Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Darth Vader Golfing


I was pretty psyched to see this. Vader using the Force to drain a putt. Awesome! Yanked from Intergalactic Golf.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Tiger Woods running from his Wife


2010 is gonna be a rough year for El Tigre. Play the game here. The dude loves cocktail waitresses.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Ricky Oyola


Slap's been really great with these interviews. Eastcoast legend Ricky Oyola gives more than an hour in this three parter. Image from Chrome Ball Incident.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Palm Springs - Part 3 of 3


beep beep.

12/1. East Valley Golf Club - Legends Course. The East Valley Golf Club is the home of the Southern California PGA. It's a 36 hole facility that has hosted PGA Tour Q Schools in past years. We booked our 10:43 tee time directly with the course for $50 per player.

This is a really nice facility and the track was super fun to play. There's lots of interesting holes, including a 490 yard downhill par 4. The bunkering on this course were strategically placed on almost every hole and I'm glad I had my GPS unit to figure out yardages. There were some dry spots but the overall course conditions were top notch. The bunkers were kind of bunk though. They were groomed (probably Thurs or Fri) but rained on heavily on Sat so they were crusty and rock hard on the day we played. The greens were fast and the undulations weren't quite as difficult to read as the prior three rounds. This day was by far the windiest conditions of our trip. We let 2 singles through but otherwise, we didn't see another golfer on the course. We finished our round in 4 hours, 5 minutes. I'll definitely visit this facility again and plan to play their Champions course as well. I didn't take any "blow up" holes (triple or quad bogeys), at least for me, in this round.





12/2. Indian Canyons Golf Resort - South course.
The Indian Canyons Golf Resort is a 36 hole facility along the mountains southwest of and close to the airport. We booked our 9:00 tee time through standbygolf.com for $74 per player. This was the only round we played that we had to pay for range balls.

Compared to the prior 5 rounds, this course, by far:
1. was the easiest track we played in terms of slope/rating
2. was the greenest, moistest and lushest
3. had the slowest greens (soft and spongy) but smooth and true-ish
4. was the most photogenic with the mountain backdrop

Aside from the slow greens, the course was in amazing condition. We finished in 4 hours and 15 minutes, despite being a twosome sandwiched between two foursomes. We definitely needed this round to get a confidence boost and finish the trip strong. We both birdied the 18th hole to finish our golf in Palm Springs. That alone will probably lead to a return to this facility. It was my low round of the trip (87) as well as Paul's (83) but I think he was most satisfied with the 89 he shot at Oak Valley.



As far as food was concerned, we basically just ate Mexican food everyday LOL Rubio's was our main stomping grounds. $1.25 fish taco Tuesday was awesome!

Overall, I was very happy with my first trip to Palm Springs and will visit again for a golf getaway.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Palm Springs - Part 2 of 3


11/29. Classic Club. The Classic Club is a facility that is run by Troon, which typically means excellent service and amazing course conditions. The Bob Hope Classic was hosted here in 2006, 2007 and 2008. We booked our 11:10 tee time through activegolf.com for $79 per player.

The course is just off the I-10 but feels like it's in the middle of nowhere... no houses anywhere near the course. This is a really awesome facility. Their clubhouse is top notch and their practice facility was the nicest we saw on this trip. Their range balls were brand new NXT Tours. The course conditions were amazing... comparable to Indian Wells. The greens were just as fast with some real tough reads. It was definitely a fun and challenging track! I have no idea how they got so much damn water on 18 holes in the middle of the desert! I was warned about the course being in the wind belt. No kidding! It was howling pretty good all day. We played the round as a foursome in 4 hours, 20 minutes. I'll definitely play this course again. Oddly enough, I had four pars that day and all of them came on the four par 3's.





11/30. Oak Valley Golf Course. The Oak Valley Golf Course is actually not in Palm Springs but is 30 miles west on I-10 in Beaumont. Just a few weeks ago, they hosted one of the 2nd stages of PGA Tour Q School. We booked our 11:00 tee time directly with the course for $49.50 per player.

What a strange facility! When you drive into their parking lot, it screams ghetto muni track. Their clubhouse is average at best and quite a few of the tee boxes were pretty hacked up with weeds growing on them. Everything else about it was top notch though. The fairways were in great shape as well as the bunkers. The course had actual rough, which was extremely contrasting compared to the low penalizing resort type conditions we were playing up to this point on the trip. The greens were actually quite soft but they were also by far the fastest greens we played. They were also next to impossible to read, at least for me. We played the whole round without waiting for or holding up another golfer. I got my ass handed to me. I was having issues with every club in the bag... 6 penalty strokes, 40 putts, you get the picture... Pretty sure I'd play it again to exact revenge on the ass whooping I received.


Friday, December 4, 2009

Palm Springs - Part 1 of 3


We got back on Wed night and I gotta say that we had a great golf vacation! I'm going to break down our trip into three posts, two course reviews per installment.

We left Vancouver 11/26. The new Canada RAV Line was an awesome means of getting to the Airport. We landed in Palm Springs at 11:00am, picked up our rental car and we were checked into our hotel by 11:45am. Pretty damn fast! We grabbed a quick lunch and then ended up at Cimmaron, which was a 10 minute drive, to try and get some range action in. We ended up getting out on their short course (Pebble) for $25 (seventeen par 3's and one par 4). The greens were super slow but it was still pretty fun and a nice little primer.

Neither of us had ever experienced Black Friday so we decided to wake up at 11:00pm and drive down to Cabazon to check out the outlet malls. What a terrible idea. As we drove down the I-10 westward, we saw the traffic coming from LA and knew we were in for trouble. All the parking lots were full. The residences of the few houses that were near by had chairs in front of their homes and were selling parking for $10. We were fortunate enough to find a spot. I couldn't believe how many people were there and the line ups to get into the stores were ridiculous. The longest I saw was the Coach store... it must have been 500 deep. We checked out several stores and bought a few things but in the end, we came back later in the week as we were going to be golfing out this way.


11/27. Westin Mission Hills- Peter Dye course. The Westin Mission Hills is a 36 hole facility that is run by Troon, which typically means excellent service and amazing course conditions. We booked our 11:34 tee time through ezlinks.com's "name your price" for $68 per player.

The course itself was fun, challenging and in great condition. The greens were smooth and fast. Unfortunately, they had fivesomes in front of us which lead to a 5+ hour round. Totally brutal! For that reason alone, I doubt I'll ever play there again. I don't understand why there was no marshal to maintain a good pace of play. Totally sucked. There's also about a 1000 houses lining the course. I did have my biggest drive of the vacation on hole 9 (300 yards) and also birdied the hole. My friend Paul hit two flags from 90+ yards out during the round as well!




11/28. Indian Wells - Players course. The Indian Wells Golf Resort is a 36 hole facility with many excellent reviews. We booked our 10:50 tee time through ezlinks.com's "name your price" for $76 per player.

When I first walk into their clubhouse, I was totally floored... super nice facility! They have a Callaway Performance Center which looked pretty high tech and thorough. Their washroom even had a strange waterfall in front of the mirror at the sinks. The course conditions were amazing. The greens were super fast with lots of deceiving undulations. A fun and challenging track. The GPS on the cart was nice as a first time player at the course. In contrast to Fridays round, there were no houses lining the course. We finished in 4 hours, 40 minutes. I'd definitely play this course again. I birdied the first hole by placing my approach 1" from the hole. Great start!