ROAD HOLES • Golf On The Go

Get your motor running — rent an RV for your next pilgrimage for pars

By Bart Potter • CG Staff Writer

The first thing to know when considering an out-of-town golf trip by rented recreational vehicle is this: it pencils.

Take it from James Harvey, RV Manager for Speedway RV in Monroe, Wash., who says, “I think where RVing gets a great advantage is when there’s like four guys traveling, they put the RV in one location, and then every morning they hop in the truck, and they go to a different course.

“And then when you come back you got all your food there, your barbecue, your beer.”

Before we get out the calculator to see if an RV makes sense for a golf road trip, we need to make one important choice: which type of RV will we take? In this decision, it’s wise to weigh some pros and cons.

In the example above, Harvey was talking about a large travel trailer as his mode of choice versus a rolling motorhome. A travel trailer costs less than half the price to rent (about $120 a night from Speedway RV) versus a motorhome, and he likes the idea of parking the trailer in the RV park and leaving it there when you drive to the golf course.

This presupposes one person in your foursome has a half-ton pickup (or bigger) capable of pulling a large trailer.

By comparison, the advantage of a motorhome is its drivability on the road and its maneuverability in a tight campsite. Harvey doesn’t like the chore of unhooking a motorhome and battening down the hatches before driving it to the golf course. Plus, it costs about $250 (at Speedway) per night. Which is still a great value.

Either way, there are things to think about for RV golf travel.

The pros: there’s plenty of room for golf clubs, luggage and supplies, not to mention legroom, built-in sleeping, bathing, and cooking quarters.

The cons are mainly, the cost of gasoline.

The standard joke in RV Nation: it’s not miles per gallon, it’s gallons per mile. Let’s say 10 mpg for a travel trailer pulled by truck, which is about average, and better than we might have guessed. Note: Harvey says the gas mileage is roughly equal for a truck pulling a trailer as for a motorhome on wheels.

So, for our hypothetical road trip, four grown men are heading to Bend, Ore., for a four-day, three-night trip in May to play golf.

Our frugal foursome, for the purposes of this pencil-sharpening, opt for a 32-foot travel trailer, which sleeps eight — a little extra room won’t hurt.

Our hypothetical route from Seattle to Bend is I-5 to Portland, then Highway 26 southeasterly to Madras, and then south on Highway 97 to Redmond and Bend. It’s about 360 miles, so figuring some in-town driving, you’re talking 72 gallons of gas (at 10 miles per) for the roundtrip. At $4 a gallon, that’s about $288.

An RV park hookup, at one typical park near Bend: $132 a night, or $386 total.

Designed for golfers, this RV rental model was displayed at February’s Seattle Golf Show.

All in all, between gas, the RV rental and the hookup, it’s $1,048, or about $262 per person.

Compared to what? Four guys in, say, an SUV? You might get about twice the gas mileage, so $144. Hotel lodging will cost (potentially) $300 for two rooms per night for three nights, or $900 total.

Total for gas and lodging for a road trip in a conventional vehicle: $1,042, or about $260.50 per person.

It’s a push.

Bar and restaurant tabs are extra — at golf courses or in golf-adjacent localities — but consider that your RV has cooking facilities, a refrigerator, plus all the amenities a person would need to cook, eat, sit and enjoy an outdoor cocktail in the company of friends.

Talking to Harvey you catch that he’s the kind of RV sales guy that really cares about the RV experiences his customers, and potential customers, hope to have. He loves golf, and golf travel, but there are many hours in the day. Fishing (if there’s a lake around), wine tasting, or just popping into the local diner for a burger.

“Golf is just one of the accents of it,” he says.

There’s just something, for Harvey, about the camping experience versus the sterile interiors of a hotel room.

“It’s just not quite the same setting as sitting around a campfire, four guys with a beer in their hand.”

Harvey is a golfer just like many of his teammates in the Lee Johnson Auto Family. They’ll steer you right when you look at RV rentals — and of course if you are in the market for caravan purchase, they are happy to oblige.

Reach them at SpeedwayRVCenter.com or ring them at (360) 794-1155.

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