The Kokopelli Golf Stance

Palmbrook CC, a private club that lets the public in during the summer, to beef up the revenue stream. In contrast to the golf course, the restaurant was packed. They must have a high monthly minimum restaurant charge to beef up the revenue stream, too.

The course is very typical of Sun City. I guess they're sort of limited by the topography. It's all flat land, and if they tried to move much dirt they'd have big canyons after the first rainstorm. The one outstanding feature is water on every hole of the back 9. There's a series of streams and ponds, and the course runs up one side of it and back the other. Insidiously, the water is on the right every time. Jeff Hardin is to blame for that. He worked with Greg Nash on several courses, notably Los Caballeros, and was obviously influenced by him, or perhaps it was the other way around, as this one opened in 1973 and I think Nash's courses are mainly newer than that.

It all started on #6, really. After OB's and 7's on #1 and #2, I went par, bogey, bogey and was really looking forward to the beer on 16. But then I hit my first green in regulation on #6, a par 5, and made par. Likewise on 7 and 9, with a scrambler on 8. On 10, I drove into the hazard left of the fairway (just before it crossed to the right side), and played the 2nd shot from an inch or so of water on concrete. I ended up making a 10-foot breaker for a Jacques Cousteau par. 11 is a par-3 over water, where Cactus Dave skipped it all the way across, and up onto the green. I hit my 7-iron too pure, to the back fringe, and made par. 12 was a "regulation" par, after hitting my 80-foot approach putt up two tiers to gimme range.

13 was a bit exciting, as I pulled my drive behind a tree and had to hit a pitching wedge back to the fairway. Fortunately, it is a par 5 and I was able to wedge it to 6 feet and made the birdie putt. 14, 15, and 16 were more scrambles, making par putts of 6, 8, and 5 feet. Then on 17, a true black swan event: on the green in 2 on a par 5. It's 505 yards, and I hit a big drive down the middle, and a prodigious 3-wood, about 230 yards. The 33-foot eagle putt lipped out, and I had to settle for birdie.

That was when I started looking at the card, and noticed that I was -2 for the past 12 holes, and could break my previous best of -1 for 9 holes. The drive on 18 went awry to the left rough, and I had 150 yards with a big palm tree almost in the way. I pushed the shot a little, and it hit a palm frond, and came up short of the green. The chip was mediocre, and I pushed the 8-foot par putt.

What I have to do is play 20 holes. Take a couple of 7's on the first two, and then start the round for real, and remember not to look at the scorecard no matter what.

I think this picture of the 10 hole basically sums up the back 9 . . . or . . . it'll have to do, since my camera battery died here . . . oddly enough, if you take a flat-wide-open course and put water on it, the margin of improvement is minimal . . . WHile Mr Science was tearing up the back 9, our playing partner that we joined mid-round, a member, asked how we liked the course, being that he and the other members are kinda proud of this course, which has only recently started letting non-members play, during the summer. I grunted something non-committal, but Mr Science diplomatically enthused, "It suits my game!"

"suits-your-game?" I queried him as we walked back to our cart from a green.

"Yeh, Flat & wide-open . . .I'm 2 under . . . but I didn't say it was my favorite course" . . . 8^D