Living in Seattle, it doesn't get much better than escaping the perpetual gray at the end of March.
A week ago today, I quietly slipped through security in my nondescript jeans and a T-shirt and boarded a plane for Phoenix. Bye bye gray sky, hello sunshine!
Touching down in the desert in the evening, it was considerably warmer than my home base, and considerably less busy to boot. The rat race seems to be pretty crowded in Washington state's largest city.
I suppose we rats flock to cheese, not sunshine!
Anyhow, Stone Creek Golf Course in Paradise Valley was to be my playground for the next two days. Turns out, a lot like the school yard when I was younger, I enjoyed myself but was never in control of anything.
Rental clubs suck.
The staff at Stone Creek were marginally friendly at best, but their Nike rentals seemed pretty decent. By the fifth hole or so, I was hitting the irons OK. The SQ driver wasn't too hard to smash. Hitting it straight was another story of course.
Playing with two of my associates for skins, I figured to be in the hunt. In fact, I was hunted and killed. Across the two-day tourney, I won three skins, zero closest-to-the-pin's and finished something like 20 strokes down.
I blame it on the sun, the wind, the beer, the sand and my all-around poor golf game. Though I did average just under two putts a hole across the board.
If you haven't played in a dry spot like 'Zona, it's tough to stick those pitches! All-in-all, I recommend Stone Creek as a real nice course with a lot of challenging hills and bunkers. If it's windy, cancel your tee time.
The second leg of my tour de Phoenix was to be spring training baseball. This did not disappoint.
We secured tickets for the Mariners in Peoria long before fleeing our homes. We sat row one for both games, once behind home and once on the outfield end of the M's dugout.
The seats were amazing, the park reminded me of my old home park (used to be called Legion Park in Great Falls, Montana), the weather was brilliant, and there was no complaining about the Mariners.
Ken Griffey, Jr. looked great (batting). He hit the ball hard and drove in four runs on four hits. His smile was all over the park and his outfield play wasn't horrible.
He is slow for sure though.
Sunday, Adrian Beltre nearly caught Griffey from behind at home plate on someone's hit. When he was heading back to the outfield, I heard him say "Yeah, but I was starting to pull away."
The Kid still has it.
When I sort my thoughts I'll post some more specific thoughts, but for now, I'm just going to say that I'll be in Arizona every year, or at least every other.
