How interesting is a seven hour trip in the car through twenty miles on the other side of "The Boondocks"? Let me tell you, it's not very entertaining. How many rocks and volcanic cones can you see when they all look the same. This is basically what you get when you drive from Fresno to Las Vegas. It is miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles. There are some interesting attractions along the way such as the tallest thermometer in the world, which is not always working, and of course The Mad Greek in Baker, California but not much else. You have to have a good reason to make the exciting transit to Las Vegas. I don't mind flying, but I still hate Vegas.
In my last post, I talked about how I took part in the first of four annual PGCC Coaches Tournament and Clinic. I must say here that the conference turned into mostly a tournament where the majority of the almost 200 coaches played in the tournament but didn't stay for the clinic. Being one of the 20 or so coaches that stayed for the clinic, I must say that I learned a lot about coaching golf from the instructors. Believe me, it was not a waste of time and I had plenty of beside the pool time back at the hotel.
I looked forward to the second year of participating in the event. This particular year the tournament was played over all three of the Stallion Mountain courses. We didn't get to play one of the courses last year as I said in my last post so I was excited to play the third course, and it was a lot of fun to play-but nothing to write home to mom about. After playing the on the third day, we packed up the car and headed for home.
After a long school year the summer vacation finally arrived And this was going to be my third trip to the PGCC Coach's Clinic. This year's lineup of courses was two days at Stallion Mountain and the third day at Desert Pines in Las Vegas. I am not going to say that I was excited to be going back to Las Vegas and The PGCC Tournament but I was ready to go because we were going to play a different golf course than Stallion Mountain for the third course and I was curious what the course was like.
Stallion Mountain was..Stallion Mountain. I must admit though it was good to play the courses because I had played all three courses and they were not new to me. Desert Pines was a different story. It was different and unlike any of the courses we had played in past tournaments.
What a total change of pace. Yes, this was a course that was suggestive of courses you would find in the Carolinas such as Pinehurst and did not have a "Las Vegas" feel at all. There were tall Carolina Pines outlying the fairways and collection bunkers as well as lakes came into play. Desert Pines falls in a high place on my courses I have played. I haven't gone back to Desert Pines, and I hear that the course has been neglected. I don't know if that is true, but I have seen some of the reviews on GolfPass and they seem to reflect this.
I would be remiss-what does that mean, by the way-if I didn't share this story about my playing Desert Pines. We of course were in Las Vegas and this was the last day of the Tournament. In a rare form of misjudgement, I decided to slip out of the hotel room and do some enjoyment of the Las Vegas nightlife. I gambled too much and imbibed in what native Americans call "firewater". You could say that I was a bit "in the bag" when I returned to the hotel room at 2:00 AM or 02:00 for those of you serving in the military. Tee off time was 8:00 or in 6 hours.
Yes, I did make it to Desert Pines in enough time to go to the driving range and hit some balls. Let's just say that the fog had not cleared over the Golden Gate Bridge as far as my body was concerned. I walked onto the hitting area and picked out a stall. The hitting stations were not grass but turf and I noticed there were no ball filled triangle of balls to hit. There was a ball sitting on a rubber tee on the right side of the turf square? I said to myself what the heck and I hit the ball that was on the tee. Whoosh and off it went out onto the range.
I turned away from where the ball was and asked someone a question. When I turned back towards where the first ball was, there was another ball on the tee. At this point I began to doubt my sanity. I knew that I had hit that ball off that tee and there were no more balls. But yet, a ball was sitting on the tee as big as you please. I knew I was in pretty bad shape and was slightly hungover, but I didn't think I had lost it that bad. Like Columbo in a good mystery, I was going to solve this. I was a little beat up mentally and physically I know, but I wasn't ready for the looney ward just yet. hey, I'm from Fresno and now Merced. These things don't happen in my neck of the woods.
Here's what I did. There was a ball sitting on the tee. Thwack, I hit it off the tee and off it went majestically into the air. I froze my eyes on the tee to see what was going to happen. The tee went down into the ground and then up comes another ball on the tee. There was a ball feeding system where the balls came up from a machine under the hitting area. Wow, what high technology. I was still sane and the mystery was solved. I was not losing my mind, but that didn't cure the intense hangover.
I want to stop here because this blog is getting a bit too long and I don't want to lose you. In my next post I will share with you my fourth trip to the PGCC coaches Clinic/Tournament which was my last year participating in it. I will also talk about the three other courses I played in Las Vegas-Paiute, Bear's Best and Legacy- but on separate occasions. Stay tuned for Viva Las Vegas: Golf In The Kingdom Part 5 coming to a computer near you on The Golf Course Travel Bag.
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