OK, if you figured that the title is very tongue-in-cheek you would be half right. I actually enjoy the challenge of playing in weather. Anyone can play badly on a perfect day but it takes a real campaigner to play badly on a bad weather day and still be smiling about it when it is over.
Playing golf in California is never all that bad, occasionally we have a rain day, though never in the summer. The only real weather threat we have in the Central Valley is heat, and wind. Well last Sunday we had wind and lots of it. I played in Tracy CA., a town just at the base of the Altamont Pass and the Altamont is where we have a large number of wind generators. As you can well imagine they don’t put wind generators in areas lacking wind.
I played a course called Old River which is something of a challenge on the best of days. It is a mom and pop golf course with a front 9 that is best described as a converted pasture but is marketed as a links style layout. To say that is it wide open and wind exposed is a big understatement. The fairways are hardpan and spotty but the greens are fair and getting better. The back 9 is the old course and is completely different from the front. There are hills and undulating greens, water on over half the holes and it is the main reason to play the course. I have played with guys who only play the back 9 and refuse to even get out on the front. Well I am not one of them.
On Sunday the front 9 was some of the most challenging golf you will likely find in the Valley. The wind was steady, constant and out of the West with some attitude. On many holes I took my hat off and left it in the cart because it had no chance of staying on my head. I hit drives that ranged from 160 to 335 yards depending on the direction of the hole. I hit my drive on the 515 yard 6th hole so far that I had a gap wedge in and skied that over the back of the green. All you can do is shake your head and chuckle.
Like I said a day like that can be fun too. You really have to check your ego at the club house and get out your thinking cap. Creativity is the name of the game and you better have confidence in doing stuff that just seems illogical like using a hybrid 3 iron on a 160 yard par 3 and just trusting it. Throw out your yardage book too because hitting a 9 iron when you still have 200 yards in and landing it on the front edge just seems nuts.
My measure of success on a day like that is that I only lost 2 balls all day. Considering that there was a lot of water on the back nine, that felt like a victory.