As this is my first official "blog entry" I felt I would tell you about my day walking on at one of my favorite golf courses in Northern California, Poppy Ridge. Poppy Ridge is a Rees Jones (redesigned) course in the hills of Livermore, California. It is the home of the Northern California Golf Association or The NCGA. It's sister course is Poppy Hills in Carmel that is used early in the year as one the 3 rotating courses for the AT&T Pro Am, held at Pebble Beach and Spyglass, and of course Poppy Hills. Both Poppy Hills and Poppy Ridge are member courses for the NCGA and offer great price breaks for daily fees.
It was real cold (for the Bay Area) here this morning so I didn't go out early, mistake number 1. I went over to the course about 9:30 and the first tee time available was in 3 hours!. I waited for about 30 minutes, putted a bit, loosened up a little, then found out that there was a tournament in process of going out (the desk jockey didn't tell me) so I left. I knew that I would be able to get on at a course on the way back home, a course called Sunol Valley.
Sunol Valley is two 18 holes courses that are old courses but still in pretty good shape. They get a lot of play and don't cost an arm and a leg, at least for the San Francisco Bay Area. It was a bit cold and breezy when we teed off about 11:15am. I was paired with 3 other guys, from the New York/New Jersey area. We were following 2 groups of 4, half of which were wearing jeans and tennis shoes....it was going to be a long day.
3 hours later I finished the front 9, 2 birdies, a few bogies, a few pars. Not bad but not good. 3 hours is ridiculous for 9 holes. What I remembered about why I don't play there much at all anymore is that you get a lot of "newer" golfers there who don't really know the rules or etiquette and were all over the course in front of you. On one particular par 4 we had to wait while the groups coming at us from the neighboring fairway finished playing from "our" fairway.
Bottom line....golf (almost) always beats sitting at home. The sun did come out, I was on a golf course, and I did hit some great shots. All in all, not a bad day.
http://www.ncga.org
http://www.poppyridgegolf.com
http://www.pebblebeach.com
http://www.sunolvalley.com