The Walking Scorer

This is the controversial site of the 2015 US Open, won by Jordan Spieth.  Forget whatever you've heard, it's a fun and challenging course to play.  It's a links course, walking only (unless you have a note from your doctor).  You can take a pull cart or a caddy.  Tyler the caddy was great.  He works winters at Country Club Scottsdale, and knew all the courses I play in the Valley of the Sun. It's a beautiful location, great views of the bay, islands, and when the sun finally came out, the snow-topped Olympics on the peninsula. The greens were a disappointment, slow and bumpy.  They're letting the Poa Annua grow in before they mow them more closely.  But the price was right.  Due to a computer error, the greens fees posted on the web site for the last three days of May were $89 for everyone, the member rate, rather than $189 for non-residents (and various other prices in between).  That doesn't include the caddy, though. Many of the...

Designed in 1929 by Alister MacKenzie, who wrote the book on golf course design.  Yes, he literally wrote the book. He sure liked sand traps. And false fronts. They claim Juli Inkster as their home touring pro, with pictures of her next to pictures of Dr. MacKenzie in the clubhouse. I failed to recognize the difficulty of the course until I started to play it.  6125 yards is well within my capabilities for a par 72 layout.  This one is par 70.  Rare is the course with a course rating from my tees higher than par, but this is one:  70.8.  Those more subtle indications notwithstanding, the slope of 135 should have been a dead giveaway.  I didn't look.  On the first two par 3's I hit driver, and didn't get to pin high. There is local knowledge required, too.  Some shots that seemed well planned and well-struck rolled to some very bad places.  The greens are reasonably fast, not as fast as many top modern cou...

Because of my membership in Condo Travel Club, which comes with my timeshares, I get the Golf Card International for $4 (regularly $59), which gives me some discounts that are OK but hard to use, AND "free golf" at 20 Warrior golf courses around the country.  For the one here in Palm Springs, I had to pay a cart fee of $39, instead of the regular greens fee of $49 which includes a cart.  Kind of typical of Warrior, in my previous experience with them.  16 of the 20 have no restrictions like that, though. This golf course itself isn't really very hard.  Ample fairways, reasonable greens.  Plenty of bunkers, some around the greens have very steep faces.  I played the "championship" tees, 6328 yards, 69.6 / 117, par 71.  It played considerably harder than that, today.  It turns out all those wind turbines a few miles away are in the wrong place.  They should have been here, where this golf course is.  It was a constant 2-3 club win...

This course  is the 4th hardest in the US, 9th in the world.  It is host to the tournament formerly known as the Bob Hope Desert Classic.  It wasn't until I got close to the clubhouse, and things were looking familiar, that I realized I had played it before. Lee Trevino made a hole-in-one in the Skins Game here in 1987. It's much more Dye-abolical than the La Quinta Mountain course.  Railroad ties, bunkers, and mounds abound.  Some are the spectator mounds that gave rise to the "stadium" name, but there are plenty inside the ropes as well. In 2015 as a 14 handicap I played from the "combo" tees, and shot 92 with 3 GIR.  This year I'm an 11, played the white tees (300 yards shorter), and had 92 with 2 GIR (1 birdie, 26 putts, and 9 shots into or from water hazards). Pictures from this year and 2015 .

I was a little disappointed that a course named "Mountain" didn't have lots of elevation change.  Mostly it went along the base of the mountains.  Only on 16 was there a dramatic downhill tee shot. It's a Pete Dye design, but without many of his idiosyncratic features.  It did manage to befuddle me, though, as I shot 88 with only 25 putts and no greens in regulation.  A few fringies, which Cactus Dave would count, but I don't.  7 times I took 2 or more shots from close to the green, when 1 should have sufficed. I played with a nice Japanese couple.  We exchanged cards, so if I'm ever in Osaka, he's going to show me around the courses he plays. More pictures.