Two Plus Two Older Archives - Monterey Trip Report - Long

Well, today we left Monterey and I'm currently in San Francisco. The parents are out eating sushi for the second time in 4 days (???) so while they're out I'm using the internet connection here at the Hyatt by the pier to check up on things and post some pics here before I walk around Fisherman's wharf for a little while.

Anyways, Monterey was great. The flight in was fairly long, and I took liberty in taking many, many pictures from the airplane. Some pics were actually pretty cool, others not so much. The lady sitting next to me drank at least 3 shots of Tanqueray, though I'm too lazy to see just how much alcohol that was. She was a nice lady =)

Once we got into San Jose, it was a shortish car trip down to Monterey, but we stopped to eat sushi. I tried tuna rolls for the first time. It was pretty good, but holy hell it was spicy! What was most interesting about the sushi place was the way it was designed. The area where the sushi chefs made the sushi was something of an island, where the outer ring was a conveyer belt that carried the nwly made sushi rolls. You could take any of the plates and add them to your dinner, and the pricing was based on the color/design of the plate that held your newly acquired sushi. I've been to some sushi places before in Atlanta and had never seend this, so I thought this concept was cool as hell.

After sushi, we managed to (finally) get down to the Lodge at Pebble Beach. We were originally planning to go to San Francisco first, but for some reason we ended up going to Monterey first. Not sure why. Due to this, we were put in a different room for the night that was nearby the Pebble Beach putting green, with no view of the course or the ocean in sight.

The next day we all woke up half-rested (since my dad is very talented at snoring loudly) and took a trip out to Hearst Castle, some 2.5 hours down highway 1 from Monterey. The trip down was awesome scenically, and the parents said it reminded them very much of Ireland, the way the mountains jutted into the ocean and the fog always rolled in. Many pictures were taken, and lunch was eaten in Big Sur. About 15 minutes before we finally reached the castle, there was an area on the beach where travelers could stop and see elephant whales, either laying out on the beach or fighting/playing in the waves. That was pretty damn cool, because I had never seen an elephant seal before.

As nice as the trip was, the actual tour of the Hearst castle was very uneventful, at least that's how I would put it. I had been to the Biltimore Estates earlier, and this was pretty similar, except in California. I had seen parts of Citizen Kane, so I somewhat knew the history of Hearts. Regardless, it was nice getting out in the sun even though there wasn't many entertaining things to do.

The car drive back was MISERABLE. I kept having to tell myself this was sacrifice for getting to play Pebble Beac and Spylgass Hill the next two days, and that carried me on through the afternoon. It was the same ride back, but if any of you have taken highway 1 between Salinas and Monterey, you'll know that the ride has lots of curves and elevation changes. Needless to say after a few hours I got reaaallyy car sick, but some ginger ale and sun chips in big sur helped change that. That night we ate italian food in Carmel.

So, the next morning, the pretty awesome morning I'd have to say. My dad and I woke up at 6:30 to hit range balls and get ready to play pebble beach! I was psyched. When we got to the first tee you could tell what kind of establishment it was, given that the head guy in the pro shop looked like a coorporate lawyer, and the starter on the first tee looked older than hell. Our caddy's name was Patrick, and he was a gentleman who looked to be in his early 40's. Kind of a slimmish version of the guy who played the commander in Houston in the Apollo 13 movie.

The first tee shot was surpringly complacent (if that's the word to descire it). A lack of jitters, anyways. I managed to hit my tee ball down the right side of the fairway. The approach shot sadly went into the bunker, but I got out of there and made bogey! I'm around a 20 handicap, so bogey is basically par for me.

Then, onto the second hole, a 500 yard par five. We were playing from the gold tees, by the way, which were the tees in front of the blue tees. Around 6400 yards, I think. Going on a tangent, the greens at Pebble were smaller than the greens at any other course I had ever played, which likely made up for the lack of yardage (and we were playing in calm weather, I couldn't imagine playing in 25+ mph winds).

Anyways, the second hole: I hit my tee shot perfect, down the right side of the fairway, and knocked the crap o ut of my 3 wood and got it on the back of the green. 2 putts, and I make birdie! yahoo! Even par through 2 holes! Couldn't have been happier - that is, until I triple bogey the 3rd hole and double bogie the 4th hole. Reality sets in further when I bogey the 5th hole.

Then, I played a succession of three holes that will probably let me rest in peace as a (somewhat) poor golfer. On the 6th hole I nailed my teeshot down the right side of the fairway. This was a par five, and most of you have seen pictures of it. The approach shot to the par five literally goes abou 3 stories uphill to a green perched on a cliff. I hit my three wood about 30 yards short of the green, pitched to the front collar of the green, and 2 putter. Par!

Then, the coolest moment. EVER! I stood out on probably the most famous par 3 hole in golf, the 100 yard seventh hole. Just google it, I'm sure you've seen it before.

Oh, gosh, I have to go on a tangent. I forgot to mention the other two guys I was playing with in addition to my dad. One was an executive for Bank of America who managed relations between the credit card companies and the banks in Louisville. The other was the marketing executive for travel and leisure golf magazine from NY.

Anyways, back to the 7th hole. The guy from NY hit first, and hit over the green with a wedge. The second guy hit his ball, and like the firs guy he hit his over the green with a wedge. I had practiced one shot in particular leading up to this day, a halfway hit 9-iron for this occasion. I hit it, but I chunked it. SHAT! The ball flew low, and I begged it not to go into the bunker. Thankfully it landed on the front collar of fringe and bounded up.. and rolled. At first glance I though it had the pace for a hole-in one, and the heart sank. Sadly, it slowed down thanks to hitting the rough, but it just kept rolling until it stopped maybe 7 feet short of the green. There's nothing that compares to that. But I still had to make the putt!

So, we took a group photo in front of the 7th green,a dn I stepped up to the putt. Patrick the caddy told me it would break a cup right, and I agreed with him. I pulled the putt, but thankfully it broke... into the hole!!! WOO! I had just birdied the most famous par 3 in golf. I started acting like a retarded version of a white Tiger Woods that couldn't dance, but I didn't care. The 8th hole came along and I parred that one, too. So I played 6 through 8 one under par. Kill me now, for my life was complete as a 20 handicap golfer.

Beyond that there was some unspectacular scores 9and another par on the 10th hole) and I finished my round somewhere in the mid 90's. Getting an 11 on the 18th hole did not help either, in spite of the fact I got it to the greenside bunker in three (use your imagination). I forgot what we ate that night. Erm, last night. My memory sucks.

So, today we woke up and played Spyglass Hill. Sadly, no pictures, but I could sum it up pretty easily: THIS COURSE IS HARD. Oh man, wow. I played better at Spyglass than I did at Pebble in most stretches and I still did not break 100. It was that hard.

I did manage to make one birdie, however, on the short par 4 seventeenth. Driver, sand wedge, 3 foot putt! Awesome. Of course, had I missed that putt I would have screamed many profanities, as this was the kind of golfing day you wanted to forget, even though you were playing at another top-10 golf course in America. Just the previous hole I think I carded something like a 12. I dunno.

We packed our things after that golf round and headed straight up to San Francisco, stopping near Palo Alto so my sophomore sister could look at the Stanford Campus. It is much, MUCH browner than I thought, very little green grass. And UGA looks so much more awesome. Stanford clearly the better school, though.

So, now I sit in the Hyatt in San Fran. I'm definitely going to the Wharf tomorrow afternoon for the clam chowder in the bread bowl, and we leave in 2 days. If anyone has some outstanding dinner recommendations feel free to shout something out, though I think my dad already has plans? I'm not sure.

Okay, on to the pictures (oh man, this is gonna take a while, but oh well. Imageshack is slower than hell on the hotel connection) -

Hitting out of the bunker @ 1 on Pebble:
http://img350.imageshack.us/img350/6...34389wy.th.jpg

Driving on the 6th in mid-swing:
http://img350.imageshack.us/img350/4...34585kh.th.jpg

Me acting like a retard on the 7th hole before birdieing:
http://img350.imageshack.us/img350/3...34707dc.th.jpg

Tee shot on the famous 18th:
http://img350.imageshack.us/img350/8...35011rc.th.jpg