Golf travel cases are a good way of protecting your investment in your golf clubs. A good set of golf clubs can cost in the thousands, and you'll be pretty disappointed to spend all that money on your clubs just to find them broken or even stolen on a golf holiday.

With golf vacations so popular now there are lots of people traveling with golf clubs. And lots of people disappointed to arrive for their golf vacation to find that their golf clubs have been damaged.

Unfortunately it isn't good enough to just zip up your golf bag and put it on the plane. This is a recipe for getting the contents of the golf bag stolen, including your clubs, or your clubs damaged.

However there is a solution, and it is known as a golf travel case. A golf travel case is a bag specifically designed to house golf clubs and to protect them during travel.

A good golf club case should allow you to lock your clubs inside the travel case so light fingered baggage handlers can't take a liking to your golf balls or anything else of value that you may be transporting in your travel case, like your golf clubs.

There are 2 types of golf travel case, and the type you need depends on the type of travelling you will be doing with your golf clubs.

The first type is a soft golf travel case. As the name suggests it is made from a soft material. You put your golf clubs inside and zip or strap it up, and it's good to go.

That's fine if you're intending to put your golf clubs into the car for a long car journey, but if you're flying it probably won't be good enough. A soft golf travel bag provides your clubs with some protection, but not a whole lot more than you would get from a regular golf bag.

If you're flying, on the other hand, you need a hard golf travel bag. A hard travel case is one made from a plastic material like molded polyethylene and is extremely good at protecting your valuable golf clubs. A hard travel case should be puncture resistant for those moments when the baggage handlers throw your clubs on the top of a sharp object. A good hard travel case will allow you to put your golf bag inside as well, and a few items of your other luggage as well if you're lucky to minimize your other baggage.

Some manufacturers of hard golf travel cases back up their products with insurance for your golf clubs if they are damaged in flight, and lifetime warranties. It takes some confidence in a product to do that.

And the claim has even been made that one of these hard travel cases could be dropped from the plane during the flight and the golf clubs would survive intact.

Needless to say the hard golf travel cases, though superior to soft travel cases in some respects, also have their disadvantages too. They are usually more expensive than their soft cousins, and are a real nuisance to store, either at home or when you're checking into your hotel.

There are lots of differences even between different types of soft or hard golf travel cases, and you need to know your requirements before you buy. However there is no doubt that if you're traveling with your golf clubs you need a good quality golf travel bag. It costs a lot less than replacing your golf clubs does.