Day 9 - Golf at PGA West Stadium Course

Bit of a sleep in this morning. Leisurely breakfast then headed out to play golf at one of the best courses here in Palm Springs. They have the final qualifying for the tour school here each year, so it is designed to be difficult.



PGA West - Stadium Course



We played with 2 guys from Chicago called Rick and John. They were here for a long weekend of golf. Not sure if they were friends, work colleagues or what?? John was a terrible golfer, must have lost 20 balls at least. Rick was quite good early on but he fell off the pace as the round went on.



PGA West

 The course was AMAZING. It was links style so very undulating fairways. The fairways were like carpet, the grass was so thick and lush. The rough is still dormant after winter so it looks brown but is supposed to look like that. Everything was immaculate. They give you large cups of iced water and you can refill them all the way round. The 17th hole is the signature hole - with an island green (which all 4 of us managed to hit!).


Sean at PGA West



Tricky bunkers

Sean and I both played pretty well. I was very pleased with my game on such a hard course. We both had a 4 pointer and I made a par on the 17th which was exciting. Sean finished with 30 points and I had 28. Does not sound high, but as I previously stated this was a very difficult course designed for the Pro's, so I was happy. It is the 4th harder course in the USA and as I play off a handicap of 27 and Sean plays off 8 it was a good day :-).
It was quite expensive to play there, but well worth it. We had a drink and snack in the bar afterwards and bought some PGA West items from the Pro shop - had to get in some shopping :-)

Perfect fairways!!



17th Green



Back to the hotel for a shower then headed out to dinner. We went to an area that was recommended to us by our waiter the other night. It was called the "River" and it had loads of restaurants and a cinema complex etc. Had dinner at California Bistro. As we walked in I saw Lleyton Hewitt eating his dinner with Bec, 3 children and 2 friends. I saw Bec in the ladies loo while Mia was going to the toilet and said hello!.

There is a huge tennis tournament starting here at Indian Wells tomorrow. Quite a lot of big names are playing including Federer. We can see the tennis centre from our hotel as it is just across the road, but we are leaving tomorrow to go to Las Vegas so will miss all the "fun". We are not big tennis fans anyway so we are not too upset! - much rather be having fun in Vegas :-).



Indian Wells Tennis Centre

  Back in hotel now, will have a quiet night before our 4-5 hour drive tomorrow

Day 8 - Golf at Indian Springs and more shopping

Up at 7am. Had breakfast then went a few miles down the road for our 9am tee time at Indian Springs. Supposed to have the best greens in Palm Springs.



Indian Springs GC





Indian Springs GC

 Played with a nice guy called Allen who lives in Florida. He is a Psychologist and was over here at a conference. He had a great sense of humor and we enjoyed his company. The course did not look too good at first. I think we were spoiled yesterday with such a magnificent setting. However, it did improve after the first 2 holes and we all enjoyed it. It was set  amongst houses rather than the mountains, but the snow topped mountains were still close enough to make the views pretty good again.



Sean and Jane

 Sean had 38 points today, he played very well. Had 2 birdies in a row on the back 9, sunk a 50 foot putt for one of them. I also played pretty well today and had 34 points. I was very happy with that score on a resort course. All this practice must be paying off because we are both hitting the ball well now :-)
Had a voucher for lunch that came with our booking so we all enjoyed a nice cheeseburger on the outside deck of the club house afterwards. The weather was again sunny and very warm - perfect.

Indian Springs club house

After golf we headed out of town to visit more factory outlets. This one was massive - basically 3 different centers all joined together. We shopped and shopped some more. Our best bargains were to be found at Van Heussen where they had 50% off plus 10% more and another 15% again - then they gave us an extra 10% on top of the lot!!! - each item ended up about $15 - real bargains :-)
After about 4 hours of walking my knees finally gave up the ghost and so we drove back to our hotel. Had a shower, put 2 loads of washing on and headed across the hotel carpark for dinner at Applebees. What a great restaurant, food is just so cheap over here. I had the low calorie option of chicken and shrimp with pesto - it was delicious. Sean had southern fried chicken which looked good too. Everyone is so friendly and helpful.
One of the guys in the group ahead of us at golf today heard me talking before we teed off. He said that he "liked my voice" - assuming he meant accent! I said that we were from Brisbane Australia and his friend said "oh, I thought you were from Kansas" Mmmm - not always so smart :-)
Tomorrow we are playing one of the best courses here, the Stadium Course at PGA West, supposed to be very challenging for the pros so should be quite interesting for me!. Must go and get the washing out of the dryer then time for bed.

Day 7 - Golf at La Quinta Resort - Mountain Course

Wow, wow and more wow - the golf course was AMAZING!


Wind Turbines



Jane at La Quinta

 But, back to the start of the day first :-). We left San Diego at about 8:30am and headed for Palm Springs. The drive took about 2 and a half hours and was very easy. There is still snow on the tops of the mountains but the temperature began to rise quickly the closer we got to Palm Springs. There were miles and miles of wind turbines on the way into Palm Springs which was interesting.


La Qunita - Mountain Course





La Quinta

 Arrived at La Quinta Resort and unloaded the clubs. The weather was sunny and really warm - short sleeve golf shirts today - about 27 today and perfect. Now back to my opening wow statement - for any of you who have ever seen golf played at Palm Springs you will have seen how the courses are tucked in at the bases of the mountains and it is really spectacular.

We played with another Father and son duo, called George and Greg, they were from Canada. When Greg left home yesterday it was -38 Celsius !!!. George and his wife had been down here in the warmth from January and still had another month here before heading home - what a nice life these retired people have :-)

I played pretty well on the front 9 but came undone for a couple of holes on the back which kept me real. Sean had 3 birdies in his round, but also had a few mixed holes :-). Again, no matter what the scores, the experience itself was outstanding. The scenery was quite breathtaking, even saw a roadrunner (honestly, even got a picture - see below)





Roadrunner - Beep Beep!





Checked into our hotel, the Hilton Homewood Suites in La Quinta. It is quite nice having a separate lounge and kitchen area from the bedroom, you can spread out a bit.



La Quinta - Mountain Course



Jane & Sean

 Showered then headed out for dinner. Stopped at the supermarket for diet coke and peanut butter cups (yum). Drove around until we found a nice restaurant. Had the most delicious steaks with pepper sauce, mash and greens. Cooked to perfection and very tasty. There was a short wait to get our main meal so they gave us a free desert - deep fried cheesecake - I could only eat half of mine :-)

Tomorrow we are playing at Indian Springs then plan to go to the outlet centre - this one is really really big. There are also lots of local golf shops which we will visit. Tried to find a show to see tomorrow night but the only options are Engelbert Humperdink or the Follies, who are all aged between 58 and 81!!!!!!! - might have a late dinner and an early night instead :-)

Day 6 - San Diego sightseeing



Cabrillo National Monument

 Wow, I have fallen in love with San Diego, what a great city. Had a wonderful day exploring the sights. We had little sleep in and a leisurely breakfast at the hotel then headed a few miles around the bay to the Cabrillo National Monument. I knew that San Diego had a naval history but I did not realize the extent of it's current influence. The monument was part of the Rosecrans Military Reservation and it overlooked the city, the Coronado bridge and the huge North Island Naval Base, which is a massive base with huge runways and military installations all over it.



View from Cabrillo National Monument 

 We drove down to the ocean side of Point Loma and saw some fins in the water, there are supposed to be grey whales migrating at this time of year, but we only saw one blow of water into the air and the fins looked more like porpoise or dolphins :-)


Yacht Race

 Drove by the America's Cup yacht squadron but could only see lots and lots of yachts in a marina :-)


Jane sitting in the cockpit

 Next we headed into the city and went to the USS Midway which is an ex-aircraft carrier that has been turned into a museum. It was fascinating to do the tour. We listened to all the volunteers giving lectures on how the aircraft were launched and also how they land on the deck etc.. Being mid week the crowds were almost non existent so we were able to go up into the bridge etc without waiting in line. I think we were there for about 4 hours in the end - well worth a visit.



Coronado Bridge



Planes on the deck

 When we first pulled up at the Midway we saw some yachts sailing very close to the pier, we watched the first race start which was exciting. The lady who was doing the race commentary said that a lot of the crew were America's Cup crew. Just had a look at the local news and the race was the RC44 cup, so it was proper racing. The yachts looked pretty spectacular on their spinnaker runs.

The weather was beautiful. Started out a little overcast but the clouds burned off and the sun was nice and warm. We then decided to go and have a look at Torrey Pines Golf Club. We could not play the better known South Course because they were coring the greens today. We managed to have a bit of a look around, wandered through the shop, grabbed a couple of golf cards and took some pictures. We could not walk over to the coast line for the really good views so we drove around to the other side by the coast. We came across a hang gliding club and watched them for a while. Had a great view of the coast and could see a bit more of the golf course.
 

Torrey Pines



Torrey Pines



Beautiful coastline at Torrey Pines



Next we decided to go to another outlet centre that was pretty close. They all have slightly different shops so managed to buy a few more golf related clothes. Sean got quite a bit this time which was good. Only 2 more outlet shopping expeditions planned - one in Palm Springs and the other in Vegas.

Getting hungry so we drove back into town. Headed over the Coronado bridge and found a nice restaurant there - it said bistro outside but was in fact Modern Mexican. Very nice again, totally different food to last night.

Back to the hotel and packed ready for an early start tomorrow. Driving to Palm Springs and playing golf at 12md - time for sleep now.

Day 5 - Barona Creek Golf Club

Nice breakfast at the hotel then set off on a 40 minute drive into the hills to the Barona Creek Golf Club. There is also a huge resort and casino there, not that we visited either!.



Barona Creek Golf Club



Some great holes ....

 The scenery was absolutely breathtaking - the course was surrounded by mountains, some of which still had snow on top. The holes didn't look very exciting from a distance but once you played them they were excellent, lots of bunkers and links style scrub. We played with a father and son, Steve and Sean. Sean was very slow and I really hate slow golf, so I lost a bit of interest for a while and enjoyed the scenery instead. My Sean easily beat my score today so we level up the competition at 1 game each!

Barona Creek resort & casino

Really enjoyed the day. Back to our hotel for a shower and change, then headed out for dinner. We went to the Gaslamp district and had a REALLY nice Mexican meal. We figured we couldn't get closer to being in Mexico itself so we thought the food might be authentic - and it was, yum!



A warning about the wildlife

We drove back to our hotel which is at Liberty Station. I must say that the drivers over here are very courteous, no one honks their horns, everyone merges well and seeing as sometimes the freeways are upto 8 lanes each way, it all flows very well. 

Barona Creek GC

 We have a huge SUV - Ford Expedition, it fits the golf clubs and our luggage nicely!!
Tomorrow is a sightseeing in San Diego day. Could not play golf at Torrey Pines because they are coring their greens, but we will probably still go and have a look amongst other attractions :-)

Day 4 - Golf at Oak Creek and San Diego



Oak Creek Golf Club

 Had our last breakfast at the Hyatt Sommerfield Suites in El Segundo. Left there about 9:30 am and headed south. We went to Irvine which was about half way between LA and San Diego - to the Oak Creek Golf Club. It was a nice country style course and we both played a lot better. I needed to sink my putt on the last hole to halve the match - and I did! I won the game at Trump National so I am still one up!!



Jane at Oak Creek

 Had a late lunch after golf at the club - a really nice turkey sandwich. The food here is either really really nice or absolutely awful - there does not seem to be any in-between. Lots of nice healthy salads and light options on most menu's which is good. Learning to choose more wisely :-)



Beautiful scenery - again!

 Everyone there was very friendly, a lot of them had already been to Australia to play golf so they were very interested to hear about where we play at home and where we had played here. I am sure we will get a few visitors in the next few years who want to play at RQ!!.


Drove from there to the Marriott Courtyard Hotel in San Diego. Have checked in and had a shower. Have put some laundry in the machines now so we will finally have an hour to sit and relax for a change - we have been very busy until now (not complaining!). Might go and get an ice cream later to finish off the day.
Tomorrow is golf at Barona Creek.

Day 3 - Shopping and Ice Hockey

Another great day in LA. Started by going to a huge shopping centre called Del Amo, it had Sears, JC Penny and Macey's. They all had big sales on, but only bought one pair of trousers. Next we went to the big Citadel Outlet centre. A bit like our DFO but with real bargains and a wide variety of brands. Started with lunch at Ruby's Diner, listened to a guy in the next booth talking crap about things in Australia - as per his "friend" who lives 45 mins out of Sydney - it was soooooo hard for me not to say something, but Sean kept whispering across the table, telling me not to speak up :-)



Hollywood sign

 Shopped till we dropped, bought some great Izod golf shirts for $11 each - they were 80% off. Got Levi jeans that actually fit me for $30, a Guess bag, a Gap sweatshirt etc... Sean also got golf clothes and a few other items that he wanted. With the $$$$ being so good at the moment shopping here is excellent.
Next we decided to drive to Pasadena for a look, it was supposed to be very pretty with well manicured gardens etc.. All the snow that was on the mountains yesterday and this morning melted during the day (it was lovely aond sunny and warm today) and it certainly was pretty.

Next we came back to Hollywood, still couldn't drive all the way down Hollywood Boulevard as they were still disassembling the Oscars set-up, but we had a look at the Hollywood sign on the hill and some of the stars on the pavement. I have to say that it was a bit creepy and dirty around there, lots of sex shops and bong shops and weird people - felt much safer back in the car :-)



LA Kings ice hockey



Went to the Staples Centre and watched the LA Kings loose 7 to 4 in ice hockey against the Detroit Red Skins. Very entertaining sport to watch live, and it was sold out so the crowd atmosphere was great.



LA Kings



Time for bed now, heading to San Diego tomorrow.