Before arriving in Jamaica, visitors are required to fill out an immigration form that asks, among other things, what type of accommodation they’ll be staying in. The choices include hotel, guesthouse, private home, dive/eco lodge, and bed & breakfast.

None of these selections do justice to The Tryall Club, but luckily, the form lists an additional option: “Other (specify).” So I will.

Located on Jamaica’s northwest corner 12 miles from Montego Bay, the 2,200-acre Tryall Club has everything you’d want in a golf vacation: a terrific course, beaches, tennis, restaurants, a kids’ club, pools, numerous bars, but no hotel. Instead, it offers privacy and pampering even five stars can’t buy.

Calling Tryall a resort is not so much inaccurate as unfair. It is a private club that rents out its homes, magnificent villas that are steps from the sea or cut into a verdant mountainside. And for a few days, a week, or however long the owners of your villa let you pretend it really is “yours,” you are treated like a club member.

The 84 villas range from one bedroom to eight, come with full-time staff (often including a chef, gardener, even a laundress), and cost from $4,000 to $35,000 a week to rent depending on size and season. Each is someone’s home, individually decorated and filled with personal touches. Almost every villa has a pool (often more than one), some have a sauna or gym. All have views of the multi-hued Caribbean Sea, and all are designed for eating, drinking, and relaxing alone or with friends.

Tryall has only recently nudged its doors open, reaching out to families, couples, and golfers looking for a one-of-a-kind retreat. But the club actually is more than 50 years old, founded in the late 1950s by a group of Texans on land that over the previous three centuries had been an English fort, sugar plantation, and coconut farm. Much of the Great House—which now encompasses offices, a dining room, bar, and other public areas—dates back to the early 19^th century and still retains a manorial feel, halfway up the hill, the club spread out below it.

A number of notable Texans were early investors and owners, including former Governor John Connolly and Senator Lloyd Bentsen. But the Texan with the most pronounced and profound influence was golf course architect Ralph Plummer, who was born near Fort Worth in 1900, died near Fort Worth in 1982, and oversaw the design, redesign, or construction of 100 courses, nearly all in his home state. At least one of the Tryall Texans must have liked Plummer’s work because he was brought in to design the club’s course, which opened in 1959.

Plummer was a creature of the Great Depression. A good player, he was a club professional in the early 1930s while also working for golf architect John Bredemus. In 1935, Plummer signed on as construction foreman for what became one of Bredemus’ most celebrated courses, Colonial Country Club: A number of experts, including Byron Nelson and Jackie Burke Jr., have said Plummer deserves more credit for the layout of Colonial than history (or club records) gives him.

Plummer designed without moving too much land, building too many hazards, or spending too much money, attributes that no doubt served him well when he hung out a shingle after the war. Among his creations are the Cypress Creek Course at Champions Golf Club in Houston (1959), where he worked closely with Jimmy Demaret, and Preston Trail (1965) in Dallas, where he teamed with Nelson, as well as the remodeling of Northwood (1950) in Dallas. There aren’t many articles in the archives about Plummer, but every one notes that he had a hand in all three Texas courses to host a U.S. Open—Colonial (1941), Northwood (1952), and Champions (1969).

No one will confuse Tryall with an Open venue, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t attractive, strategic, and challenging. It is a stern test for any golfer, particularly when the wind is blowing—as it does most every day, especially in the afternoons and usually off the sea.

In true Plummer style, there is no extraneous or unnecessary feature on the course. The few hazards he built (including large freshwater ponds that help define the first six holes) look natural. The course begins and ends near the sea, on land that is absolutely flat except for slightly pushed-up tees and greens. Throughout the course, holes bend and move, some slightly, others strongly; it’s important to place tee shots wisely, noting where fairways narrow, judging lay-ups precisely, and knowing how to hit and hold the subtly contoured greens.

Beginning at number seven—which tees off next to a working water wheel that dates back to the early 1800s (and lends its name to a delicious rum drink served at the club’s bars)—the holes climb and drop, climb and drop, reaching a high point at the 12^th tee, nearly 200 feet above sea level. Serpentining up the mountain, an uphill approach shot is followed by one downhill, so the round never becomes repetitive or dull. A few holes are cut against the grain of the mountain, making it hard to find a flat spot in the fairway and leading to awkward sidehill lies. And trees that beautifully frame those fairways can quickly become ugly obstacles.

The 10^th and 12^th holes are both downhill par-threes that require very different tee shots—first short, then very long. When the course starts back down the mountain, the sea returns to view: the 14^th hole (left) has been voted one of the game’s most beautiful, the green seeming to float in the vast blue-green ocean. The final four holes traverse nearly 270 degrees of the compass, heading down, right, hard left, back right, and finishing perpendicular to a wind almost certainly coming off the water at round’s end.

Tryall has hosted the pros on numerous occasions. Players from the LPGA and PGA Senior Tour competed in something called the Mazda Champions in the mid-1980s, which was followed by the LPGA Jamaican Classic from 1988-90. Fred Couples won Tryall’s first and last Johnnie Walker World Championships in 1991 and ’95, bookending victories by Nick Faldo, Larry Mize, and Ernie Els. Before the first JWWC, pundits predicted ridiculously sub-par rounds on the seemingly defenseless course: In fact, Couples was the only player to break par over four days.

In preparation for the ’92 Johnnie Walker, the club traded lots on the mountain to one of its members for a piece of beachside real estate that is now the scenic, and treacherous, par-three fourth hole, where a long-iron or hybrid shot needs to carry the Flint River while battling the left-to-right sea breeze. Other changes were made up the mountain, with back tees added at the par-three 12^th and the long, slightly vertiginous, par-four 15^th. Even if they’re too much to play, check out the far-back tees and notice how small fillips can have clever, and taxing, effects on already very good holes.

The course at Tryall is like the club: something special—a classic not to be missed.

For more information on the club, the course, other amenities, and villa rentals, check out the website, www.tryallclub.com.

Green fees

Guests staying at the club: $100.

Seven-day green fee package: $400.

Visitors staying off property: $145 (call first to arrange a time).

Caddie: $45

An edited version of this story appeared in the July issue of Texas Golfer magazine.

Downtown Conwy

On the beach in Conwy harbor

From the 3rd fairway of Nefyn & District looking to the 4th hole

From the 12th green at Nefyn & District looking down on the beach and Ty Coch pub

With beach paths bisecting so many courses, more of these signs are needed. Not that they are heeded…

After the flat front nine at Porthmadog, crossing the street and seeing this from the 10th tee was a revelation.

Walking through Portmeirion, where eclectic British buildings were collected to be saved, sometimes felt a bit like strolling through EPCOT.

Harlech Castle dominates everything around it, and is always in view while playing Royal St. David’s.

As at Porthmadog, the back nine at Royal St. David’s is very different from the front nine. It’s all classic links, but for a few holes, like this one, the 15th, it looks exactly the way you want it to look.

Not only are the views remarkable from Cardigan Golf Club (this is from the 11th, which is the highest point on the course), but it’s the only course I can think of where there are two bells–the other is on the 9th hole–to alert golfers on the tee that it’s okay to hit.

St. Davids City is a straightforward nine-holer that is a real links with incredible views. Here is one direction…

…and here is another.

St. Davids Cathedral in St. Davids City. I took this picture, I swear, which proves that Wales weather can be perfect.

Okay, I’m not sure what to say about this other than on my very first day I drove inland and went to Betws-y-coed because I’d heard it’s in the hills in Snowdonia National Park and very cute. I considered coming back a few dates later for the races but, luckily, had other plans.

It’s a rainy day in Harlech, along the Welsh coast, and I’m supposed to be teeing off at the venerable Royal St. David’s Golf Club at this very moment. Luckily, it’s quiet–there’s a boys’ championship in a few minutes, but two ladies gave it up and a foursome at 8:20 played six holes, came in soaking wet, and left. The forecast is for a nice afternoon, so golf will wait.

Till then, it’s impossible not to ponder the amazing world we live in. The 20-minute drive this morning through tiny villages and along still smaller, windy roads lined by walls of local slate was eerie as it poured down rain. It’s easy to imagine life here 50, 100, maybe even 1,000 years ago, looking through the windshield wipers onto fields and rocky mountains, sheep grazing and plants bending in the breeze, lakes refilling and smoke coming from stone huts.

In the clubhouse at St. David’s are photographs of play through the years, lanky men in jackets, ties, wide caps, and plus-fours, some in spats or gaiters, attacking the ball. Mustaches and pipes, faces as craggy as the landscape, women in wide skirts. There are 100-year-old letters on the wall, photos of royalty (before he abdicated, Edward used to play here while Wallis Simpson puttered around Portmeirion, the architectural stewpot where I stayed the last two nights), notes from club meetings circa 1896, drivers, mashies, and putters that were used before my grandfathers were born. It is one of the reasons I love golf, the rich and colorful history, the fact that it is much more than just the playing. At places like this, the years compress and the dead are alive.

Overlooking the club and the town is Harlech Castle (above), which is 800 years old, a square block of dark stone mined nearby, an imposing fortress. I saw it yesterday from across the bay: Standing at the highest point of Porthmadog Golf Club, the black form was barely visible on the horizon. Now turn 90 degrees, my host said: Due West was Criccieth Castle, another of Edward I’s “Iron Ring” meant to keep the locals quiet in the late 13th century, neither the first nor last time the Welsh rebelled for recognition if not independence. The history of Wales is in the guidebooks, but it is also in the faces in the photos as well as the tough-as-nails locals I pass in the post office and the newsagents.

While preparing for this trip I got it in my head that Wales is where Ireland was about 30 years ago: Barely on America’s radar as a place to visit, even less so as a place to play golf. The books say Wales fared worse than Ireland and Scotland in achieving rights and freedoms from Britain’s Parliament, perhaps because it is so much closer. Nationalism has long been a cause here, and is still, or maybe again. One hears Welsh spoken everywhere: There are a few Welsh-language radio stations, a Welsh TV network, and it is being taught in the schools. Old battles are still being fought here as they are everywhere else around the world.

A world in which I can sit in my bungalow on club grounds, where I’ll spend the night, logged into their wireless server, waiting for the rain to stop, hoping to play a silly game that’s not as old as the castles but is as interwoven into local culture as the pubs. Golf has taken me around the world, but no trip is richer or more redolent than one to the UK where it all began. And Wales, haunting in today’s rain, childishly giddy in yesterday’s sunshine, is something special, a last frontier waiting to be discovered and struggling not to change.

Follow my golf journey through Wales at www.visitwales.com/jimfrank

Played it for the first time last weekend, and I couldn’t wait to write about Nefyn & District Golf Club (Clwb Golff Nefyn A’r Cylch, in Welsh), which is now among my favorite courses in the world.

Remember that first time you saw a truly great course? Perhaps your first round at Bandon Dunes? Or one of the Long Island heavyweights—Shinnecock, National, and Maidstone? Definitely Pebble Beach, which Nefyn is often compared to? That feeling of exhilaration seeing unaltered landscapes, with dramatic coastline if possible, which exist for no other reason but golf? That’s Nefyn.

Designed originally by James Braid and slightly altered by J.H. Taylor—it opened as a nine-holer in 1907 and was 18 by 1912—Nefyn is breathtaking. (It’s also now 26 holes, with a new back eight—yep, eight—opened in the 1990s.) The Atlantic Ocean is visible from every hole and depending on how you count, at least five holes are perched on rocky bluffs high above the water. Naturally, the course can be buffeted by wind, but I caught it on a relatively mild day: mostly gentle breezes and overcast sky but no rain. And the layout is quirky, with holes crossing and coming together, plus a fair number of blind shots. But it was never anything less than delightful, even dragging my trolley up and down hills, into long rough, and through the crowds walking down a path through the middle of the back nine to get to the beach below. (Dads, mums, kids, dogs, surfboards, picnic baskets, chairs…the whole works.) They were nice enough to clap for good shots.

Plus, at less than $70 for a round on the weekend (and under $100 to play all day), Nefyn is a must. Let the pictures tell the story.

I have many more courses yet to play in Wales, but I will be shocked if I find one better. Like Ballybunion in Ireland, Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland, or the aforementioned Bandon Dunes in Oregon, Nefyn & District could, and should, be the course that puts Wales on the map as a serious golf destination.

Check out my blog as I travel around Wales discovering amazing courses like this: www.visitwales.com/jimfrank

This is my second golf trip to the UK in a month. No, I’m not bragging (well, not intentionally), just sort of pinching myself. Actually, I’m pinching myself to stay awake. The second day is always the worst trying to make it through dinner without falling asleep in one’s soup. The two-hour nap didn’t help, either. Color me cranky.

Also a bit wet, having played Conwy Golf Club first thing this morning. (For a more complete report on the course, go here.) A great golf course, and exactly the sort of course you want for your first on a long trip, Conwy was challenging and charming, and nicely foreign in all the right sorts of ways, such as the small and crowded pro shop, the renting of pull carts (“trolleys”), the understated facilities, and the cars in the parking lot smaller than the golf carts we have in the states. And, of course, the predictably unpredictable weather.

Getting rained on is part of the fun. We play over here in weather we’d never even go outside in at home. I know golfers in the U.S. who have rain suits that never get worn on the west side of the Atlantic but are soaked with Scottish liquid sunshine. We put up with hurricane golf over here so we can laugh knowingly when the pros experience days like the Friday of this year’s Open Championship (although that was more wind, but you know what I mean). It really didn’t rain all that hard today at Conwy, not enough to put the rain pants on, just the rain shirt. The club never slipped but the towels got a good workout and are presently drying out in the back of my rental car, which likely will smell like a soggy shih tzu soon.

(Speaking of cars, on my last trip over I rented a VW Golf. It should be renamed because its trunk wasn’t big enough to hold a set of clubs, even out of the travel cover. Call it the VW Tennis or VW Bowling. This time I have a little Peugeot. That’s something else about coming over here, cars we don’t have at home. Anyone in the U.S. drive a Seat? Or a Skoda? And why doesn’t Ford import the Mondeo to America? It’s a great car.)

Also, does anyone order fish and chips at home? After my round this morning–playing alone I got around in about 2 hours 45 minutes and that was with a lot of waiting on the locals–I came back to the hotel, took a long hot shower, went to the local newsagent on High Street for a paper, and walked to the other end of High Street for a sit-down plate of cod with chips plus mushy peas, which are exactly what you think and very tasty. Now if I can just find a deep-fried Mars bar…

Moments before heading out for my first round in Wales. I’ll be playing Conwy, which looks like a wonderful old links-style course, wedged between the Conwy River and mountains. Seems golf has been played on the site since the 1860s.

Unfortunately, the sky is gray and the forecast no brighter. In fact, the forecast in the local paper brilliantly describes the day as “dull and rainy.” I’ll just have to do something about the “dull” part.

In the meantime, the photograph above was taken last evening about 6pm local time down on the quay. The River Conwy Festival starts tomorrow (alas, I’ll be leaving), but I didn’t see any signs of pre-festival activity. There were, however, numerous kids and adults dropping long lines into the water trying to catch crabs. Conwy was once famous for its mussels, so much so that a statue of mussels sits on the dock. I didn’t take a picture of the statue but did of a leading local attraction, the smallest house in Britain (right). Supposedly the last resident, about 100 years ago, was a 6-foot-3 fisherman: Imagine how tall he would have been had he been able to stand up!

All the photos I’ve posted so far were taken by me with a $100 Kodak digital camera I bought in a mad rush two hours before heading to the airport. I’m very impressed with the quality of the images and the ease of downloading. The film business may have disappeared but I’m pleased Kodak has found a way to stay in the game.

Follow my blogs from Wales at www.visitwales.com/jimfrank