Golf and private aviation have grown up together. As early as the 1950s, West Virginia businessman and legendary amateur Bill Campbell piloted his Cessna “taildragger” to tournaments with Sam Snead as a regular passenger. When Arnold Palmer hung up his wings after a final flight from Palm Springs, California, to Orlando in 2011, at age 81, air-traffic controllers along the way radioed in to pay tribute. They also cleared the airspace, allowing tail number N1AP (November One Alpha Papa) to set a speed record. Today most of the top-50 pros are regularly skipping the regular terminal. With oil barrels of money transforming the professional game, even caddies are hitching rides. Just be careful about posting photos of any mile-high high jinks on the ’gram, Four Aces Golf Club, because that might draw the ire of whoever’s footing the bill. Unless you can afford to fly private until the day you die, you can’t afford to fly private. However, with the greatest new courses being built in ever more remote destinations, good luck dissuading any eager middle- handicap with access to a PJ. In this moment of outsize executive compensation, meaningless commercial airline points and conspicuous consumption, it seems more people are realising how perfectly the number of golfers on a buddies trip matches the capacity of a private aircraft. What follows are the stories from these lucky bastards. Must be nice. – MAX ADLER
POLICE ESCORT The most luxurious ac- commodations I’ve ever experienced were on Herb Kohler’s jet – my wife had her own “bedroom” but was too excited to sleep on the overnight flight to Leuchars, Scotland. The biggest private jet I’ve ever been on, of course, was Donald Trump’s, long before he was president. It was a full- size 757 with gold-plated everything. I remember he showed me his bedroom, and it had an oil painting on one wall. He insisted I sit in the cockpit as the pilot landed at LaGuardia, where Trump said his was the only private jet ever allowed and promised that we would receive an NYPD escort
Pizza on the Tarmac with Couples
We were flying back from the Cana- dian Skins Game: Quebec City to Phoe- nix. It was going to take more than nine hours, so a refueling stop was built into the itinerary. Fred Couples was on the plane, as was my best mate, Ben, from Australia. Ben was having the time of his life hanging out with Fred, who had always been one of Ben’s heroes. We were about to land
in Tulsa, at which point someone said they were hungry. We quickly ordered pizza to be delivered to the airfield. The timing was perfect. Moments after we touched down, the two of us stood on the runway eating pizza off a wing of the plane with Fred Couples. It doesn’t get more random than that, but Ben thought those few minutes were the best time ever. – GEOFF OGILVY
FLYING WITH JACK I flew a few times on Jack Nicklaus’ Gulfstream IV jet – I think the call letters were N1JN – but my most memorable flight with him was in the North Carolina mountains on a helicopter that nearly crash-landed. Clearly, there was some mechanical failure. We went up and up and then straight back down with all the aerodynamics of a shopping cart. When the skids hit the ground and bounced, Jack was the first one to jump. “Let’s get outta here,” he said. I always thought that would have been an ignominious end, the headline reading: “Golf Greatest Jack Nicklaus and One Other Killed in Chopper Crash.” Jack said that the difference between a plane and a helicopter is that the plane wants to fly. – JERRY TARDE
off the runway, which, sure enough, we did. – JERRY TARDE
70 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2024
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