Trump National vs. Westchester. Is it really worth $277 more?

The Donald owns a golf course about 10 minutes and several tax brackets from where I live in San Pedro, CA. Trump National Los Angeles actually started out as Ocean Trails, a Pete Dye course, and was scheduled to open in 1999. Unfortunately one of the greens slid into the ocean raising the question of just how stable this golf course on a cliff really is.

Ocean Trails was owned by a couple of brothers who weren't so much interested in the golf course as they were in peddling the multimillion dollar homes they planned to build around it. When the course took a header into the deep blue so did the brother's plans to develop the area.

Trump snatched it up and had plans to not only build homes but a golf destination hotel as well. Rancho Palos Verdes, the berg that the course has the unfortunate luck of residing in, is not impressed with the Donald or anyone else who brings in the unwashed public or attempts to block an ocean view. As a result, the relationship between the two has been less than friendly. The city sued the Donald because his American flag was too big; because he planted the wrong kind of trees: because he didn't provide enough foot paths for the public and on and on.

Donald prevailed and in 2002 opened the course declaring it ready for a pro tournament. That September they did in fact have a LPGA event. That is also the last professional event that has been played there. September can be a pretty tricky time along the ocean front. When the tournament was delayed twice for fog and the players complained of freezing to death in that clammy white moisture, I'm pretty sure the LPGA crossed the course off their list of favorite venues.

My wife and I first visited the club a few years back to get a Sunday lunch. They have tables set up outside overlooking the ninth hole. The first thing I noticed was God this place is beautiful. I mean it would be beautiful with or without the golf course but it had been some time since I actually got out of my car and made my way down to the cliffs.

The second thing I noticed was there weren't many people eating lunch. Maybe a dozen.

The most lasting thing I noticed was there wasn't anyone playing golf. We were there for an hour and saw a twosome and a single during that entire time.

It was a beautiful sunny Sunday and nobody was playing. So what was wrong with this course? Maybe it was the $300 greens fee! Note to Donald: the only way people who live near your course are only going to pay $300 is if the course is located in Hawaii.

I actually have played Trump once. They had a special during reseeding and you could play a round for $140. Everything about the place is so pretentious except for the people. They have to hire their starters, ground crew, waiters etc locally and the folks in San Pedro and the South Bay just are way to laid back to be pretentious.

The course is beautiful. Ocean views from every hole. No trees but really nasty tall rough. And like Sergio said about the Masters, it's tricky.

On the first hole I hit a monster drive down the left (non-ocean) side and landed 118 yds from the green. The view from the fairway to the first green is pretty intimidating. The green is elevated, protected in the front with a massive bunker and in the back is a cliff wall with a waterfall. What you can't see is a little stream that runs directly in front of the green.

The GPS (which was mounted on the cart and parked on the path because of reseeding) said 118 yds so I figured about 124. That's an 8 iron for me. I hit a second beautiful shot exactly at the pin. I'm thinking I'm gonna have a great round. I couldn't see it land because I was below the green and when I got up there I couldn't see the ball.

The reason I couldn't see the ball was because only the top half of it was showing in the rough next to the stream. I had plugged it. I took a mighty swing which spayed mud all over my shirt and moved the ball about 7 inches to the right. Net result is I came away with the first of many double bogies.

It is a beautiful course, and given that we were the only people on it for half the game, it went quickly. I'd like to play it again but $300?

My regular course is Westchester located next to LAX. It's an oddball 15 hole course owned by the airport and operated by American Golf. There are no ocean views, however there is a nice view of runway 25L on the 12th hole. There is no rambling stream, just a pond in front of number 2 which is the home of a flock of attack geese. There are no draught resit ant plants and grass, consequently every place you land during the summer is a tight lie. Just like Saint Andrews?

So why play this little course? And why do sooo many people play it on the weekend? I really don't have a clue. I play there because I know the people and they know me. I play there because my friends play there. I play there because it cost $23 a round. Perhaps more importantly, I play there because we have a standing tee time.

So that brings me back to Trump. What did I get for the $277 more than it cost for Westchester. Was it the ocean views, was it the GPS that I couldn't use cause the cart was always on the path, was it the prestige of playing a Trump course? I'm thinking I could have played Westchester 10 times for the difference in fees.

Note to Donald: my pain threshold is $50. If you can get me and my guys guaranteed tee times for Saturday morning I will encourage them to switch. That would be about $1500 per Saturday (including beer purchases) and you'd have to give us the same deferential treatment we get from Westchester. Yes we're a bit rowdy and not the best dressers, but think of it as getting back at those snobs in Rancho Palos Verde.

This offer is good for five days.

I'm waiting Donald.

Golf - The One That Got Away

I think the last time I went fishing was with my Dad when I was 12 years old so that would be about 50 years ago. Fishing to me consisted pretty much of standing on a bank getting eaten by mosquitoes and watching the copperheads slither into the water. Fishing pretty much sucked.

While I didn't fish after that I did hang around some fishermen and it seems they all have a story about the one that got away. Depending on what species of fish they were going after, the one that got away could range from a 2 foot catfish to Moby Dick. These stories are obviously pure fabrication but they are acceptable and almost expected among the brotherhood of fishermen.

Golf on the other hand, is a Gentleman's Sport where prevarications (big word huh?) are not welcome. If a golfer's story doesn't exactly ring true, it's not a lie, it's just that the game tends to muddy up short term and long term memory.

This past Saturday we had finished up and I was tallying the scores and figuring out who won what skins. My buddy Dave shot an even par 52. That was the first time he's shot par in the two years we have been playing together. He thought he had a handicap of 7 so he was pretty sure he would win the low net game our group has. It became my duty, as the keeper of the handicaps, to let Dave know he was a 5 not a 7.

"What?? How could I be a 5? I haven't shot under 6 over in 5 years. You're crazy. Somethings wrong with that handicap!"

I used to get upset when people would go off like that. I used to take the time to explain that the handicap is based on the two best scores out of the last ten but then I just gave up. Now I give them a card with my Pay Pal email address and tell them for $20 I will do an exhaustive analysis of their handicap standing. Nobody has taken me up on it.

So while Dave is ranting about his handicap the next group arrives and Danny, a 1 handicap complains that he missed 3 birdie putts by inches. By the time the next group arrives, Danny's three birdie misses has grown to four birdie misses. Russ, a 17 handicap chimes in that he missed 8 birdie putts on the par 4s but goes on to explain that his third shot was typically from the fairway and it's really tough to read the green when you're that far away.

Not to be outdone, my nemesis Chris Johnson walks up to me and wants to know if that was me on number eleven (referring to our closest to the pin game). So I tell him "yeah that's me." He then tells me he missed beating me by an inch and a half. Notice he didn't say that I beat him by an inch and a half but he just missed beating me. I told him to go talk to Danny about his birdies.

I'm sitting there imagining about all these amazing games these guys almost played when Tad, our resident Japanese hustler, comes up to me and says "Chris, you got me trouble with wife!" With his wife? I don't keep her handicap.

"You put that post on website about Reginia want to chat with me."

Ah yes Reginia. Several weeks ago Reginia Gillepsi joined our golf site as a member. Her photo is like one of those Russian Emo girls. When Tad first saw her on the site he said "Chris, you got send message to her. Find out why she member." I told Tad to send her a message himself.

However I did do some research and Googled her name and found her on some site about Michael Jackson. Turns out she promises that you will really enjoy her videos if you just email her. My guess is Reginia is really an old overweight bald white guy trying to make a buck from porn.

So I went to our site and left the message "Tad, Reginia says she wants to chat with you." Apparently Mrs Itow was not pleased with the idea.

And so what does any of this have to do with golf. Nothing except that as much enjoyment we get from actually playing the game, it really doesn't compare to describing it to others with your own editorial spin. The fact that guys can lie to each other and nobody gets offended is proof that Golf should become a mainstay in this nation's diplomatic efforts.

Can't you just see Hillary and Obama playing a foursome with Ahmadinejad and Netanyahu. Wouldn't it be nice if Kim il Sung took a break from building nuclear weapons, put on some plaid pants and those enormous black sunglasses, grabbed his "Hammer" driver and hit the links? Let the game humble the world leaders a bit and maybe we can find a way to co-exist. Hmm, maybe I should submit this entry to the Nobel committee.

The Three And A Half Foot Golfer

This little guy has an eight year old brother who is part of the First Tee group at our course. Mom is the chauffeur and while the eight year old goes off to learn the game, the little guy entertains himself on the practice green.

Sometimes he has the chopped down putter like in the picture but other times he uses a standard sized putter and when he does it's a wise idea to give him plenty of room. He grabs that standard putter way down on the shaft so when he's bent over a putt, there's about 12 inches of shaft extending behind him and it's at groin level. He has a pretty aggressive putting stroke and if that shaft makes contact with your body, no amount of stretching exercise is gonna get rid of the pain.

There are a lot of people, to include the CEO of Callaway, who say golf is a dying sport. It's hard for me to understand how that could be with all the kids that I see on the course today. Back in the early 60's, the only kids you saw at a course were carrying bags for a quarter. It's always been my contention that the sport is dying not from a lack of demand, but from a lack of access.

Golf courses are closing and others are increasing fees. New courses are more often than not, associated with resorts or housing developments and one wonders how they will fare in this down sized economy. The Plantation course at Kapalua in Maui was sold last January because it was losing money. If you can't make a buck when you charge $250 a round, something is seriously wrong with your business plan.

So I think access in the sense that there are fewer tee times available and that the cost to play is skyrocketing, is probably the biggest threat to golf as a recreational sport. But then again I could be wrong.

In a recent post on Real Women Golf, there were a number of stories regarding the treatment of women, not on the course, but in the clubhouse. In one instance a gal who had finished her round decided to get lunch at the grill only to be told that it was the Men's Lounge and she would have to eat in the much smaller and less comfortable Ladies Lounge.

OK I thought this was a bit weird but also an isolated incident at some snob club. However, that article got a number of comments from women who were experiencing the same thing at both semi private and public courses.

When did golf become the sport of Islam? How many courses do the Quakers and Shakers own? I thought this kind of separating the sexes thinking went out with polyester. You want to cut down the interest in the sport, just make it a humiliating experience for the participants and you're well on your way.

For some reason this triggered a flashback to the snottiest club I have ever played, the Carolina Country Club in Raleigh. This was in the early 80's and my father in-law (a guy I really disliked) took me and my brother in-law (a guy I really liked) to play a round.

The Carolina Club is old, old, old Raleigh money so my first thought was how in the hell did my life insurance selling father in-law get accepted to this place. The course itself (designed by Donald Ross) is fantastic but I got the sense that it was just a prop, an excuse to hang out with other self important people.

I'm certain that my egalitarian mindset made things seem worse than they were, but to me everything seemed to reek of superiority. Our crap doesn't stink and if your not a member here, yours does. Of course all the help was black and deferential. You'd call the waiter by his first name and he would answer using Mister. It's like these people were living out Gone With the Wind.

So I thought, that's been 30 years ago and I'm certain things must have changed. Take a look at their website . If you actually got in, I'd really, really like to hear how things are today.

Dinah Shore was an avid golfer. Even with her money and fame, she could not belong to a private golf club in Los Angeles simply because she was a woman. Dinah said "no problem" and bought her own course in Palm Spings and the rest is history.

So when the three and a half foot golfer is six foot, what will golf look like to him. A game that everyone has a chance to enjoy, or a throwback to the Carolina Clubs of the world?

L'est We Forget

A single day to honor and remember those men and women who served our country both in war and in times of peace does not seem sufficient. How distracted we become, both as a government and as citizens, when something effects our personal standard of living. If your biggest worry is losing your home because you can't pay the mortgage, be happy it's not losing your life, or an arm, or both legs and an eye.

Between Iraq and Afghanistan we have nearly 200,000 soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen operating in parts of the world where violent death is common place. We sent them there to protect us. Let us not forget them, as a government or as citizens, when it comes time to take care of their wounds, both physical and emotional.

By all accounts, what they have dealt with or are dealing with supersedes the violence and gore of all but a few battles we have engaged in the past. They will have problems. Do not let this generation of warriors suffer the way the Viet Nam vets did. When they turn to drugs to stop the nightmares, remember we were the ones who sent them there in the first place. We are responsible for their wounds.

God bless and keep every man and woman who has ever honorably worn the uniform of our armed forces.

OK I saw this on Orlando Golf Blogger and just had to share it here. There's hope for us old farts.

Colleagues: The AARP has negotiated with the PGA to modify the rules of golf for seniors.

Rule 1.a.5 A ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and placed on the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or rolled into the rough with no penalty. The senior should not be penalized for tall grass which the groundskeeper failed to mow due to sheer laziness.

Rule 2.d.6 (b) A ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree. This is simply bad luck and luck has no place in a scientific game. The senior player must estimate the distance the ball would have traveled if it had not hit the tree and play the ball from there, no penalty of course.

Rule 3.b.3 (g) There shall be no such thing as a lost ball. The missing ball is on or near the course and will eventually be found and pocketed by another golfer, making it a stolen ball. The player is not to compound the felony by charging himself or herself with a penalty.

Rule 4.c.7 (h) If a putt passes over a hole without dropping, it is deemed to have dropped. The law of gravity supersedes the rules of golf.

Rule 5. Putts that stop close enough to the cup that they could be blown in, may be blown (if in fact the golfer has the lung capacity to do so). This does not apply to balls more than three inches from the hole. No one wants to make a travesty of the game.

Rule 6.a.9 (k) There is no penalty for so-called “out of bounds.” If penny-pinching golf course owners bought sufficient land, this would not occur. The senior golfer deserves an apology, not a penalty.

Rule 7.g.15 (z) There is no penalty for a ball in a water hazard, as golf balls should float. Senior golfers should not be penalized for manufacturers’ shortcomings.

Rule 8.k.9 (s) Advertisements claim that golf scores can be improved by purchasing new golf equipment. since this is financially impracticable for many senior golfers, one-half stroke per hole may be subtracted for using old equipment.

Please advise all your senior friends of these important rule changes.

How to Deal With Golf Distractions

If you take a close look at the picture you'll see the control tower for Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) located in the background. The only thing separating these golfers on the 12th green of Westchester Golf Course and runway 25L is the six lanes of traffic on Lincoln Blvd that run between the course and the airport. LAX is the third busiest airport in the country and the number one destination for "heavies" like 747s and the new Boeing 777 flying hotel.

The whine of turbo-fans, the smell of burning rubber from hard landings and the general sense of foreboding when one of the monsters misses the runway and is waved off, just don't bother me. What bothers me is someone moving while I'm trying to putt. What bothers me is someone talking when I'm on the tee. God forbid someone puts a cart in reverse while I'm addressing the ball and that beep, beep, beep just goes on forever.

We've all experienced the distractions, and if we're honest with ourselves, we know that distraction is an internal response to an external action. Why doesn't the airport noise bother me? To me it's just ambient sound and has nothing to do with me hitting the ball. Now if I'm not bothered by four engines being thrown into reverse thrust no further than a three wood away, how can I be distracted by someone putting there club back in their bag? It's a head game and it's all about focus.

A sports psychologist suggests that there are a few tricks to keeping the focus. The first is show up at the course well hydrated, well fed, and rested. If you are missing any of these three basic requirements of staying alive, then your body is going to focus more on resolving the those shortages than on making a putt. Get plenty of sleep, drink water not soda or beer and throw away the donut and eat a sensible breakfast.

Another tip involves an old breathing exercise. If you've lost the focus and can't get it back, take 10 deep breaths. Breath in through your nose for 5 seconds and then exhale through your mouth for 5 seconds. This is known as a cleansing breath and your wife might be familiar with it as she probably used it during child birth. I've not used it on the golf course but I can tell you it works great when sitting in traffic jam and you only have 15 minutes to your next appointment.

One note of caution. If you are an older golfer like the two 81 year olds I play with, tell your partners what you are going to do before you do it so they don't mistake it for a seizure and dial 911.

Okay this one is a little over the top. Again the sports psychologist came up with this. Take a ball and fill in one of the dimples with a black sharpie. Extend your arms out even with your shoulders and interlock your fingers with the thumbs pointing up. Place the ball between your thumbs with the black dot facing you. Now stare at it. This is a field expedient means of meditation and should help you restore your focus.

The psychologist suggests you do this in the cart while your partner drives. Now I don't know about you, but if I saw some dude riding in the cart with his arms out staring at a ball, I'd be on the cell to the starter telling him he had a drug problem on the course.

These tips have a place in your game, but really they are only treating the symptoms not the core problem.

Imagine arriving at a busy construction site where you see a carpenter preparing to drive a nail into a board. He draws back his hammer and then suddenly stops. "Someone moved" he shouts. Then he draws back again and this time screams "someone turn that saw off". Ridiculous? Of course.

That carpenter, using a heavier tool than a club and striking a target much smaller than a ball, drives that nail in over and over without being distracted by the noise or movement around him. He's in the zone. He's done this a thousand times and he knows that if he draws back so far and strikes with X amount of speed that the nail will enter the board straight. He knows it subconsciously which gives him the confidence, and his muscles remember allowing his body to perform it.

So the next time you're ready to tee it up, don't think of yourself as a golfer, think of yourself as a master carpenter. Stay within your game. You know it works so all you have to do is do it. Someone moving, someone talking or a freaking cart beeping in reverse can not physically affect the flight of your ball or the roll of your putt. See the carpenter, be the carpenter, drive the nail.

Grasshopper, get me my clubs.

How You Gonna Have A Dream Come True?

I was eleven years old when my Dad bought our first record player. It was a monster Motorola box that was the latest in High Fidelity technology. It was the 1958 equivalent of today's entertainment center as it not only played three speeds of LPs, but had an AM and FM radio as well!

To get his record collection started, Dad bought four albums; "In the Wee Small hours of the Morning" by Sinatra, "Casaloma" by Glen Miller, the soundtrack from "South Pacific" and "Music to Strip By" by I don't remember who. This last one was a marvel of '58 marketing. The album cover had three strategically placed notches from which a G String was suspended. Try doing that with a MP3.

At any rate, the only way to escape Sinatra or Miller or Broadway or bump and grind jazz in my house, was to tune in the local rock and roll(which was a whole new thing) station on my transistor radio. As a result, I can pretty much sing/hum the music from all four albums.

The one that has stuck with me the most is South Pacific. If you've never seen the movie you should. It takes you back to a kinder, gentler, more innocent time like say, World War II. If you click on that link I'll guarantee you three minutes of laughs. The one song though that I can't get out of my head is Happy Talk. It's sung by the character Bloody Mary who is trying to hook up her daughter with a Navy Ensign. The part that sticks with me is:

You got to have a dream
If you don't got a dream
How you gonna have a dream come true

Today we would probably call Bloody Mary a life counselor for dispensing these words of wisdom. I mean you can take those three lines and apply them to any part of your life and they make sense. However, mostly those lines are banging around my brain as I approach the first tee.

Most instructors will tell you to visualize the shot. I'm thinking you ought to dream not only the shot, but your entire golf "career". What's your dream? Break 80? Shoot scratch golf? Win a tournament? Or that stupid dream we all have entertained at some point, find a way to go some kind of pro and make money doing the thing we love. If you've got a dream then each tee shot, each approach, each putt and each round is a step towards having your dream come true. In other words, the dreaming part of the game starts well before you set foot on the first tee.

I have a buddy who absolutely hates the par three 12th hole at our course. The cart path runs down the left side and then takes a hard left to the 13th. The path is marked with ropes starting about 20 yards from the 12th and these ropes of course are supported by stakes. I don't know how many times my buddy has pulled his shot left, hit the rock hard cart path, got an incredible run at the green only to hit one of the supporting stakes and go skittering over near the fence. "Why do they put stakes right in front of the damn green?" he screams. I remind him that they are not directly in front of the green and if he would just hit in the fairway, or better yet, just land on the green in regulation and not take a trip down the cart path,then he would take the stakes out of play.

He starts mumbling about the 12th hole as we are coming off the 11th. God forbid the pin placement is anywhere on the left side of the green. If it is we will be listening to pre-shot bitching, a moment of silence as he pulls his shot left, and then post-shot bitching. My buddy needs a dream.

So if there is a lesson to be learned it's that the biggest tool you have to a great game of golf can not be found in your bag. It's located between your ears. You got to have a dream. If you not got a dream. How you gonna have a dream come true?