The Kokopelli Golf Stance

7145 Yds, Par 72, Slope 140, by Arnold Palmer



They don't say much. I couldn't find a yardage book from before . . . but then again, I don't want to spend too much time on it, I mean, as much as I lavished on the Faldo course, it's just not . . . .

It's not a bad layout, it just doesn't wow me . . . I mean, the Faldo layout is on the same ground, but somehow it just seems much more interesting . . . there is a danger that my faulty driver this day prejudiced my POV, but then again, this was my opinion from when I played it before, also . . . there's only two holes I wish I had better illustrations for:

• the par 3 #8 . . . which is, in the end, a rather ordinary, even if long, hole, but the mounding around the green, which really doesn't enter into play unless you hit a really bad shot, is very attractive, and makes this hole stand out visually, even if not golfically, if you know what I mean.
• the par 5, #1 handicap, #14 . . . which has the most challenging landing area . . . which you can just see in the layout illustration . . . see how it comes to a point on the left, well the fairway slopes left to right so a drive that isn't placed perfectly can run off into the desert. That's what happened to me the first time I played . . . hit the best tee shot I hit all day, a hard power fade down the left side that wound up in the desert on the right . . . the second shot is no favor either, providing you stay on the grass.

On the first hole I kinda blocked my tee shot into the right rough, but I had an easy 9iron into the green, close to the hole, but I missed that little 4ft birdie . . . I knew then I was doomed for the whole day. . . I hit 8 drives into the desert . . . not saying this is a hard driving course, only that I either blocked or pulled every drive till the last 4 holes . . . didn't feel what I was doing wrong until then, when I realized I wasn't just flying my right elbow, but chicken-winging in a way that would make Jim Thorpe grimace.

Once I fixed that I was good.

• hit a 4iron high and straight on the par 3 #15 to the back fringe, made an easy par.
• missed the green long from the desert in the inside of the dogleg on the par 4 #16 -- a temporary lapse almost corrected by a great second shot
• missed another makeable birdie on #17, an uphill put of 10ft, after a perfectly straight drive and an arrow like 4iron
• bogeyed the par 4 #18 from behind the green after another perfectly straight drive and a pureed 7iron .

I always feel like such a curmudgeon saying it, but it really is true that the Palmer courses just lack that sump'n sump'n that would make them great . . . never mind comparing them to Nicklaus courses, just compare these two Wildfire courses, Faldo & Palmer.