Golf Extravaganza

So I played some golf this week. I don't have any pictures of my actual trip yet, but have found a few stock photos to illustrate where I played. Thanks to a loving (and golf obsessed) Grandfather, I got to go along and play Poppy hills, Pebble Beach, Spanish Bay, and Spyglass Hill, all located just south of Monterrey in Pacific Grove, CA. It was a great trip, and the courses were quite spectacular.

I played horrid the first day at Poppy Hills, sending almost all approach shots deep over the greens and into the forest. This led to many lost balls and high scores. I did not take any money off of anyone that day.

The next course was the famed Pebble Beach Golf Links. It was as glorious a place as you would envision. Many holes on the ocean, waves crashing on the rocks to where you get a little brine on your skin... Quite lovely. I have one piece of advice for anyone who goes to play there.... get the

yardage book. I did not know that these existed prior to the round, and found myself lost frequently out on the course. The yardage markers on course are similar to most places, the stakes denoting 200, 150, and 100 yards in are there, as are sprinkler head yardages, so that was not so much the tricky thing. What made the round difficult was the amount of blind shots, and dog legs to who knows where. There were several times standing on the tee where I wondered... where does this hole go? On number 8 you hit up from the sea shore to an elevated fairway, after which the hole doglegs right over a sea ravine back down to a lowered

green. From the tee you can see nothing but the crest of the fairway about 100 yards ahead of you. From walking to the crest of the hill I could see the group in front of us at the dogleg hitting

down to the right, and assumed that there was ample room to hit driver up to their position. I hit a pure and straight drive, one that would go 280+ on any normal hole. The problem came when we got up to the dogleg and discovered the chasm at 230 yards out. So my glorious tee shot went gloriously into the ocean. This kind of thing happened a handful of times, which did not help anyones score. Of all the courses I played this week, I hope to get back to Pebble Beach sometime and redeem myself with my new working knowledge of the course. I will brag, however, that I hit one of the most superb tee shots of my life on 18. (pictured) For anyone who is familiar with the hole from tv, or playing it, you know that you have the option of playing a short safe tee shot, or aiming further left over the water and trying to cut the corner deeper into the fairway. I was able to place a nice 290 yarder out over the ocean and landed it right up next to the second of the two pines that are in the center of the fairway. It was rewarding to hit a shot

that you see the top pros hit.

The next two days were at Spanish Bay, and Spyglass. Spanish Bay is a course that rewards accuracy, and punishes errors, as the holes are set in amongst sand dunes. If you miss the fairway, you're in trouble. I probably only hit driver off the tee three times during the round, and posted my best score of the week, and took back all the cash I had lost the first two days.

The final round at Spyglass was a good one to end

on. The course has a good mix, as the first five holes are near the ocean, and had a similar feel to Spanish Bay. The last 13 go back up into the

forest, and lose the sand dunes and iceplants. I played a poor first six or seven holes, and then redeemed myself with a great final 10 or 11. I guess that Robert Lewis Stevenson spent some time in the area in the 19th century, and was friends of the founder of the Pebble Beach company, which owns the latter three courses. I always thought that RL Stevenson was much older than that, but I was mistaken. The elementary school in Pacific Grove bares his name, and Spyglass itself is named after a landmark in Treasure Island. Each hole on the course is named after some character or item from the novel.

I will post a few pictures from the trip when I get them from the Vernon. (Grandpa) There are a few of the group at various points in the trip, and a few of the deer that are all over each of the courses. (Grandpa nearly took out two with one tee shot at Poppy)