96 Holes

Playing 96 holes of golf (5 rounds) in 4 days is pretty tiring :)

I arrived to Phoenix, AZ last Thursday after 10 good days of golf in Palm Springs and checked into the 2 bedroom townhouse I rented from Airbnb in the afternoon. It was good to take it easy, get caught up on doing laundry, and make a home cooked meal. While it was cheap renting a room from someone else's house, nothing compares to having your own space to relax and unwind. 

Hwan and his friend Jai flew in on Friday morning at 11am. They wanted to play as much golf as they can before Jai had to go back to Houston on Monday. I picked them up from the airport at 11am, dropped their luggage off, and headed to our first round of the trip at Lookout Mountain Golf Club. Since I had the Troon Card, I have a 2 for 1 certificate at most of the courses we just divided the total cost by 3. This really helps with the budget on my stay in AZ! 

Friday afternoon was a good warm up for the next few days. We played 36 holes (both North and South Course) Talking Stick Golf Club on Saturday. I had booked the 7:47am tee time in the North Course so we can finish by noon and see if we can go out and play the South Course by 2pm. It was $20 to replay so it was totally worth it. We rested up Sunday morning and headed to the ASU Karsten Course, a Pete Dye designed course. We had booked a 3:16pm tee time and found out ASU was hosting the ASU Thunderbird College Golf Tournament that day. We had to wait until they finished before we can tee off. We finished 18 holes in exactly 3 hours and I think the fast pace really helped my game since I shot my best score ever. 87!

We did a boys night out in Scottsdale on Sunday night and came back to the townhouse at around 1:30am only having to wake up again at 6:30am on Monday for our 7:45am tee time at Golf Club of Estrella. The course was in great shape but the weather turned by the back 9 and we were playing in 30-40 mph winds. I must say, playing in that kind of wind in the desert during the middle of a sand storm is not too appealing. 

I'm resting up today and playing another 36 holes tomorrow. I didn't take as many pictures this time since these past few rounds were a total whirlwind, but I did keep 3/5 score cards to share. Enjoy!

First Day of the Trip

Miles Driven: 468 Miles

Today is my first day of the trip and I drove 7 1/2 hours from Fremont to Palm Desert. I use to drive a lot for work between SF and Sacramento but I had forgotten how tiring these long drives could be. Before I left, I downloaded a few audiobooks since I'll have a lot of windshield time in front of me these next few months. I've always wanted to read more books and this is a great way to kill two birds with one stone.

I got into Palm Desert at about 4:30pm and checked into the Airbnb place I'm staying. My host Gail had the room all set up with a mini fridge and coffee maker in the room. Not bad for $55/ night! This just means I can shift my budget to playing better course while I'm here. After I got here the UPS guy came and dropped off my new toys for the trip.

Last Thursday night I made an impulse buy at 3am during one of my usual sleepless nights. I've been playing with the same irons since 2006 (Mizuno MX-23) and have been thinking about upgrading to a new set for a while now. I had reshafted the MX-23 with the Project X 5.5 and found it to be a bit harsh to play with than the S300 I had before. While I liked playing with the MX-23 I started thinking that technology must have changed over the past 7 years. If you think about it, the iPhone wasn't even out when I first started playing with these irons! After being honest (and I mean harshly honest) about the way I hit my long iron, I wanted to go with something more forgiving in the long irons (3-6) without giving up much feel and control in my scoring irons (7-PW.) So I went on ebay and found a set of the new Mizuno MP-H4 irons with the Project X PXi 5.5 shaft. These irons had some great reviews and it came with the new Project X shafts that's suppose to be lighter and softer than the current ones I have. I'm going to compare them tomorrow with my old set and will provide a full report in my blog after a few rounds. So excited!!

I'm in Palm Desert for 10 days (until April 4th) and have already booked some awesome course. So far I've booked Westin Mission Hills - Peter Dye Course, Silver Rock Golf Club, TPC West Stadium Course (don't hate), and Classic Club Golf. I'll end up playing Indian Wells - Players Course next week when I meet up with a friend. More to come on how I play these courses.

Fremont to Palm Desert

Not a bad way to travel

The set up

This is much easier than a suitcase

The new clubs!