The Red-Headed Stepchild

I have not played at Camelback Golf Club since last summer when the Indian Bend Course was not in very good shape so we decided to check it out in high season. The Indian Bend Course is the red-headed stepchild at Camelback Country Club. The Padre Course is considered the premier course and is well-maintained.

I actually like the Indian Bend Course better because it is a little longer and less tricked-out. It plays over 7,000 yards, but the balls runs on the fairway so it seems to play shorter than its actual length. It is an old-fashioned Midwestern style course with generous fairways and trees bordering the fairways. If you miss the fairway by 5 or 10 yards, you oftentimes have tree trouble. If you miss the fairway by 25 to 30 yards you have a clear shot to the green. The Indian Bend Course encircles the Padre Course and is partially within the Indian Bend Wash. There are some long cart drives between greens and the next tee boxes. It seems like the architect could have built another 5 or 6 holes with all of the wasted land, but the design was probably impacted by the wash and the architect's ability to channel waters through the course. Because of the long distances between holes, you have to use a cart and cannot walk, which is a disadvantage.

The Gardener, Chad Feldheimer and I teed off in the mid-morning and the weather was gorgeous. Randall from the Panhandle in Florida was our fourth. Randy was a good guy and a good golfer. He is a medical salesperson and met his wife, an obstetrician/gynecologist, while he was selling gynecological medical equipment. That seems a little weird.

The first hole on the Indian Bend Course is the No. 1 handicap hole, a 432-yard, par-4. It is unusual to start off with the toughest hole on the course. I drove my ball into the right rough and had tree trouble. I pulled my second shot left of the green, hit a bad wedge and made double-bogey. Not the start I was hoping for! My front 9 included 4 double-bogeys, 3 pars and one birdie and one bogey for a 44. With my flatter swing plane I was making better contact with my driver and irons and hitting it longer than normal. However, my short game, including my putting, was terrible. On the back 9 I continued to hit my driver and irons well and improved my short game and putting. I only had one double-bogey to go with my 4 bogeys, 3 pars and 1 birdie for a 41. I had two other legitimate birdie putts from inside 10 feet, but missed both. Overall, I was very pleased with my 85, although with a course rating of only 122, my handicap index for the round was not as low as I hoped.

The Gardener shot a 44 on the front 9 and got hot on the back and was even par through 6 holes before he double bogeyed the 16th hole and finished with two pars for a 38 on the back 9 and a total score of 82. Chad Feldheimer shot an 80 and had some of the worst luck you can imagine on the course. As I mentioned earlier, if you missed the fairway by 20 or 25 yards, you had an open shot to the green. Chad was bombing his driver and hit it through the fairway on a number of occasions, generally putting himself right behind a tree. On one hole he hooked his drive down into the dry wash and had to hit from the wash over trees to the green. He hit a beautiful shot that clipped the branch at the very top of the tree and dropped straight down. On No. 14, a par-5, 570 yard hole, Chad drive the ball about 310 yards down the middle of the fairway and had 260 yards to the center of the green. He hit a screaming 3 wood that was rolling toward the green when it hit the sign in the middle of the fairway directing carts to the side. The ball ended up about 30 yards from the green. Rather than putting for eagle, Chad settled for a par. It was just one of those days for Chad.

Weekend Wrap-Up

While laid up with my funny bone injury, this gives me a chance to catch up on last week's golf. On Saturday, Chad Feldheimer and I went back to Vistal Golf Club, which is located in south Phoenix in the South Mountain foothills (the bottom of the home page has an animated fly-over of each hole). It is a beautiful location with wonderful views of South Mountain, Camelback Mountain, Squaw Peak and downtown Phoenix. The golf course was renovated and extended so that it plays 7,013 yards from the blue tip tees. I shot a fairly uneventful 89 with a birdie 2 on the 200+ yard par-3 13th hole. The excitement of the day was Chad's tee shot on the par-3 191 yard 15th hole. His tee shot rimmed and circled the cup and ended up less than a foot from the flagstick for a kick-in birdie. But the real excitement was on the elevated par 4 6th hole. Chad was checking my ball position and alignment and he almost jumped out of his skin. Not more than 10 feet from him, there was a huge snake in the desert that looked like a diamondback rattlesnake, but Chad did not stay around long enough to check it out.

On Sunday, I decided to go out to the Indian Bend Golf Course at Camelback Country Club by myself. The temperature was about 108 degrees and I figured the course would be empty and I would hit 2 or 3 balls and just practice. I was wrong! When the price of golf drops there are a lot of people like me that will play notwithstanding the weather. I played with 2 other singles and the course was packed. We played from the red "baby tees" that measure 6,486 yards. I had tap-in birdies on the two par-5s on the front 9 and shot a 41 with book-end double-bogeys. I felt like Phil Mickelson or Tiger Woods making easy birdies on the par-5 holes. I was a little unlucky on the 1st and 9th holes because I drove the ball through the fairways and ended up behind the trees and I had to chip out on No. 1 and I tried a heroic shot on No. 9 and failed. On the back 9 I was on the par-5 greens in regulation with reasonable opportunities for birdie but did not make either birdie putt. I shot a 42 on the back 9 for an 83 total. I had a lot more 7, 8 and 9-iron shots into the greens than when I play from the "big boy tees".

In recognition of my impending surgery, Chad Feldheimer and I played a late afternoon round of golf at Stonecreek Golf Club on Tuesday. We teed off at about 4:45 and sunset is about 7:45 so we thought we would not have any problems finishing before it was dark. We got stuck behind a threesome on the 4th hole and we waited on each shot until the turn. The threesome must have quit after 9 holes and we moved along well until about the 14th hole when we caught up with another group and waited on each shot coming home. We finished just as the sun set. I shot a pedestrian 90 with 45s on each side. A coyote mother and father with 5 cubs followed us in the dry wash for part of the back 9 holes. On the par-5 13th hole I was 30 yards from the green hitting my third shot and skulled the ball over the green and into the dry wash area. I thought about leaving the ball since I was not sure where the coyotes were lurking, but my frugality took over and I risked life and limb to retrieve the ball and make bogey.