Papago Golf Club (Phoenix, AZ) - 6/2/13

Papago was opened in 1963 and for the longest time was considered the finest public course in the state of Arizona. It definitely has the feel of an old style links course with lots of big mature trees. I had never played it before but had heard about it many times. So when I was asked to play I was excited. However I wasn't that impressed. I believe a courses club house holds a lot of value on its course. If they have a nice club house then one can assume the course will be just as nice. After all first impression is big! Well the club house at Papago is lacking big time, as a matter of fact is almost non existing. By that I mean its located in a trailer that they built a deck around. It held maybe 3 people and had the worse smell ever. Next was the lack of cart paths. Every now and then there was one, but for the most part every hole didn't have one. You could just drive anywhere you wanted. They also didn't have a cart lady, or at least we didn't see one. The did however have a water and ice machine between #9 and #10, so that helped.

Aside from all the negatives I will say that the conditions of the course were great. For a summer day it was nice and green with solid fairways and greens. It wasn't that tough of a course, very open and larger greens. However it just wasn't my day. The heat was kicking my butt and I think I was still bitter about what I paid for what I got. I don't think I will play it again unless its a free round.

• Front 9:  44
• Back 9:  46
• Total:  90 (18 over par - ouch)
• Puts:  39
• Greens in Regulation:  5
• Fairways Hit:  8
• Eagles:  0
• Birdies:  0
• Pars:  2
• Bogey's:  14
• Double Bogeys:  2
• Triple Bogeys:  0

My crappy scorecard!

It was early and the sun was coming up over the mountains

Eagle Mountain (Fountain Hills, AZ) - 5/27/13

I have played a lot of golf in the state of Arizona and Eagle Mountain has to rank up there in the top 5 courses I have played in this state. If you have never played this course I highly recommend that you spend the money and play it. It's set within the mountains of Fountain Hills and many of the holes are elevated from tee to fairway and fairway to green. With its true desert feel you never know what kind of wild life will be waiting for you on the next tee box. Truly of the valley's best!

This was the second time I had played it and unfortunately didn't score as good as the first. However as much as I want to beat my previous score on any course I have played multiple times, I accept the score just because the course is that tough. Just being out there and having fun is a win by me. After all thats why I play this great game, for fun and enjoyment.

• Front 9:  45
• Back 9:  44
• Total:  89 (18 over par - ouch)
• Puts:  31
• Greens in Regulation:  5
• Fairways Hit:  7
• Eagles:  0
• Birdies:  0
• Pars:  6
• Bogey's:  8
• Double Bogeys:  3
• Triple Bogeys:  1 (gross)

My awesome scores (not)

Played on Memorial Day and the course had put these awesome messages on each cart! So cool!

In honor of Memorial Day every flag displayed our Nations stars and stripes.

Each hole had a flag holder off the green so the flag wouldn't hit the ground!

View from the 18th tee box

Las Sendas (Mesa, AZ) - 5/18/13

Las Sendas was built back in 1997 and believe it or not this was the first time I had played the course! It has been at the top of my list of courses to play within the valley since it was built and after 16 years I finally got the chance! What a beauty of a course, even in the summer the conditions were amazing. Its a desert course and makes you play 100% target golf. If you don't happen to land in the green stuff then you chalk up the ball as a loss. Unless your crazy enough to go dessert diving! The nice part of the design is that the fairways/rough are pretty wide and fairly easy to hit off the tee. However it gets harder and harder from there as almost all of the holes get very narrow towards the green. Every green is elevated and has multiple tiers. This makes getting up and down to save par tough!

The course plays anywhere from 5,100 to 6,914 yards depending on the tee box. We played the Gold tees that was 6,327 with a rating of 71.2 and a slope of 133. It was another rough round for me as I failed to break 90 for the second consecutive time. My short game seems to have gone down the toilet. What was once the strongest part of my game has become the worst part. I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong so hopefully one of these rounds it will come back to me. However in the mean time I will continue to play and keep enjoying it even if my score is horrible.

The highlight of the day was probably hole 18. It's a par 5 that plays 503 yards from the gold tees. The fairway doglegs to the right off tee with water on both sides. If you can carry the water on the right it will slope down so you can get a good 300+ yards out of your tee shot. This was my game plan and I pulled it off. It left me with about 190 yards to the green, 185 of those were over water. You could play it smart and layup with a small chip shot leaving yourself with about 125 yards to the green, however where is the fun in that. After the round I was having I decided to go for it in two. I pulled out my 6 iron and stuck it on the green. It was the other side of the green and still a good 50 feet away from the hole but I didn't care as I was looking at an eagle putt. I figured I could get it close and knock down a birdie to end my round. Well that didn't happen as my eagle putt was still about 10 feet short and I then pushed my birdie put to the right barley missing it. So I ended with a par, however I couldn't be happier with how the final hole played out!

Here are some stats and photos from the round. I cant wait to play this course again as its one of my favorites now!

• Front 9:  47
• Back 9:  44
• Total:  91 (20 over par - ouch)
• Puts:  33
• Greens in Regulation:  3
• Fairways Hit:  8
• Eagles:  0
• Birdies:  0
• Pars:  2
• Bogey's:  13
• Double Bogeys:  2
• Triple Bogeys:  1 (gross)

Amazing view from the practice green!

More amazing views from the practice area.

The fairway was the other direction, however Red Mountain looked cool in the background so I took it.

Don't go left or right!

I was surprised how close this little guy got to me. Never seen a roadrunner that close. Pretty cool!

Awesome looking hole with the green up towards the mountain!

McCormick Ranch (Scottsdale, AZ) - 5/11/13

Every year come May the Coronado High School Athletic program holds a golf tournament to help raise money for their sports programs. Dawn's cousin BJ is the head football coach at Coronado and the main person behind putting this tournament together so its a no brainier that I play in this! Its a 4 man scramble and I have played with the same group of guys all 4 years I have played in it.

It's been held at McCormick Ranch for the past 3 years and before that was at Kokopelli. So they know how to pick good courses! The only time I have played McCormick Ranch is in this tournament. The course has two 18's (Palm Course & Pine Course). We played Palm from the white tees. Its measures 6279 total yards from the white tees with a 70.1 / 127 rating/slope. Maybe one day I will play a normal round and see how I do!

This year was out best team score since we started playing. We shot 9 under par for a 63, however didnt finish in the top 3 teams. The winner was 14 under and the next two teams were both 13 under. Yes 14 under is possible, however that means your getting birdie or better on all but 4 holes. Makes ya wonder how legit that score is! Oh well its still a good time. Here are some photos

Every good tournament must have a stocked cart side cooler! Code Blue!

Great view of Camelback Mountain!

Par 4 #9 has a split fairway surrounded by water. Its the 3rd hardest hole on the course.

Par 3 #17 plays 150 yards from the white tee's. It was the closest to the pin challenge and Adam from our group dropped it 4 feet from the hole! Birdie!

Hole #1 was sponsored by Babcock Plumbing, so of course Mr. Babcock had to strike a pose next to the company sign! Can you say Holiday Card!

Our 2013 team photo (Me, Brett Babcock, Adam McMahon, Bob Sowa)

Poston Butte (Florence, AZ) - 4/21/13

I was very excited heading into this round, however it didn’t end that way at all! When my father-in-law called me asking if I wanted to play Poston Butte I quickly said YES! I had heard many good things about this course from a handful of different people. It’s a Troon course so right there you know it’s going to be in great shape and play pretty tough! I have only played one other Troon course, Ocotillo, and that’s no easy task. So I assumed this would be about the same.

It’s a desert style course that requires a lot of target type shots. The conditions were great! The fairways were like hitting off a green while the rough was like hitting off a normal fairway at a not so nice course. If you happen to land outside the rough you would find yourself hitting from dirt that was very soft and easy to hit from. Yes I know this because it happened to me often! If you were outside of that then you were screwed and either in some deep desert or someone’s backyard! There were lots of sand traps that were like hitting off a beach. It’s so nice to hit from a well groomed sand trap! As for the greens, well they were like putting on glass! They were very fast and very rarely did you have a straight putt! No two holes were even close to being the same making the overall layout great!

As for my round, well it was not pretty! It was one of the worst rounds I have played in a very long time. I was hitting decent off the tee and making some good second shots. However it was my short game that killed me. This is normally the strongest part of my game so the fact that I couldn’t chip or read a put was very frustrating! Normally if I’m hitting my driver or irons bad I will know what needs to be adjusted, however I had no answers to my short game. It was just missing! I played the first 12 holes 19 over (yes that’s not a typo!) however ended strong by going only 2 over in my last 6 (par, par, bogey, bogey, par, par). It was the 5 double bogies and 2 triples that killed me! I will save you the time of having to do the math because it might take a while. I shot a 93! But hey at least I finished strong!

Without question my favorite hole on the course was the Par 3 17^th (picture below). This hole plays anywhere from 117 to 169 depending on the tee box. Its 100% surrounded by water and has a 2 tier green. It was also probably the best hole I played all day. It was playing about 135 yards from the white tees. I used my PW and stuck it about 10 feet out. The putt for birdie had some serious break to it and I ended up missing it left by only an inch or two. Based on how I was playing all day I was very happy with my Par!

So would I play this course again? YES! I want my revenge!

It was a long drive so the "kids" needed to be seated safely!

#4, 170 yard Par 3 (I shot Par)



#17, 135 yard Par 3 (I shot Par)

Scorecard confirming my 93, but more important showing my father-in-law's 85!!

As much as I wanted to burn the evidence from this round and never speak about it again, I just couldn’t. Bad rounds are going to happen and probably happen more so then good rounds (I hope not). I normally don’t keep the final group scorecard, however I want to this time because of the round my father-in-law had. This was the best I have ever seen him play! He worked all of us! I told him to enjoy the moment because it won’t happen again!

So up next will be a tournament this Saturday (May 11^th) at McCormick Ranch in Scottsdale. We play in this every year as it’s for the Coronado High School Athletic program. It should be a good time!

I Love Golf

I love golf! Yes golf, the goofy sport where the object is to hit a little white ball through the air and into a hole! By no means am I scratch golfer, however I do consider myself a good golfer. So here’s a little background on how I became a golfer.

I was about 10 years old when I started to really play the game. My sister who is older had already been playing for a few years and would venture to the driving range with our Dad multiple nights per week. Once I started going with them I was hooked. The driving range and course, Camelot (now Painted Mountain) was only a few miles from our house, so it was pretty easy to get up there on a regular basis. Still some of the best times of my life were spent on that driving range. I’m pretty sure my dad and I didn’t pay for a bucket of balls for a good 2 years in a row. We would always be the only people there, so he would go out in the range and hit the balls back to me until we had two big piles. We would also have challenges to see who could hit this one palm tree standing all alone in the middle of the first fairway. I’m sure come morning that hole was covered with range balls (haha). I can also still remember back during the summers when the kids from the neighborhood would go play 9 holes at 1pm and 115 degrees out. We didn’t care at all as we were having fun! My parents also enrolled me in the Junior Golf program that was held during the summers. Both my sister and I were in this together and would play twice per week at random courses against other kids of our age. This is where I really started to learn about playing more serious and wanting to get better.

When I was in 9^th grade (freshman) at Sheppard Jr. High I decided I wanted to play for the High School. See my sister had moved on to play for our High School (Red Mountain) so I wanted to follow suit. At the time Junior High Schools in Mesa were 7^th-9^th grades. However in 9^th grade you were allowed to play sports at the high school level. So I tried out for the boy’s golf team and made it. This was great for a few reasons. One I got to leave school early every day to go play golf on what was one of the best courses in Arizona at the time, Red Mountain Ranch. Secondly it meant that I got to play alongside my sister again who was already playing for the girl’s team. I wasn’t nearly as good as the other guys on team and was looked at as the new kid on the block, you know the young freshman. But since my sister was a bad ass on the team all the guys took to me and helped me out big time!  I was blessed to be part of this team for 3 years even lettering in it. However I didn’t play my senior year rather choosing to have fun with my friends and live it up as a senior. To this day its one of the biggest decisions I regret! Oh well that’s life!

So that’s pretty much the cliff notes on how I became a fan of golf at a young age. I have continued to play over the years and enjoy it more and more every time I get out.

So what’s the point of this blog? Well this won’t come as a surprise to those that know me, but I have kept track of almost every round I have played since 1999! I have saved every scorecard over the past 14 years and have logged them into a spreadsheet. I said before "almost" every round because I am missing scorecards from 2001-2003. I know I played during this time I must not have cared to keep the scorecards at the time! I even still have some scorecards from when I was a little kid; however those are not updated on my file. As of today I have 71 rounds tracked. Keep in mind I started playing when I was about 10 so from 1987 to 1999 there could easily be 100+ rounds however I will never know as I didn’t keep the scorecard. I look back now and wish I had kept them because it would be an awesome collection. This is one thing I will be doing with Brady. He has only played once and I have that scorecard!

Anyways back to the subject. There are many courses that I have played multiple times and some just once but would love to play again. This is why I’m creating this blog. I want to start documenting my time on the golf course. I have plans to play this great game for as long as my body will allow me to. So it would be great to put those memories on paper for others to enjoy. I have a goal to play as many public TPC courses out there. As of right now there are 13 public and 20 private. This would be a great accomplishment. I have played none of them including the one in my backyard, TPC Scottsdale! I would also like to play as many public PGA courses that host PGA tournaments. There are a ton of these so I would at least like to play the big named ones such as Pebble Beach, Torrey Pines, Bay Hill, Doral and of course the ones in Scotland/England (St. Andrews, Royal St. George). These goals are not going to be cheap or easy so some of them might not happen. In the mean time I will keep playing as much as possible and post about it after. The memories I will gather from doing this I feel will be priceless!

In case anyone is wondering what might be the best course I have played. That is probably the Ocean course at Half Moon Bay in California. This is located south of San Francisco in the small town of Half Moon Bay. The ocean course has a Scottish theme and is built along the cliffs overlooking the ocean (photo below). Dawn and I went out to visit some good friends (Stefan & Julie Thorn) last May who at the time lived just down the road from this course. Stefan and I got pared up with two other local guys who knew the course very well and were very helpful with advising of shots! The course is a par 72 with a rating/slope of 71.2/125. I shot an 87 (41 on the front, 46 on the back). It’s a higher score than I’m used to, however the conditions were very tough. The wind was blowing extremely hard, as it should coming off the ocean. The rough was knee deep grass and the greens were like glass! So yeah I was more than happy with my score. I had 34 puts and hit 5 greens and 8 fairways. I had 3 birdies, 3 pars, 7 bogeys, 4 double bogeys and 1 “other”. What made it even better was coming up the 18^th fairway there was a bagpipe player walking the hole playing the pipes! It was awesome! So overall it was an awesome day on the golf course that I will never forget!

So going forward I will post blogs regarding my adventures on the golf course. I will highlight the course (hopefully with photos), outline my score and stats and call out any other cool things that happen!

Oh and as for the name….well I take some serious divots when I play, sometime big enough to cover a bald man’s head! So I figured it would be a cool golf blog name….Taking Divots! Enjoy...

 

Half Moon Bay, Ocean Course, Hole #2 (Half Moon Bay, CA) 



Half Moon Bay, Ocean Course - Hole #16 (Half Moon Bay, CA)