The Perfect Sports Day

Sunday was a sports day. Hiking in the early morning with SO, golf in the afternoon with the Gardener and floor seats at the Suns basketball game in the evening. It does not get much better than that! The weather was cold in the morning when we went hiking, but it warmed up to about 70 degrees with clear skies by mid-afternoon. Perfect golf weather!

I have got the Gardener into a physical fitness routine. His wife bought him a pull cart for his golf clubs and we have been walking the golf courses. He has become a bit of a pull cart snob. A few weeks ago we played at ASU Karsten Golf Course and the course would not allow him to use his pull carts so the Gardener decided to spite the course and ride in a cart rather than walk and carry his bag. I have absolutely no idea why a golf course would not permit pull carts other than golfers may pull them through the sand bunkers or across the green. I guess you need to make rules for the lowest common denominator. This week we played at Aguila Golf Course in South Phoenix. In the areas within 25 yards or so of the greens there were signs prohibiting golf carts from getting any closer to the greens, which is normal. But there were also signs prohibiting pull carts around the greens. As a pull cart snob, the Gardener was a little miffed about this rule. Of course, he understood not to pull his cart over the green or even the apron around the green, but 25 yards from the green, come on!

Aguila is the newest of the Phoenix municipal courses. It is a really nice track (see photo gallery)that plays to more than 7,000 yards from the black tees. There were three or four holes where the course was adding additional tee boxes to lengthen the course that were not yet open. Thank goodness! The course was designed by Gary Panks, who is one of the most prolific golf course designers in Arizona, with credits for The Golf Club at Chaparral Pines, Firerock Country Club, Whirlwind Golf Club (Cattail Course) and Whirlwind Golf Club (Devils Claw Course), among many others. Aguila is an interesting layout because there are two drivable (not for me) 300 yard par-4 holes and one short par-3 hole, which means that the par-4 holes are monsters. There are 5 par-4 holes that range from 433 yards to 471 yards. The course rating is 72.4 and the slope rating is 129.

The course was closed for a few months recently to redesign the bunkers because the golfers complained about the number and size of the fairway bunkers, the depth of the greenside bunkers and the lack of sand in the greenside bunkers. I never played the course with all of the bunkers but Matt, our playing partner on Sunday, pointed out a number of the bunker locations that are now grass. The only disappointing part of the golf course are the newly-renovated greenside bunkers. Matt said they used to be deep and difficult to escape. Now they are flat and serve no purpose. I actually putted out of three of the greenside bunkers with no difficulty. I would have liked to play the course as originally designed.

I played very consistently. I was generally hitting my driver straight down the middle of the fairway and hitting my hybrids and long irons okay. I only had two double-bogeys, one where I hit the ball into the water and another on a par-3 where I just mishit my tee shot and took a penalty stroke. I made a birdie on a par-5 hole and had 4 pars for an 86. On Saturday, I worked on my flop shot at the practice facility. After hitting about 30 flop shots without mishitting one, I was really comfortable hitting that shot. I hit three flop shots on Sunday from difficult positions out of the desert or over greenside bunkers. One was close enough that I did not need my putter and the other two were in the makeable putt range. The Gardener played really well in long stretches, but had a few erratic holes that killed his round. He shot a 90.

After golf, we washed up and headed to U.S. Airways Arena to see the Suns play the New Orleans Hornets and Chris Paul. Our seats were in the third row on the floor behind one of the baskets. The Suns played really well for 47 minutes and 30 seconds and then almost blew an 8 point lead in the last 30 seconds, but held on to win the game. The floor seats under the basket are really cool because you can see all of the action up close and you can see how big, athletic and physical the players are. If I had a choice of any seat in the house for a full season I would not want to sit in these seats because a small portion of the court is obstructed by the basket stanchion and you are peaking from one side to the other, but for one game it was a lot of fun (and the price was right).