Thursday, January 31, 2008

Golf in Palm Springs

This weekend I drove from Phoenix to Palm Springs to visit my friend Dave Zubke.
First I met my friend Evan Schiller, an instructor in the School for e
Extraordinary Golf and a fantastic golf course photographer, and played with him and his fiancĂ© at his course, The Palms. See Evans photos at http://www.golfshots.com/ The Palms is next door to PGA West and it’s membership has the lowest handicap average of the Palm Springs area. It also boasts lots of PGA professionals as members. It was designed by Fred Couples and he did a teriffic job. I had a round of 86 which is good for me on a course I have never seen before, and Evan shot 1 or 2 over . He hit one shot on the back 9 that I would not have even considered. He was in the right rough and on the wrong side of a line of palm trees. I would have chipped out to the fairway. He strung it between two palm trees and faded it back to the center of the green and hit it from 165 yards to 6 inches from the hole WOW!!!

The next day I was supposed to play at Stone Eagle with Dave and our friend Tim Lawin but we got rained out. I can’t wait to get back to Stone Eagle because it looks nothing less that spectacular. Mountain tops, outcroppings and lots and lots of elevation changes.. and unlike most new golf courses today, not a house on the course. If you ever watched the skins game on TV when it was at Bighorn, you get the idea, because they are almost next door to each other. Spectacular place. Well, I will have to let you know about it after I get the chance to play it, which I hope will be soon. There was a window of dryness on Sunday and at the last minute we decided to play the Greg Norman course at PGA West, and the rain started again as we were on the 18th hole.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

golfing with a segway

I am in Arizona for the winter and yesterday I played golf at Kierland golf club. This is a wonderful course located in the Phoenix area, with beautifully designed holes and wonderful greens. They have added a very clever feature there. One transportation option they give you, in addition to walking or riding a cart, is taking a segway. You have probably seen these around, maybe even tried one. You stand on it and with the shifting of your body weight you get it to move forward, backward and turn from side to side. The ones there are even set up with hardware to carry your golf bag… Pretty slick.

We started with about ½ hour of training, learning how to get on and off and steer and adjust the speed. Hills are a challenge, espeically sidehills, but after a few holes I was completely comfortable on it and had a blast using it on my round. I even shot an 87 which made me happy. Learn more about these at www.segwayofscottsdale.com