Monday, November 13, 2006
Pueblo at El Mirage
6596 Yds, Par 72, Slope 125, by Fuzzy Zoeller
Another course with precious little information on the Web. They don't participate in GolfNow or AZCentral . . . they hardly advertise . . . if we hadn't narrowed our search down to the 20+ Championship Public golf courses left to us, we wouldn't have seen it. . . so imagine our surprise when we whipped up into the parking lot and realized we'd been here before. We just hadn't remembered. . . yeah, that's kinduva black mark on the old course escutcheon.
But we remembered the parking lot, and we remembered the ambience of the course, just not any of the holes . . . I don't want to be unkind, but it must be said: I know that this neighborhood represents the aspirations of some folks, that RV-park-on-a-golfcourse-retirement-community, but honestly, it really is so mot juste that Fuzzy Zoeller's golf course sits amongst a -- let us be frank -- a trailerpark . . . these semi-permanent docking stations where people hook up their RVs never come into play -- they're set well backfrom the fairways, but they are shoehorned into every niche and cranny of the course that they really dominate the landscape.
As Mr Science said, there's nothing wrong with the course, itself, it's just that the ambience sucks.
They let us walk, the course itself was lushly overseeded (and still a little wooly), generously watered, and the weather was perfect, so we had a good time.
Fortified with an absolutely fabulous Fried Egg Sandwich, I started off strong, with a couple of 1-putt pars. My mid-round collapse was limited to a triple and a double bogie on the back 9 on two consecutive holes. I resolved to finish strong, starting on 15, and with a couple of good-miss bladed irons that left me with birdie chances, I parred 15, 16, & 17. On 18, tho', my woods suddenly & totally abandoned me, finished with 9, for a 41-46=87.
Mr Science struggled with an inadequate warm-up -- no woods allowed on the driving range, so he just putted while I got my sandwich. It took him 5 holes to start striking the ball well, but then he was en fuego, including two consecutive birdies on the front 9. Except for his start, and a lost weekend on #9, his play sparkled, 43-41=84.
After he got thru grumbling about the bumpy greens (too wet, not resilient enough from footprints), he said, "If you had parred the last hole, you would have beat me!".
