advertiser complaints or purchases.

One other shocker is that the poll, at least the last time I got a ballot, is a fill in the blank questionnaire, basically a self fulfilling prophecy. Given the size of the world and hotel (or cruise for or golf or spa) industry, there is a rather limited number of pre-selected properties to choose from (maybe because they advertise?). CNT has already selected the potential winners before a vote is cast.

The poll still uses this highly unscientific averaging formula to generate its numbers. So if one reader loves the golf course at say, the World Golf Village in St. Augustine, Florida and give sit a perfect score, it gets a golf course quality ranking of 100. Likewise if 1000 readers vote for the Old Course at St. Andrews and 999 give it a perfect score and one gives it a 99, it will finish second with a 99.99 to the WGV’s 100.

Now from my standpoint, this is where the subjective point comes in. Some people, even the most expert and informed critics, are going to have varying opinions on golf course quality, but you have to draw the line somewhere. If CNT were to tell you that the Marriott Indianapolis Airport (I’m making that up, don’t know if there is one) is the best hotel in the country, better than the Four Seasons Beverley Hills or Peninsula New York, you have to draw a line in the sand and say “that’s ridiculous.’ Likewise giving the 36 slightly-better-than-average-for-Florida holes at the World Golf Village the highest possible ranking while giving the Old Course or the vaunted Ailsa Course at Scotland’s Turnberry, which many critics, including myself, feel is the planet’s very best golf course, a 99.99, is ridiculous.

Of course, I am exaggerating, and they did not do this. I don’t know how many voted for each, What really happened was the World Golf Village got a perfect 100 score for its 36-combined holes, neither of which is particularly memorable (though they both would be in the top ten for the great St. Augustine region), while the Old Course got a golf course rating not of 99.99, but of 96.3 edged out by Turnberry’s 36 which got 96.4. Bear in mind that in every mainstream golf poll produced, both Old and Ailsa are routinely ranked in the world’s top ten, while I have never seen either course at the World Golf Village crack any list, domestic, public, or global in scope.

This idiocy demonstrates two key faults in the poll: lack of subjective reasonableness and the unscientific nature.

In part two, I will tackle the purely unacceptable inaccuracies and show you why the actual golf results totally suck.

Stay tuned…

The ninth is the signature hole, a long (455-yd) par-4 with a rocky waste area off the tee and the lobby’s faux Mayan pyramid on the horizon behind the green.

I love the Rivera Maya as a travel destination, and explained why the region is so charming in my last post.

Now it’s time to look at the golf.

Iberostar is a global Spanish chain of higher-end all-inclusive resorts with several properties in Mexico. At this particular location outside Cancun, Playa Paraiso, or Paradise Beach, there are actually four different Iberostar all-inclusives combined into one vast resort, and at each price point you get to use the facilities at your resort and all the ones below you, meaning more dining options, pool facilities and so on. The fanciest is the Paraiso Maya, which opened in 2005 in conjunction with the golf course, and features amenities like an all-suite format, each with complimentary mini-bars, walk-in marble showers and whirlpool baths. Guests choose from a dozen restaurants, 5 bars, several unique pool complexes, a spa, and more. While many all-inclusive resorts miss the mark, this is one I would definitely go back to.

You will also know you are in Mexico: the lobby and several restaurants are housed in an enormous replica Mayan pyramid that manages to come off as impressive when it could so easily be cheesy. The faux-pyramid also becomes a signature view on the golf course, framing the signature ninth hole. The golf is the very best feature of the Iberostar.

A real Mayan pyramid, like this one at nearby Tulum, is one of the chief attractions of the Riviera Maya, a region that offers great golf, great food and great sightseeing.

The course is really good. I give it the edge over the 27-hole Nicklaus designed Moon Palace course nearby, its chief competitor, which I recently wrote up. I had the fortune to tour it at the grand opening years ago with designer PB Dye, son of Pete Dye, and as he demonstrated, the physical work that went into creating the golf course was impressive. Everything was built over a flat and unfriendly field of limestone, requiring an enormous amount of heavy lifting – PB lived over a hundred days on site, something virtually unheard of in an era when top “designers” routinely put their name on course they have spent literally 3 days at.

After returning for a second visit last month, I can safely say the good course has grown up to be very good. Carved through dense jungle, with a lot of habitat left intact for animals, it evokes its tropical setting. There is a lot of movement and contour to the routing, you can rarely see one hole form another, there is a lot of variety to the hole shapes, and in inherited Pete Dye style, numerous tee positions with a lot of relief for the ladies. For example, the sixth a hole is a par-3 that plays over or along a lake, depending where you start, to with a huge, deep green. The runway style tee box is almost 100-yards long, meaning this hole can play form  As a result, the hole can play from as little as 100 to over 200 yards, an enormous range.

The rest of the course is equally interesting, and this is a splendid resort facility. To cap things off, the course, like the resort, is run on an all inclusive basis, so you will never be wanting for a complimentary cold cerveza from the omnipresent beverage cart.

The Golden Bear himself and yours truly, at the Grand Opening of the Moon Palace course way back in 2002.

I love the Rivera Maya as a travel destination, and explained why the region is so charming in my last post.

Now its time to look at the golf.

The course that got it all going on down here was the Jack Nicklaus Signature design at the Moon Palace resort. It was not the first course in the Yucatan by any means, but it was the first big time course, conceived not as a mere amenity but rather as an attraction. In short, it was a course designed to lure golfers – and it worked.

Nicklaus makes ample use of water hazards, which keeps the Moon Palace course interesting - and challenging.

I was at the grand opening in 2002, my first of several trips to the region, and at the time, it was what I expected an upscale 18-hole resort course to be. The holes are varied and interesting, with plenty of room to play but thick penal jungle if you stray beyond the ample fairways, and as was in vogue at the time, the greens were flattish and immaculate, often protected by sand or water.

I should mention that the Moon Palace is one of the many all-inclusive mega-resorts in the region, and it skews towards the upscale end of the model, with a wide variety of restaurants and bars, more than a dozen different eateries, and it really is all-inclusive. About the only things you can pay extra for are greens fees and spa services, while you can eat and drink everything imaginable, including wine and top shelf liquor, and even order 24-hour room service without spending an extra dime. And while the golf is sold at a surcharge, it too is all-inclusive: you cannot pay for food or drink at the clubhouse or on the course, and the beverage carts seem designed specifically to get players drunk, showing up every other hole with fresh, cold cervezas. In the US, if you are putting out, they wait for you. In Mexico, they just proactively swap out your half a warm beer for a full cold one. That’s what I call customer service.

All of this makes for a very pleasant golf experience, but the very best thing about the Moon Palace’s golf operation is the newest nine. A couple of years ago Nicklaus returned and expanded the place to 27-holes, adding the “Dunes” nine. Despite its name, you are not likely to mistake it for Scotland or Ireland, but it is noticeably different – and better – than the existing nines. The difference is obvious on the very first tee, and to reach it, you have to drive quite a ways from the clubhouse into suddenly hill terrain where you can see only the one hole flanked by high ridges. The topography on this nine is more dramatic, the landscape more natural, but most of all, in keeping with his new philosophy about limiting the changes technology has made in golf by making tougher greens, the putting surfaces are markedly different the other eighteen, with more severe undulations and tougher pin placements. This is the hardest nine to score on, but the additional challenge is a worthwhile trade for the better quality holes. I heartily endorse any combination of nines at Moon that includes the Dunes.

Everything in the Riviera Maya - including the courses - is conveniently close to the airport, a fact which you cannot forget while play golf.

Along with the new nine, the Moon Palace has opened a luxury enclave of golf villas that offer more sumptuous accommodations than the already well equipped hotel rooms, including in-room bars, whirlpool tubs and large terraces. Because the golf villas are located by the clubhouse and away from the main resort – which is huge – every guest gets his or her own street legal golf cart, which makes for some interesting late night rides to resort restaurants and night clubs, especially since it is really easy to get lost in this several thousand acre complex. Anecdotal evidence did clearly suggests that guests without golf carts are envious of those with, which might be enough reason to spring for the new golf villas.

The day it opened, the Moon Palace course became the best in the region, but almost immediately it attracted stiff competition, and more recent efforts surpassed the quality of the original 18. The new nine puts it right back in the thick of things, makes it a contender, and also offers the perfect option between “just” playing eighteen and a long day of 36. So compromise, play all 27, and get a full dose of golf in Mexico. All three nines end right in front of the clubhouse, and all three have a dramatic use of penal water alongside the greens on the final holes.

NEXT: Palace Resorts, which runs the Moon Palace, recently built a new stand alone Nicklaus Signature Corse about 15 mutes away, Riviera Cancun. It’s the very latest – and highest profile – addition to Yucatan golf and, surprise, I checked it out!