Caddie's Role/Colin Byrne: When I think of rich and exotic places of dwelling by the sea I think of Monte Carlo, Sydney Harbour or Star Island on Miami Beach, Florida. These places are, of course, oceans apart but very much bound together by their exclusivity. Well how about living in all these places at once, so to speak?
There are people who do, and I got to meet some of them in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Stockholm, last week. I was on the luxury liner called the World, which is a floating home to some of the world's richest people. It seems a lot of these people enjoy golf, enough to have the sailing schedule include the British Open a couple of weeks back and they were in the Swedish capital at the same time as the Scandinavian Masters at Kungsangen last week.
The World is a transient home to a group whose median age is 48 and average wealth very much above that in millions of dollars. With 125 apartments and over 80 guest cabins on board, it is the ocean's equivalent of a long and short-term hotel. The apartments are self contained, with well-stocked shops on board to satisfy the most demanding of palates. If cooking in doesn't suit there are a variety of restaurants. We were invited to dinner after a brief tour of the luxury liner. At $80 a head for dinner, myself and my player for the week went for the drink at the bar option.
Being back with my old boss Greg Turner for the week, I was enticed to take in a cultural trip on the day of the pro-am. As he doesn't get to play with the amateurs these days, Greg decided we should visit the Vasa museum and save the Opera till that evening. An excess of loftiness in one day, you might think. But the Opera is a bar-cum-disco set in the old opera house.
The Vasa is a 17th-century man-o-war that was the cutting edge of 1630s sailing. Built bigger and supposedly better than any warship that had gone before it, it was designed to frighten the enemy into automatic capitulation. At 69 metres in length and with 64 guns on board it was going to be a fearsome vessel. The only problem was the king wanted an extra cannon galley added to the ship. The king got what he wanted but the addition fatally altered the equilibrium of the ship and it keeled over and sunk before it got out of view of the palace on its maiden voyage. The hull was raised and rebuilt in the 1960s and set up as a museum.
The nautical distraction did not do my man much good: he missed the cut. He had a wonderful week though, staying in a friend's apartment on the Strandvagan, overlooking the harbour where the Malaren lake meets the Baltic sea, far from the golf-speak of the official hotel.
Just as the Vasa had its extra gun deck, the World has an addition to its armoury of entertainment on the aft of deck 11, port side. The golf lobby is so strong that there is a wide range of golf facilities on board. The guests can hit balls into the deep blue yonder from a driving bay. The ship, of course, must be anchored to allow such extravagance and there is no guarantee the balls will be retrieved.
If the residents don't feel like they can spare the balls they can always use either the outdoor or indoor net facilities. If they are in the mood for a virtual game on their favourite course, which they are probably a member of back on terra firma, they can avail of the simulator which comes with wildlife sound effects. If they fancy a bit of short-game work (including bunker) they can avail of either the real grass green aft starboard or the astroturf green just underneath the shooting gallery port side.
The only snag with the greens is the running track cuts through the "range". They are on high alert when there is someone on the track - unlike the tennis players, who can hit away merrily when the athletes canter by their full-sized court, as a safety net separates them from a lawsuit. The runners are more likely to use the treadmills in the gym downstairs, anyway.
You many well think a lifelong voyage would ultimately be extremely boring. Not on the World. If you don't want to swim, play tennis or golf or use the gym you can gamble in the casino or the card and boardgames room.
You can read for days in the plush library, well stocked with books on how to become even richer. If you don't fancy reading you can use the video library. The World spa has a range of very expensive treatments for its well-heeled residents.
Professional golfers, you may think, earn a fair amount of loot. Perhaps the World salesmen were hoping some of last week's golfing guests were in the market for snapping up one of the last 55 available apartments. Niclas Fasth looked puzzled as he did his sums in the master bedroom of a show apartment.
It didn't seem like great value at $4.5 million. No kidding, Niclas. He's not doing as well as he thought he was. Unlike one of the first purchasers, who bought two apartments across a bow deck and knocked the wall down between them to give himself a bit of extra space, bringing his bill to $9 million. He is an American citizen, which means he doesn't get a tax break as a permanent resident, unlike the Europeans who are given generous tax exemptions. That includes you, if you have a spare $4.5 million to invest in a lifelong cruise of exotic ports.
