Tavel (Shipping) Service for Clubs

[rstyle]

Some time back I read about a company that woyud ship your clubs and have them at your final destination when you arrived. Does anyone know of this service or has used it?
Going to the Northwest (from Fl.) this summer but making some stops to visit friends (non golfers) and was wondering of a way to not to have to carry golf bags through multiple airports, rental car places etc.

[gortyl]

Just google 'golf bag shipping' and you'll get a few companies. I've decided to use golfbagshipping.com for my trip coming up. Haven't ever used them, but I'll let you know how it turns out. My trip is 6/2 with the first round 6/3 and they're picking up the bags on 5/29 for delivery 6/1. It is pricey though (~$285 for round trip from St. Louis to Pebble Beach per man) and I wouldn't do it for just any ol' trip. They actually send a shipping package that you wrap your golf bag in. We'll see....

[rstyle]

Thanks.
Please let me know how it works out.
If it was a single stop I would take them with me but a pain since I will be making several stops on the way

[gortyl]

Just wanted to update you on this rstyle. I used www.golfbagshipping.com (GBS) to ship me and my two buddy's clubs to Pebble Beach from St. Louis and back. I was stressed out about this portion of our week long trip more than anything, but these guys really know what they're doing.

I ordered the service about a month or so before my trip via their online web ordering tool which gave me a lot of options. Within 3 days, I received six "shipping kit packages" (one for each bag, each way). These included a huge, white, plastic bag that easily fit over all of our travel bags, including my huge Puma travel bag. There were two shipping labels for each way - one to put on the travel bag itself in case the bag broke (which mine did on the way back from Pebble) and one to put on the outside of the large white plastic bag.

GBS scheduled a pick up with FedEx and FedEx arrived on 5/29 as scheduled and loaded the bags in the truck. GBS emailed me tracking numbers (although they were on the labels as well). All three bags arrived on 6/2 as scheduled and were at the Spanish Bay club storage department in the morning of 6/3 for our first round. After our last round late on 6/4, we had the return shipping kit package and re-packaged the travel bags, left them with the Spanish Bay folks. The clubs were delivered to my house on 6/9 exactly when GBS had scheduled.

I emailed GBS at least 10 times throughout the few preceding weeks of my trip and during the trip and they always replied very promptly in a professional manner asking me to call if I needed further information.

I'd have to say, I highly recommend these guys. I play golf a lot when I travel, but I won't do this every time. In fact, I'll rarely, if ever, do this. But for a big trip, this service is first class. The cost was about $564 for everything (all three bags, round trip) - expensive, but for a sweet trip, if you're going all out, it's well worth it.

To be fair, I've also heard decent reviews of Sports Express as well ( www.sportsexpress.com ).