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).
Showing posts with label Aguila Golf Course. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aguila Golf Course. Show all posts
Monday, January 31, 2011
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Heresy! A 12-Hole Round of Golf
I kind of lost interest in my blog for the last month or so. I have been playing a lot of golf and the "World Of" trip to St. Andrews is coming together so there is a lot to talk about, but it is hard to find an hour or more to write a good post. But since my son Tyler and the Joker are pining for more posts here goes.
As the days get shorter and the weather gets colder (yes, it does get cold in Arizona; we are in the Sonoran Desert!), the daily window for playing 18 holes of golf dwindles. I played four times in a row in a three week period recently and did not once finish 18 holes! One time playing at Aguila Golf Course the weather was so nasty (cold, windy and drizzling) that the Gardener and I quit after 14 holes. Another time playing at Phoenix Country Club with Fred Flintstone we started after 2 p.m. and simply ran out of daylight. At Stonecreek Golf Club, Chad Feldheimer and I were supposed to tee off at 11:30 and we were delayed for an hour because of early-morning frost on the greens and then simply bad course management and after 4 hours and 30 minutes we quit on the 14th hole. Finally, playing with Digger at Moon Valley Country Club, we simply miscalculated how quickly we could play 18 holes and did not finish before darkness.
These rounds got me thinking about why golf is 18 holes instead of 12, 14 or 20 holes. As usual, everything in golf revolves around St. Andrews. Around 1764, St. Andrews converted from 22 holes to 18 holes (actually St. Andrews had 11 holes and the golfer played each hole twice). In 1858, the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews issued new rules for its members; Rule 1 stated "one round of the Links or 18 holes is reckoned a match unless otherwise stipulated". However, I like the legend that 18 holes aligns perfectly with the number of shots in a fifth of scotch -- one shot per hole.
I know it is heresy to talk about playing less than 18 holes of golf, but the idea of playing 12 holes in 2 1/2 hours is intriguing. While spending 5 to 6 hours at the golf course (including warm-up time and a round at the 19th hole) sounds fine to me, there are a lot of people with busy lives that do not want to spend the entire day at the golf course. For a while it would be cool to shoot in the high 50s or low 60s and even break the fabled 59! Existing golf courses may have to be reconfigured a bit, but the courses could either rotate out one 6 for maintenance or players could play two of the three 6 hole layouts. New courses could be built on smaller parcels of land to accommodate 12 holes instead of 18 and would require less water and maintenance. Assuming a course reduced its daily fee, it could make up the difference with lower operating costs and more rounds.
As the days get shorter and the weather gets colder (yes, it does get cold in Arizona; we are in the Sonoran Desert!), the daily window for playing 18 holes of golf dwindles. I played four times in a row in a three week period recently and did not once finish 18 holes! One time playing at Aguila Golf Course the weather was so nasty (cold, windy and drizzling) that the Gardener and I quit after 14 holes. Another time playing at Phoenix Country Club with Fred Flintstone we started after 2 p.m. and simply ran out of daylight. At Stonecreek Golf Club, Chad Feldheimer and I were supposed to tee off at 11:30 and we were delayed for an hour because of early-morning frost on the greens and then simply bad course management and after 4 hours and 30 minutes we quit on the 14th hole. Finally, playing with Digger at Moon Valley Country Club, we simply miscalculated how quickly we could play 18 holes and did not finish before darkness.
These rounds got me thinking about why golf is 18 holes instead of 12, 14 or 20 holes. As usual, everything in golf revolves around St. Andrews. Around 1764, St. Andrews converted from 22 holes to 18 holes (actually St. Andrews had 11 holes and the golfer played each hole twice). In 1858, the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews issued new rules for its members; Rule 1 stated "one round of the Links or 18 holes is reckoned a match unless otherwise stipulated". However, I like the legend that 18 holes aligns perfectly with the number of shots in a fifth of scotch -- one shot per hole.
I know it is heresy to talk about playing less than 18 holes of golf, but the idea of playing 12 holes in 2 1/2 hours is intriguing. While spending 5 to 6 hours at the golf course (including warm-up time and a round at the 19th hole) sounds fine to me, there are a lot of people with busy lives that do not want to spend the entire day at the golf course. For a while it would be cool to shoot in the high 50s or low 60s and even break the fabled 59! Existing golf courses may have to be reconfigured a bit, but the courses could either rotate out one 6 for maintenance or players could play two of the three 6 hole layouts. New courses could be built on smaller parcels of land to accommodate 12 holes instead of 18 and would require less water and maintenance. Assuming a course reduced its daily fee, it could make up the difference with lower operating costs and more rounds.
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