Cross Creek Golf Club.

Set in the hills just west of Temecula, Cross Creek Golf Club was the first place I visited when I arrived in the area back in October. I've played it a couple of times while trying to get my swing together so those rounds were more about doing that instead of worrying about a score. This time, though still trying to find the elusive swing, I hoped to keep score more in my mind... until I met my playing partners.

I was put with two other guys that had also walked on without a time. Nice enough fellas and all that, though they didn't really have too much of an idea about proper etiquette and such. While it wasn't a constant problem and at times it actually sped up play a little bit, some of the things they did were a bit annoying. On the back nine one fella started getting flustered and actually tossed his club a couple of times. Fortunately he got over each instance pretty quickly as he did have beer in the cart that needed drinking.

Despite all that I did alright, I guess. I shot 81 on a par-71 course that actually played under 6000 yards on the card. The twosome I was with was playing this tee and I really don't like playing a different set from who I play with so I stuck with it. Some of the tees were back a box and several holes have a limited fairway length so the approach shots play like a longer course on some of the holes. Its not an easy track to be honest, especially when you get to the greens as many are elevated and can be tough to read.

On the first hole I decided to hit driver and just simply should not have in hindsight. I thought the fairway had narrowed much closer to the green and it probably would have been fine if I played the same tee as I did in October. I hit it a little right, which meant I ended up going too far and into the marsh/hazard. Bah. A drop, an approach and three putts later and I've started my day with a double. Yay me.

I then smartly hit 3-wood off the next tee and had perfect position in the fairway. I then promptly chunked a wedge short of the green, leading to a bogey. I did start to put things together a bit and actually birdied the 4th after a really nice shot from the fairway bunker to about 12 feet. After a par on the par-5 fifth, I hit my best shot of the round so far off the sixth tee... right into a pot bunker in the middle of the fairway. That lead to another double bogey since I three putted after a horrible green-reading attempt. Other than hitting a great drive on the 7th that I couldn't take advantage of I did nothing special the rest of the way and shot a 42 on the front side.

The par-3 third hole.

The downhill par-3 eighth hole.

The tenth hole is a short par-4 that really had me confused as to what to hit from the tee. Driver was out, no question. I thought 3-wood was too much also and really felt 5-wood could be as well. I decided on 4-iron, thinking that even if I was laying up a little farther back it would be fine. Still, it didn't feel right and I made a horrible pass at the ball, hitting it way left. I was lucky to be able to play it to be honest and managed a bogey out of it. I then managed a couple of pars after that and arrived at the 13th hole, shown below.

The downhill tee shot on the 13th hole.

Well, it shows half of it. The tee shot plays downhill and today it was slightly downwind. The green is across a ravine to the right of the fairway. Again, I didn't know what to hit. I went with 5-wood this time, thinking that I might overswing on the 4-iron again. That didn't work either, I hooked the 5-wood also. The ball also went too far, across the cart path and into what is considered a hazard. At least I found the ball, dropped, hit a decent 5-iron to the green and saved a bogey out of it. Here is the hole looking back from behind the green :

From behind the 13th green, back toward the fairway.

Pretty hole, but I'll be damned if I can figure out how to play the bastard.

The back nine has its share of unique holes and a few of them limit your tee options like the 13th did. The 14th was not one of those as it is a par-5 that I hit the best drive of the day on. I had 5-wood to reach the green in two and nearly did, the ball landed just short and found the greenside bunker. I hit a decent shot from there and gave myself a good chance at birdie but I missed it just a bit on the high side. Solid par, though.

On the 15th I found another pot bunker in the middle of the fairway and I was not pleased. At least this time I managed to make bogey, though I had to lay up from the trap and wedge on from there. The 16th was another non-driver hole that has an elusive fairway as well, as you might be able to see below :

The challenging tee shot of the 16th hole.

There is a hazard to the right (where the trees are on the right of the picture) and the fairway slopes severely from left to right in order to help you find said hazard. The tree you see in the middle of the picture marks where the fairway narrows and it can also block your approach shot if you get too close. I hit 3-wood this time and somehow my ball managed to stay on top of the hill to the left, how that ball didn't come down off that slope I will never know. I was far enough back to hit over that tree and onto the green and got out of there with par, a score I was happy to take.

The 17th is a nice short par-3 over a hazard. I hit gap wedge slightly right of a front pin, hit the green, and backed it off the edge and toward the hazard. Unlike at Bear Creek, this one stayed up and I managed to hack the ball out to about a foot from the hole and made another par. Here is a picture of that one :

The short par-3 17th hole. Yes, someone is building a house up on top of that hill.

The last hole is another split fairway hole. When I played a tee further back in October, this fucker was loooong. The hole was playing into the wind and checked in at over 400 yards in length. I hit driver/5-wood in order to get across the ravine that parts the fairway and the green. Today, I'm playing closer but its downwind. Since the fairway runs out of room at about 150 yards from the green, I'm trying to figure out if I should hit driver or 3-wood from this tee. On one hand, I want to be close enough to hit a mid-iron to this green, which is tricky since there is a hill in the fairway at about 180 yards from the green that could stop the ball. On the other hand I'd prefer to find my ball in case I hit driver too far and through the fairway. I decided on driver and didn't hit it well, leaking it to the right and thinking it could be in the trees. Luckily it somehow must have found a good bounce and I was in perfect shape, leaving myself with a 7-iron into the green, shown here :

A look down at the 18th green, taken from a hill to the left of the fairway.

I hit what I thought was a good shot but the ball landed on the green and just rolled all the way through the back of the green. I couldn't get up and down this time and ended up with a 39 on the par-35 back nine to complete my 81. Overall I don't feel I hit the ball overly well, though toward the end I started feeling a little better about what I was doing. The biggest plus was my elbow since it didn't hinder me at all, though it was a little sore afterwards. I received a cortisone shot on the previous Monday so by this time a little of that was kicking in.

Here are a few more pictures of the course :

The uphill par-4 11th hole.

The par-3 12th hole.

The view from the tee of the par-5 14th hole.

A look from behind the 18th green, back toward the fairway across the ravine.

As I type this it is Wednesday the 24th of May. I had a solid practice yesterday and I'll do it again tomorrow. After that its off to Hawaii for the golf trip I've had planned for some time now. Right now I am nearly pain-free in the elbow, though I've still been icing it each day and I'll do so again as soon as I finish this up. Once I return from Hawaii there won't be time to rest as I then move from here to Houston. Fun times. Hopefully I'll find time to post about the Hawaii trip sometime in between all of that. Until then, have a good Memorial Day weekend... I know I will!

Braving the late afternoon heat in Phoenix.

I made the 5-hour drive to Phoenix for work this week and took advantage of the late afternoon rates to play a couple of times while I was out there. Though its still early May the heat made itself known, topping 100 degrees on the days I was there. Armed with sunscreen and bug spray I couldn't resist the chance to indulge in some Arizona desert golf.

The first course I played was Quintero Golf Club in Peoria, which is a little north of Phoenix proper. This is truly one of the higher-end places to go play in the area. Being just a couple of years old, the course is isolated from the city sprawl and naturally the heat kept nearly everyone else away. I pretty much had the place to myself as far as I could tell. Even the parking lot and clubhouse was isolated, it was a 5-minute golf cart ride to get the course itself.

I took a little time to warm up and to my relief my elbow didn't give me much trouble. I started out with no real drama, going par-par-bogey but then snap-hooked a 3-wood into the desert/hazard on the fourth and ended up with a double. I managed to bounce back with a birdie on the fifth, finally making a putt of decent length to do it. I was doing fairly well off the tee, though technically I was missing most fairways by just a couple of feet. I had my share of ugly ones over the course of the afternoon but overall it wasn't too shabby.

I finished up the front nine in 39 and started the back side with a bogey, then hit what I thought was a good drive on the 11th that somehow found the fiarway trap on the left. I had a clean lie though and hit a 7-iron to about 6 feet and managed to coax that one in for birdie. On the 12th I hit a solid drive but I virtually topped the approach shot. I'm not sure what happened, it almost seemed like I flinched when I finished my backswing. Maybe it was elbow-related, maybe it wasn't. I managed to bogey the hole so no major loss there. After a par on the 13th I came to the par-5 14th, which was playing very short, under 450 yards. Naturally I hit my drive right and into the desert/hazard. I had more room right than I thought, I think a little bit in indecision got me there. I did manage to save another bogey though.

From there my putter let me down a few times. I hit three of the last four greens in regulation but 3-putted two of them and ended up with an 80 for the day. Overall I'm happy with that as it was not an easy course (69.8/132) even though it was barely over 6000 yards. However the course played longer than that since quite a few of the par-4s and par-5s played uphill while all of the par-3s were downhill, sometimes massively so. This course might have the greatest combined drop in elevation on par-3 holes of any course I've played. Lets see if I have pictures...

The 169-yard 6th, plays more like 145.

The 139-yard 9th, played about a club and a half less than that.

The 157-yard 13th played more like 145.

The 189-yard 16th had the smallest drop in elevation but it still played about a club less.

Of course, I have more pictures of some of the other holes out there. I could have taken a picture on nearly every hole if I wanted to considering the surrounding scenery.

Hmm, my memory fails me here but I think this is the opening hole.

The view from my wedge approach on the par-5 second.

From the fairway on the par-5 eighth hole.

The view from the 14th tee.

The short par-4 15th hole.

The second track I played was Lookout Mountain Golf Club, which was near the hotel I was staying at. This course wasn't as good at Quintero (and not many are going to be) but it did have its share of visual appeal. In hindsight, I'm not sure I should have played. I made it though but the back nine was a little dicey. I shot 81 but had a quadruple bogey after hitting two out of bounds on the 13th. Its was a short, simple hole that shouldn't gave anyone too much trouble but again I duck-hooked that 3-wood off the tee. Those two swings felt... odd. It was almost as if I knew I was getting worn down and I tried to help it, causing me to come right over the top I guess.

Otherwise I did manage to hit a number of really solid drives, though one of which found a pot bunker that was strategically placed in the middle of the fairway on the par-5 fifth. I tried to play out, hit the lip, then barely made it out the second time and ended up with a seven there. Despite that, I scrapped my way for a frontside 40, managing to get up and down a few times to save par.

I started the next nine with two pars and then hot what I thought was a perfect drive on the 12th. However, when I go to chase my ball I don't see it. There was a desert/waste area that crossed the fairway there that I didn't clearly see, I can only assume its in there somewhere. If I could have found it I probably could have played it but that ball was no where to be seen. After the drop I hit it on the green and saved the bogey. Still, I hit that drive really well and I just hate it when something like that happens. I had a similar situation last week also. Oh well, thats one of the drawbacks of playing new courses all the time.

As I mentioned, I had that quad on the 13th, putting me 5-over for the side at that point. I got away with a weak tee shot on the 14th, barely wedged on from there and had to make about a 7-footer to save par. I then hit what might have been the best drive I hit over the course of both days on the par-5 15th. It was a bit downwind but I crushed it, leaving me with just a 7-iron approach. I gakked that to the right though with a terrible swing but got up-and-down from the bunker for birdie. With a par-bogey-par closeout I finished with an 81, despite having a 7 and an 8 on the card. It wasn't pretty in the end, I was kinda just finding ways to get from point A to B but we managed well enough.

I didn't take as many pictures of this place, especially early, but the back nine had some fun stuff :

The look from the 7th tee, a downhill par-5

The view for the very elevated par-4 10th tee

The par-3 11th

The view from the 12th (hmm, maybe I should have aimed a little more right...)

The short par-4 14th

With the Hawaii trip only three weeks away I'm still looking for more consistency from my game. I know I'm not going to be perfect or anything but I'm still not comfortable with the irons and the putter right now. On Monday I think I'm actually going to go to the doctor and ask about getting a cortizone shot for the elbow. While its not getting worse I just don't want to have it be an issue while I'm on vacation. The weather in SoCal is actually going to help me as its pretty shitty all of the sudden so that'll curb any temptation to practice. I'll be going to Virginia this coming weekend for family reasons so that will keep the clubs out of my hands also. I might try to play the Sunday after that trip, we'll take stock in everything when the time comes.

Feeling under the weather at SilverRock Resort.

After cancelling plans to play on Saturday I decided to fight through whatever was ailing me at drove out to La Quinta to play SilverRock Resort. The day was perfect save for being a little on the warm side but being in the California desert I expected and even welcome the heat, hoping it might help counteract some of the head cold or whatever it was I had.

Warming up on the range was a struggle. I couldn't replicate what I was able to accomplish when I practiced on Thursday and it was concerning me. I felt fine overall, I didn't feel weak in my hands like I did on Saturday. I hit a couple of good drivers though and figured I'd have to work out the irons on the course since I didn't want to wear myself out hitting countless range balls. I went to the chipping green they had, which had gobs more practice balls all over the place. For some reason hitting a number of chips and pitches caused me to get a better feel for the irons. I can't explain it here, but it had to do with my setup and how everything looked to me in relation to where the ball appeared to be at address. With that in mind I headed to the putting green and eventually to the first tee.

My group consisted of myself and three other single golfers that the course had paired up to form the foursome. One guy played from the tips, which was a monstrous 7600 yards. My cartmate, Vic, was an accomplished senior player and he elected the Blue tees, which was about 6650 yards or so. I was originally going to play the Resort tees, which was a combo of the Blue and White tees (6250 yards) but when our fourth said he'd play the blues to save time I decided to join them. On one hand it was a mistake since I knew I wasn't feeling 100%, however in hindsight I felt that playing from that length really wasn't an issue. In fact, sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't do it more often.

In fact, I started off great with four straight fairway/green/2-putt pars. The only cloud on the entire thing was the fact that my elbow was really hurting me when I hit the ball. It wasn't like that on the range. I almost always feel something but its usually no more than a "I know its there" kinda thing. Not now. This was definitely more of a shockwave going through my forearm after contact. My only guess is that I might have waited too long between the range and the first tee and my body cooled down. I wonder if being under the weather might have contributed to it. Save for maybe two or three swings it really didn't cause any issues, any errors I would make would be simply due to a bad swing or execution.

The approach to the par-5 second

The par-3 third

The first of those came on the fifth hole, a short dogleg left par-4. My 3-wood tee shot was fine and I had a choke-down sand wedge to a front pin. I don't know if I sorta zoned out or simply didn't think it through but my swing sure felt too quick after laying the sod over it. I left myself short sided and well below the green surface. I tried a bump-and-run but hit it too firm and it went to the back fringe, leading to a double bogey that really should have been a fairly simple par.

I followed that up with a bogey and another double, the latter after hooking one in the water and later three-putting for a seven. With a bogey on the uphill and really long par-4 ninth I ended up with an outgoing 42. Kinda sucked to ruin such a nice start on what will turn out to be a pretty tough course but overall I was happy with the way I was hitting most of my shots, especially off the tee. My short game wasn't great and I never did get a good feel of the greens. This was most evident on the short par-4 tenth, where my sand wedge redeemed itself with a great shot to about 3 feet of the hole. My putter would have none of it though as I baby-pulled the knee-knocked and settled for par.

I then doubled the 11th but it wasn't due to being angry or dejected at my lost chance. I hit what felt like a strong drive down the left side of the fairway. However, said fairway elected to rocket my ball with a huge bounce to the left, sending it rolling even further left into the waste area. The problem with that came when I couldn't find the ball. The waste areas here are mostly open, kinda like unkept sand traps, but they do have some small scrub bushes and stuff. My ball must have found one and I never did see it again. Local rules call it a drop and a stroke penalty so I did just that. My next shot slid under the ball in the rough and was dumped in a real sand trap next to the green, which lead to the double bogey. Just one of those things, a bad break really. If I had prior course knowledge or the benefit of hindsight I probably would have hit 3-wood of the tee instead as I was well under 100 yards to the green after dropping. I probably also would have aimed a little more right since the fairway did open up on that side but we couldn't really tell from the tee. In fact, depth perception here was tricky. The entire group had trouble getting ourselves to trust yardages and such here.

About at this point is when I started running out of gas. My elbow would begin to hurt a bit more also since I didn't feel quite as strong as I did earlier. Surprisingly I managed to get through the round without hitting absolutely horrible shots. I lost a couple to the right off the tee but not dreadfully so, though one did led to another double bogey that could have been avoided with better wedge play on the recovery. I would actually consider my tee shot on the 16th to be my best of the day, anytime I have 7-iron into a green on a 430-yard par-4 is a time I'm going to be a happy guy. Too bad a three-putted again for a bogey.

I ended up shooting 85 for the day and was spent. The course was playing tough though, the greens weren't too fast but they befuddled the entire group all day as the ball just kinda kept rolling out a bit more than it looked like it would. No one really made much of anything to be honest, I know I didn't. The greens were also about as firm as I've played to date. I hit eight greens on the day but had three others that I "hit" but didn't hold. The last two were on the last two holes of the day, shown below :

The par-3 17th

The approach on the par-5 closing hole

The 17th is normally 179 yards but not today, they had us back on the gold tees (207 yards), which is exactly what I didn't need. The pin was up so it was playing 197 according to my rangefinder. I hit a choked-down 5-wood just about perfect, just 10 feet or so left of the hole. However, the ball bounced up the slope of the green, rolled through the back fringe and settled a few yards into the rough. I hit a good chip back down that slope but couldn't convert.

The 18th was actually the shortest par-5 on the course, this one was "only" 520 yards. Like two others before it this one had a fairway that was split by a water hazard. The picture above is from where my ball was on the approach shot, I had crossed over the creek that was now leading up to the left of the green. I think I hit a wedge that was pin high and a bit right of the hole. However, while it did roll to the left as expected it also rolled off the back of the green and onto the fringe. I never did find the ball mark. At least I managed to finish with a par.

Now that I think of it, on the third hole I hit 6-iron hole-high and it ended up 20-25 feet past the pin. There was a ball mark just 3 inches left of the hole that I think was mine. Too bad I couldn't get that one to stop a little sooner, though I doubt I'd have made a shorter putt anyway, not the way I was going on this day. Anyway, very few shots stopped quickly on these greens. I had a few that did but the whole group had to deal with the same conditions, they didn't do much better.

The course was in really good shape, though I was surprised at how flat it was overall. Vic, who lives locally, told me that the play was really slow for the area and it clearly affected him. As I said, he is an accomplished player that still played in local tournaments and I could tell by the way he played. To be honest, I hope I hit it as well as he did when I get to his age, with I actually suspected was north of 70 from the way he talked about his history. We finished in five hours, which didn't help the elbow, and Vic seemed to not handle it too well. He said that normally a round takes about three-and-a-half, tops. Five was just irking him to death. Nice fella though.

Looking back, while I somewhat regretted playing the Blue tees I happy I did anyway. Even considering how I felt and how tough the course played that day (its rated by the SCGA at 72.1/131), I thought I held up fairly well. Some of the par-4s were loooong for a "regular" tee. Five of them were 400+ plus, including one that was 453! Shit, sometimes you'll play a course with a par-5 about that distance. The round won't count toward my handicap but it was technically a better round than last week at Bear Creek. Also, my short game seemed off the whole day, especially the putter. The greens got to me I guess, I couldn't gauge them at all. While I'm not sure I could have broken 80 I do think that 81-82 was certainly out there for me, which would have been solid.

I'm going to Phoenix for work later this week and then staying over the weekend to play twice out there. I'm a little nervous about how my elbow will feel though. I really didn't expect to have any trouble with it but instead it was an issue from the first shot to the last in regards to the pain. Like I said, I'm hoping it was just a combo of cooling off and being sick. I've iced it and used the heating pad I have a bit since then and its already feeling back to how it was on Thursday so I'm hoping it'll be fine. I'm not sure if I'll hit any balls this week, I might try it Wednesday and if I feel its an issue I'll just shut it down and hit dozens of pitch shots or something that doesn't require full contact. We'll see how it goes.

Oh, and to finish off the post here are a couple more pictures of the course that I took along the way :

The par-4 fourth hole from the tee.

The view of the par-5 seventh from the fairway, where I hooked my 2nd shot into the water trying to get across the hazard to the split fairway on the other side. In hindsight I should have aimed further right, that tricky depth perception got me I think.

The look from the tee on the 431-yard par-4 13th, a long dogleg right.

This one is the 95-yard par-3 14th. Though it played to "only" 115 yards on this day that just made the rest of the course feel that much longer.