Incredible photo ops - without a camera!

Last weekend, Ben and I spent Saturday through Monday in Palm Springs with some friends from Suncadia, Laurie and Brice Wilhite. We played at Indian Canyon on Saturday - nice, but a few sprinkles (what would you expect?). We played on Sunday at Hideaway - an exclusive, invitation only club where Laurie's dad belongs. It was lush and pampering, and god knows, if they'd known who we are, they probably wouldn't have let us on.

But the photo ops of the weekend came at the Celebrity Course at Indian Wells Country Club - a municipal club that costs only $35 to play if you live in Indian Wells, which we don't. We paid $121 each, which is a chunk of change, but worth every penny, mainly for the views. Of course, we didn't have a camera with us, so I can't share any pictures with you, and the website quite frankly doesn't begin to do the place justice.

Starting with the 13th hole, the views of the fairways back to the tee boxes are backed up by stunning, multi-layered mountain views, acres of wild and set flowers, and - in many cases - waterfalls and ponds. (Of course, there is a downside to those ponds, but you already know that.)

I had first heard of this course about four years ago when I sat on an Alaska flight next to Orrin Vincent, founder and owner of OB Sports, which managed the construction of the remodel of the two courses at Indian Wells and the spiffy new clubhouse (I can't believe the bathrooms in that place! The floors alone are worth framing!).

In our short flight to Seattle from Palm Springs, he tried to convince me that it would be worth the 16ish-mile drive down to Indian Wells to play the courses, which takes quite a bit of convincing, as Ben and I rarely drive more than five miles in any direction to play golf. I put it in the back of mind, but never had the impetus to go. After all, there are nearly 100 courses between our home and Indian Wells - why not stop at one of those?

Too bad, because we've missed some beautiful golf over the past four years since the courses re-opened. It's almost enough to make us consider moving down to Indian Wells for the $35 greens fees.

Well, let's not go that far.

But I am going to send Orrin a note. He was right. I was wrong.

Rain and golf

A month ago, Ben and I went to Oahu to play golf, and I didn't write about it. That's because it was the kind of trip for which you should get a "do-over." As in: If you go to Hawaii for four days and it rains three of them, you should get a do-over. As in: You've just spent a week's worth of vacation time, hundreds of dollars on airfare, nearly a thousand on golf and thousands on hotel rooms, and it frickin' rains, you should get a do-over.

I was so depressed about it, I couldn't even write about it. So here's the Readers Digest version:
We played Ko Olina in the pouring rain, and it wasn't great. Highway on the left, houses on the right, nary an ocean view, and a few angry black swans. As any golf day does, it beat working. But given the effort it took to get there, nothing special. We played Turtle Bay - one day with rain on the Palmer Course; one day without rain on the Fazio Course. The Palmer Course was nice - and truthfully, it only rained part of the day. The view from the 17th was spectacular. But that bermuda grass took some getting used to...take an extra club 'cause it's like playing with velcro balls on velco fairways. The Fazio course had two nice ocean views, but otherwise wasn't much to look at.

Now, Hawaii needed the rain. I think it had been 6 months since they'd gotten any measurable rain on Oahu, so we didn't get much local sympathy. But, playing golf in the rain wasn't what we'd bargained for.

So, you see, it seems like we've discovered a pattern here: This past Thanksgiving weekend, Ben and I played in Palm Springs and it rained. It hadn't rained in the Coachella Valley since Feb. 16. That's NINE MONTHS! But, Ben and I show up and the clouds finally find their way over the mountains to pour on our golf game. Indians Canyons is a course where I usually shoot in the low 90s, but took all of 54 strokes to get through the front nine. The rain finally stopped for our back nine and I shot a 45, but the damage was done. "Rain quenches thirsty valley" was the headline in the Desert Sun the next day.

And, remember last summer when we went to supposedly dry Kamloops, BC, to play golf and it rained and rained?

So here's the deal: If you and your golf course need rain, call us. We'll bring our golf clubs, make a tee-time and I'll bet it'll rain. It'll cost you, but you'll get the rain you need. And Ben and I can quit our day jobs, which will make rainy golf a little less painful.

Long after we've returned

We've been home for nearly a month now, and I've had some time to ruminate on our trip. It's particulary salient today, as the area between Kelowna and Kamloops where we were is up in flames. We noticed all the dead (pine beetle) trees along the way, and I guess we all know that eventually, these rusty-red forests are going to have to burn.

The one thing I learned about taking a golf trip to multiple courses in an area with a plethora of choices is this: Save one day for the golf course that you didn't know about, didn't choose or under-estimated. We booked five courses for the five days we could play before we left. But over and over again, people told us we should have played Talking Rock. It was close by and we could have done it, if we hadn't already booked our days full. Next time, we'll leave a free day to take in that course that's highly recommended by locals.

And the one thing I learned about the Kelowna area is that it is worthy of a wine trip alone. I can't imagine going up there and not golfing (there are at least five other courses besides Talking Rock that we didn't get to play but looked great), but next time, I'm going to leave a lot more time for wine tasting and vineyard visits.

And finally, I need to emphasize that the Canadians we met on this trip - at the bars, on the courses, at the airports, around town - were among the friendliest group of people I've ever been around. They don't just greet you in a friendly way and scurry about their business. They really love engaging in conversation and helping you get to know their region.

With that, I'll leave Kamloops, BC, behind us for now. If you ever decide to go up there, be sure to tell me how you find it.

Apart together

Sun Peaks, BC - Everyone here tells us how nice the weather was – last month.  Doesn’t do us a lot of good, but I guess it’s an apology of sorts. (Canadians are so nice.) “Sorry, we wouldn’t have invited you if we’d known it was going to turn out like this.” 

Well, they didn’t exactly invite us, so it’s not really their fault.  But today was pretty horrid.  It never got above 50, and it rained most of the time.  Occasionally, we’d see a sun break, but it was not enough to change the general trend – cold and wet. 

So, Ben and I broke our golf date.  Our first full day here at the Delta Hotel at Sun Peaks offered the first taste of our vacation of what a "full service" resort provides.  A bar.  TV.  Spa. And laundry.

Yes, we severed the tie that’s kept us bound at the hips since we started this vacation.  Ben went running this morning, and then did laundry, and I spent the afternoon at the spa.  Togetherness is great, as long as it’s occasionally interrupted by a bit of separation.  I think every successful marriage has come to that conclusion. 

Wondering about the laundry? On vacation? I guess you'll have to check out Ben's blog to figure that one out.  Oh.  He doesn't have one.

 

Soggy Dunes

The Dunes, Kamloops, BC – Every once in a while, you visit a place where you wish you could come back when the weather is better. That’s never more true than when you play golf on a great course in the rain.

Maybe the Dunes isn’t a capital-G-Great golf course, but it sure seemed like it could deliver a nice round on a warm, sunny day.  A links style course with un-links-like well-bunkered greens, the gently rolling fairways were wide enough to encourage healthy swings with the driver, but narrow enough to keep you honest.  The colorful wild fescue along the fairways gave it a Scottish links feel (okay, how would I know?), and the paucity of water holes kept lost balls to a minimum.  In short, we liked it.

What we didn’t like was the slow play, especially when it began to rain on the 14^th hole. The course boasts that it “promotes a four-hour round,” but there was nary a marshall on the course to encourage the pokey foursome in front of us to move along. By the time we ended, there were four or five empty holes in front of them.

If we’d played at the “promoted” pace, we would have had one hole in the rain, not five.  But the old coots in front of us turned it into a five-hour round, largely because they won’t admit that they are too old and frail to play from the regular men’s tees anymore.  Not a one of them could drive more than 100 yards, and if one of them scored lower than 130, it had to be due to a very creative pencil. 

The rain.  Oh, the rain.  It wasn’t the “shower” the weather websites predicted.  It was what we in Seattle call “rain.”  Steady, soaking, dripping-from-every-seam rain, the kind of rain that makes you want to keep the hood up on your parka, until you realize you can’t see the ball when you turn your shoulders. Good thing I had a hood for my clubs or I’d been pretty upset about getting my new club grips wet. 

I guess the rain added to the Scottish atmosphere, and if we weren’t so tired of the old farts in front of us, we might have settled in for lunch at the clubhouse and stared at the soothing grayness. Instead, we packed up our wet clubs, shed our soaked shoes and headed up the hill for Sun Peaks, and tomorrow’s golf adventure. 

Of all the courses we’ve played so far around Kamloops, the Dunes – in spite of the weather and the slow play – has been my favorite.

  

Ho-Hum Sun Rivers

Kamloops, BC - Sometimes it’s not the golf course, it’s the golfer.

That was certainly the case on Tuesday, when Ben and I teed off at Sun Rivers, a golf course surrounded by housing developments on the rims outside of Kamloops.  The course was fair enough, but my drives weren’t.  We didn’t close the day with a terrible score, but it wasn’t what we should have had on a wimpy little 116 slope.  Oh, well, there’s always tomorrow…at least when you’re on a golf vacation.

But while it wasn’t the cause of my lackluster round, Sun Rivers certainly doesn’t inspire great play.  It was named one of Canada’s best new courses in 2003, but it’s hard to see why. Winding back and forth in hair-pin curves, the cart path defines 18 holes that are tiered up and down steep slopes lined with houses.  Many holes offer a full view of Kamloops below – and there aren’t many folks who would say that’s a really special thing  (See “Not our nicest town” blog from June 22), unless they really like power lines and industrial sprawl. The back nine was less house-bound than the front nine, but you never get the feeling that the houses are here because of the course, rather than the other way around. This was a course built with housing development in mind.

The course doesn’t give up its secrets easily.  Several holes had blind tee shots (see photo above), and a couple of holes provided no view of the green from the middle of the fairway, either.  The course book offered some clues to good placement, but that usually only helps the second or third time around a course.  As a newcomer, it’s a crapshoot. 

The only thing other than the touted “view” worth mentioning about Sun Rivers is the restaurant, where diners on the deck can watch putters and chippers on the practice green and offer cheers or jeers as appropriate. (We mainly cheered, not having proven ourselves much better in our round.)  The food was tasty and inexpensive, and the waitress cheered us up after our mediocre round with her chipper attitude. 

At least the weather held.  We hope for the same tomorrow. 

 

 

Canadian food

Ben has been a man of a certain age for a couple of years, and with that comes all kinds of health worries - in particular, prostate cancer and all the health effects of high cholesterol.  After some cajoling, he finally went to the doctor a week ago to get the appropriate tests.  The results were amazing. Best of all, no signs of prostate cancer.  But the cholesterol test was the zinger:  For a guy who eats eggs, bacon, butter, cheese and steak, and thinks that those are the five food groups, his cholesterol was low.  Not just low, amazingly low.

Therefore, when we ordered lunch at the clubhouse the other day and he ordered poutine and pogos, who was I to say it was bad for him?  His massive intake of fatty foods apparently does him no harm.

I think one of Ben's favorite things so far about Canada is poutine.  Pogos is probably second.  Poutine is that uniquely Canadian combination of French fries and cheese curds covered with brown gravy.  I have no idea where the dish originated, and no one I have asked seems to have the answer.  It's like asking a citizen of the USA where meat and potatoes came from.  They just are.  I personally can't imagine eating poutine, but then, I don't have to.  

Pogos are a Canadian brand of little corn dogs.  Ben got six of them in his order.  Pleasantly brown and greasy, they seemed all puffed up and happy sitting in a little family-like circle on his plate next to a dish of poutine.  A happy meal for a guy who doesn't need to worry about his cholesterol.

All I can imagine is that Ben is much happier with Canadian food than he would be with, say, Russian food.  I can't imagine him quite so happy about borscht and cabbage.

Today, as we were relaxing after our round of golf, he looked out over the wide Thompson River valley and proclaimed, "I like Canada."  I think poutine has something to do with that.