Day 5; Tourney Day 3: Conestoga Golf Club

The Men's 49 and under flights course rotation saved the best for last with this Troon Golf managed property.  An absolute beauty, but very tough golf course.  True desert golf with every hole having desert surrounding it or running through it.  The course runs through hills, over them and even a few holes run down arroyos.  Stunning and fun to play. 

I had hoped that our tees for this course would be in the 6,600 yard range but we were playing a hybrid of tees between the tips on a few holes and the next fwd tees (gold) on many others with a final range of 6,847.  I felt a bit stretched again but I loved the golf course, even from those tees.

Troon Golf does everything top notch.  Waiting in our carts were a yardage book, logo ball repair tool, and a logo metal bag tag.  Troon courses are always in top notch shape as well.  Unfortunately for us in the south, Troon doesn’t manage many properties nearby.  The only two I know of are Savannah Harbor Club in Savannah, GA and Sequoya National in Cherokee, NC.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was playing with Scott and Barry again whom I had played with the day before and we were joined by Dan Fisherbaugh from San Francisco, CA. Dan kept us in a light mood all day by telling hilarious jokes on every tee. We were all in that mid range in the standings 16^th to 18^th place and only 4 shots out of the money for Scott and I.  1^st place through 10^th place in each flight would receive a Callaway Golf gift card varying from $75 up to $600.   

I could tell early on in the round that this course was going to be a tough one for our flight from those tees.  I predicted to our foursome that low score for the day would be 85 (I was one off, it ended up being 84).  I was swinging better and set a goal of shooting 90 for myself.  I figured that score would be good enough for me to get into 10^th place and the money. 

I played well and had my goal score in range until our 16^th hole of the day, the par 5 Ninth which was playing into the wind.  I ballooned my tee shot so lost a good bit of yardage when the wind stopped the ball and I barely reached the fairway.  I followed with a decent 3wood shot, but this still left me over 200 yards out and into the wind.  I pulled the 3 wood again and made great contact.  The ball however had a slight fade on it and ended up pin high in a green side bunker on the right side.  I was only about 8 yards wide of hitting the green, which would end up being the difference.  My bunker trouble really took hold here.  My first attempt out of the bunker almost made it but caught the lip and rolled back down.  I quickly stepped out of the way and the ball comes to rest in one of my dug in footprints from my just taken stance of that shot.  I had no chance of getting this ball out of my foot print, so my second shot only moved it a couple of feet.  Exasperated I fail to get out with my third shot.  I finally clear the bunker with my fourth attempt but sail the green.  My final score for the hole was a 10!  Thus ended my chances of finishing top 10.  My final score for the round was 96.

Doc Scott of Ogden had a great day and shot an 88.  This picture was taken of him playing his drive from the arroyo on the par 4 Third hole.  He got a great lie and was able to hit his approach about 10 yards short of the green.  He made a great chip and made the 4 footer he had left for a fantastic par!  Scott would finish 7^th overall.

Here are a few more pics from Conestoga:

The championship dinner  that night was a cool event as the top 10 from each flight were brought up on stage.  I happened to sit down next to one of the flight winners and got to take a close look at his 1^st place trophy.  Each flight winner got one of the 20lb bronze sculptured Joshua Tree trophies.  What a nice touch.

That officially ended my Mesquite Amateur.  I finished in 11th in gross score for my flight and in solo 18th net.  Only the top 4 finishers in each flight advanced to Friday's Championship round.  I had a wonderful time and hope to make the event in 2013 for year 11.  My biggest take away was how nice the people that attend are.  All of my playing partners were great.  Two of them finished in the top 4 and two others finished in the top 10 for the flight.

Day 4; Tourney Day 2: Casablanca Golf Club

Wednesday arrives and I get up early for breakfast and arrive at the course in plenty of time to hit a few balls on the range and get in some putting.  I met the other three players in our foursome – Scott Jolley, a physician from Ogden, UT, Barry Maxwell from Dallas and Brian Sleight from Seattle. 

I’m in a tie for 15^th place so I’m looking to play better.  I’m also pleased that the course yardage is 140 yrds less than the day before.  The Casablanca tees we were playing from were about 6,720. Still long but better than 6,860! The course itself was a step up from the Palms golf course from Tourney Day 1 and the greens were well maintained and smooth.  Casablanca is layed out adjacent to the Virgin River which brings water to the valley that Mesquite sits in so the course was lush, however there were still desert areas aplenty.

My range session had gone great with all my shots being right on target.  This was my ranger rick day though.  Maybe it was nerves or just really desiring to play well, but from the first swing at Casablanca I was in a battle with pulling the ball.  It cost me several strokes and I started with a bogey, dbl bogey, triple bogey on the first three holes.  Not where I wanted to be! 

We had started on the 10^th hole and I pulled it together for a string of good holes following that to finish with an ok first nine.  However,  I ruined my chances of a good round early on the front nine with a quadruple bogey on the easiest hole on the course.  It was a short par 4 with about a 190 yrd shot to clear a water hazard, the fairway was about another 30 yards beyond.  I was tempted to hit 3 wood just to get over, but I decided on driver as I wanted to insure that I reached the short grass of the fairway instead of the rough just beyond the water hazard.  A pull hook into the hazard was the result.  My shot from the drop area was another pull into a greenside bunker.  Then my sand troubles really took hold.  I hit out of the bunker, over the green into another bunker on the opposite side.  From that bunker I went over the green again and back into the original bunker.  Finally on the green from there I two putt for a desert snowman!  Facepalm! 

At rounds end I had finished with a 90. 

I headed back to the Casablanca hotel for a quick shower then drove over to the Eureka Hotel and Casino for a Texas Hold ‘em Tourney for participants of the Mesquite Am.  Buy in was $65 and 80 golfers were participating.  It was a great time.  I started off strong with a straight on my second hand right from the flop.  Another player followed me all in and I had doubled my chips!  I played steady after that and was able to last into the top 20 players.  Not quite good enough for the top 5 which got cash prizes ranging from $1,300 to $350.  A fun event tough that I’ll make sure to participate in if I make it out for 2013.

At that evenings dinner standings were revealed for round 2.  I dropped one place in the overall standings and was now 16^th out of 30 golfers. 

Day 3: Tourney Round 1 at the Palms

Day 3 of my trip and the first tournament day started with a hardy breakfast at The Fez restaurant inside the Casablanca hotel at 5:30am.  I'm still on eastern time so no trouble getting up this early.  $3.99 gets you 2XL eggs prepared how you'd like them, hash browns, 3 strips of bacon and toast.

I drive over to the Palms Golf Course and get in some putting and hit some balls at the range in prep for our 8am tee time.  The first thing I notice on the official scorecard is the length we would be playing from, which was 6,847 yards.  Three of the par 3's were over 200 yards and two of the par 4's were over 445 yards. That's a lot of golf course for me.  I usually play from just over 6,500 back home.

Palms Golf course is a tale of two courses really.  The front nine is mostly flat and the back nine has extreme elevation change.  My foursome is assigned the 10th tee to start.  Here are a couple of pictures from the back nine.

I played very well on the back nine, shooting a 41.  The back is actually the longer of the two nines but some of that distance is due to the elevation changes.  There are several drives that are from high cliffs and hills way above the fairway.  

Here are a few pics from the Front nine:

The front nine reminded me of golfing in Florida!  Flat and long!  I shot a 47 on the back for a total of 88.  My round of 88 was good enough for 15th place going in to round 2.  The leaders were at 81 in the 30 Man flight. 

Next post: Day 4: Round 5.

Day 2, part 2: Mesquite Amateur registration, demo day and dinner

After golf on Monday at Wolf Creek, I wandered over to the Casablanca Casino & Hotel to check in to my room and register for the Mesquite Amateur.  Upon completing registration we got some golf swag:  Hat, golf shirt, repair tool and ball mark, and a towel.  Everybody loves free golf swag!

After unloading my gear in the hotel room, I drove over to the close by Casablanca Golf Course for the Mesquite Amateur Demo day.  Callaway, Titleist and Pure Grips were on hand for golf tourney attendees and the public to try out.  There was also a chipping contest a la "The Big Break" with the fear inducing flop shot wall.  I made it over the wall and on to the green to a measurement of around 15 feet but was not the closest which ended up being 4 feet. I looked over the Pure Grips and almost bought some but ended up heading back over to the Hotel.

Dinner was at 6 and was a big welcome party for the 600 participants:

 

I hit the sack around 10:00pm so that I'd be ready for my 8:00am tee time.  Speaking of which I need to get to bed now so I'll be ready for my Wednesday round.  I know I'm a day behind and I'll do my best to try to catch up tomorrow afternoon by blogging about my Tuesday and Wednesday round.

Day 2, Part 1: Wolf Creek

Wolf Creek......spectacular, stunning, jaw dropping and many other adjectives were used by myself and the two fine gentleman that I was paired with to describe this amazing golf course as we were playing it.  This picture was my first look at the course:

After seeing it in person Wolf Creek is tied at the top in my personal list of most scenic courses played.  The other course is The Challenge At Manele on the island of Lanai in Hawaii. Wolf Creek is featured in the last few versions of EA Sports Tiger Woods video game and that is were I first got my taste of it.  The video game is so stunning that if you've played you might even ask if its a real course or one just made up for the game.  The real thing was even more amazing. It is a very tough course and a bit on the steep side to play.  I'm here in the off season and it was $125.  The course is ranked in Golf Magazine's Top 100 You Can Play list.  I played from the "Masters" tees which are rated 68.2/134 and are the recommended tees for 9-19 hdcp indexes.  I shot an 86 (45,41).  Every single hole could be a "signature" hole on any other course.  Here are a few more pics:

If you ever find yourself in Vegas it is worth while to drive the 1 hour and 15 minute trip up to Mesquite to take in Wolf Creek.  The only negative thing I have to say about the course is that their driving range is very short and is irons only.  You'll quickly forget that though when you step on the first tee and see how beautiful this property is.  I played with two older guys who were also in town for the Mesquite Amateur.  Alan (69) and Norm (85) were a pleasure to play with and they enjoyed the course as much as I did. We sat down in the club house after the round for lunch and talked about our fabulous time at Wolf Creek.

Day 1 - Paiute: Snow Mountain course

Departure day is finally here! After a fitful night sleep I woke up at 6:00am and drove to the airport and boarded my 9:00am Southwest flight (golf clubs and my clothes bag checked for free!  Take that Delta!).  I scored a high A boarding pass and was able to grab an exit row window seat for the flight to Las Vegas.  Landed 10:30am local time, got my bags (clubs arrived on time and safe).  Got in the rental car and started heading out to Paiute which is about 25 minutes NW of the strip.

Lunch - By this time it was 11:45am and my stomach was thinking it was 2:45.  I saw a sign for In-N-Out Burger and figured I'd give them a try since I've met many people that love it.  I got the Double-Double and it lived up to the hype.  Great burger.

Paiute has three Pete Dye courses.  I played the Sun Mountain course last time I was in Vegas which was about 6 years ago.  The site is on the Paiute tribe reservation so there are no houses to distract from the views. The only complaint you may hear about these courses is that it can be very windy where they are, much more so than on the same day down in Vegas proper.  Fortunately I caught a very mild day with winds blowing from just 5-10mph.  Here are a few pics of Snow Mountain:

I shot ok, a 91.  The greens were faster than what I'm used to back home so I struggled with putting and chipping.  I had 4 three putts and a four putt.  I was happy with my game off the tee and approaches so there was at least a partial good feeling.

Ok, running out of time and I've got to get to sleep.  I should have more time tomorrow so I'll try to write posts for Day 2: Wolf Creek and Day 3: Mesquite Am opening round.

Bags packed - Nevada here I come!

Off to the airport first thing in the morning!  Game is feeling pretty good, just have to avoid the big "others" and I think I'll be ok.  My last 5 rounds were 85, 84 (combined 9 hole rnds), 84, 81, 83.

Packed my bags and have my clothes all picked out for 6 rounds of golf!

Next I gave my clubs a bath.  All washed and clean and ready for the course!

Tomorrow's round will be at Paiute golf on the Sun Mountain course in sunny Las Vegas.  Looks like great weather tomorrow with a high only in the low 80's.  Temps will climb quickly as the rest of the week in Mesquite looks to have temps in the high 90's to low 100's.  I'll try to post pictures here on the blog from rounds throughout the week.  If you're on twitter you can also follow my rounds I'm @cpljohnst

Now to see if I can get any sleep.  I'm like a little kid before any trip and rarely sleep well.  If not I'll try to catch some winks on the 4.5 hour plane ride! 

Next Post from Vegas!!!!!!!