My Own Private Golf Course

So I’ll never have enough cash to own my own private course (ie.  Steve Wynn and Shadow Creek) but today I experienced what that might be like.  A developer has decided that 50 miles north of Vegas in the middle of nowhere is a great place to put a brand new planned community, Coyote Springs.  So there is tons of acreage committed to this project, a bit of infrastructure, and … nothing else.  Well that’s not completely true.  There is one other thing.  A beauiful Jack Nicklaus designed golf course called The Chase @ Coyote Springs.

When I say nothing… I mean nothing.  No convenience store, gas station, watering hole – nothing.  So after seeing some write ups about this brand new course we make a call and book a tee-time for our regular Friday morning golf game.  I rendevous with my golfing buddies, Jonathan and Jason, at a local Starbucks, grab a steamed breve Americano, and we’re off to make our 8 am teet time.

We arrive at 7:15 am to find that the doors are locked and no one is around.  So we take a seat on the patio of the temporary (read:  portable trailer) clubhouse and wait.  At 7:35, the first individual shows up.   As he prepares to unlock the door, we smile and ask, “When’s the first tee-time?”.  “8 am,” he replies.  “Great!  That’s us”.  “Actually, he says smiling, you are our only tee time of the day!”

Unbelievable.  We load up our clubs, pay our green fees, and are joined by a course provided Fore Caddy who will be our host for the day and provide us with some hints as to the specific nuisances of the course.  Thomas turned out to be of questionable knowledge but we enjoyed his company nonetheless and I’m sure he enjoyed the tip.

First to the range, which was beautiful (the goal is to have PGA West teaching site in Coyote Springs so they have spared no expense) but it was hilarious to see three range stations set up with three pyramids of practice balls perfectly stacked waiting just for us.  After smacking the dirty dozen we rolled a few practice putts and then it was off to the first tee.

Over the next three and a half hours we had a great time of golf, hit some decent shots, and some pretty pathetic ones.  But we were the only ones on the course the entire time.  And the course was amazing!!!  So after today I understand what it is to be “a special person.”

Footnote:  Shot 41-40: 81 – - not thrilled with the score.  I would like another shot at it.

~ by Lee Coate on June 28, 2008.