Why San Antonio

 

                Winter golf in San Antonio remains a largely unnoticed and underappreciated product in the USA. Most northerners think about Florida or Arizona when they think about finding a winter golf home. I have now lived in South Texas for twenty five years and I am here to tell you winter golf is very good in San Antonio and there are compelling reasons to come here this winter, the next, and beyond.

                It has not always been this good. When I married Sharon in 1986 the city courses of San Antonio were dreadful. Outside of the city courses the other public options were sparse. Since I became a permanent resident two major things have happened and golf has never looked better in San Antonio.

                The first thing was the vision and development nerve of Dan Pedrotti and Ed Miller in forming Foresight Golf. Foresight developed three outstanding public golf courses in the San Antonio area: The Bandit Golf Club, The Buckhorn Golf Club, and The Republic Golf Club. You can get a look at these courses at www.foresightgolf.net. The Bandit is in my current home town of New Braunfels and serves the growing I-35 corridor. It is an outstanding test of golf designed by Keith Foster. The Buckhorn is the other way in the town of Comfort. Its reputation is being easy and enjoyable but I have found when I play that it is a challenge. Foresight completed their first trilogy with The Republic is the southeast corner of San Antonio. Art Schaupeter designed both Republic and Buckhorn and both are always in good condition thanks in large part to Ed Miller’s executive oversight.

                Foresight then performed a coup by purchasing Pecan Valley the sight of the 1968 PGA Championship won by Julius Boros over Arnold Palmer. Pecan Valley was then and is now the center of privately owned public golf in San Antonio. Under the care of Foresight, Pecan Valley has been able to maintain a high quality of conditioning and play. Pecan Valley was designed by J. Press Maxwell which makes it a design cousin to Southern Hills in Tulsa designed by Perry Maxwell. In 1986 the only public option worth my time was Pecan Valley and even then is was a little ratty. Now with Foresight at the helm everybody has four fine golf courses to choose from all at reasonable rates.

                In 2007 the landscape for public golf changed for the good when the City of San Antonio began to turn the municipal courses over to a non-profit company known as The Alamo City Golf Trail. The Alamo City Golf Trail has a board of directors, all advocates for golf, and the CEO, Jim Roschek runs The Trail with sound business skills. The beauty of the arrangement is that The City of San Antonio is now on the plus side on the profit loss side as is the Trail which spins the proceeds to charity. It was a win-win for the city and the courses. Also winning were the golfers of San Antonio and the employees of the Trail. The courses are better. The jobs are better. Everybody has won.

                The centerpiece of The Alamo City Golf Trail is Brackenridge Park which is historical in every sense of the word. In golf it is historical for being the home to the Texas Open which is golf’s fifth oldest event. It is historic for all the golf played there by Snead, Hogan, Nelson, and for the longest time Mike Souchak who held the lowest score shot on tour. It is also historic because Gutzon Borglum did a lot of work on Mount Rushmore in a studio overlooking the golf course. Recently the Borglum Studio has been renovated and restored into a working reception and meeting facility. Right now when you go on property at “Old Brack” you have the feel of being at a special private club. You can feel the history, serenity, and cool that is a great golf facility.

                As a golf course Brack is short, topping out at maybe 6300 yards. It was designed by renowned A.W. Tillinghast in the 1920’s it was redesigned and reopened in 2008 under the supervision of the Alamo City Golf Trail. It is the center of public golf in San Antonio for all the right reasons.

                The Alamo City Golf Trail has six other golf courses and each is being renewed and restored into facilities worth playing. To learn more about the Alamo City Golf Trail and its courses go to www.alamocitygolftrail.com. It has been a phenomenal change in the golf landscape giving everybody at least six legitimate municipal courses and four privately owned course on which to play. This alone makes San Antonio a viable, end destination for golfers looking for a winter home. In the twenty five years I have been here my town has gone from one public option to at least ten. What a dramatic change.

                Finally while Foresight and Alamo City Golf Trail have greatly improved San Antonio golf, I would be remiss if I did not mention San Antonio has three great resorts; Hyatt, Westin, and JW Marriott; and at least two other great courses minutes from the airport; The Quarry and Silverhorn. Add to all that a low cost of living, great food, and a user friendly downtown it adds up to the next great spot for winter golf, NOW!

December 18, 2011

 

Fitting In

 

I am known as a professional golfer. It has been my persona for quite a while now; as long as I have been an adult. So many folks are amazed that I have not been actively pursuing the Champions Tour with greater zeal. To be honest I did have moderate success in 2008 but after giving it a shot I looked up and quite simply don’t want to end up “bitter old golfer”. I say that because many of the guys who chase the Champions Tour and do not get over year after year sit around and talk about how the system screwed them. I found myself going down that road and taking a good long look at myself in the mirror I just decided, “NO!”

 

In 13 days I turn 54 which is not really a monumental landmark in anyway, but just a fact. It is really time for me to do other things which is why I am embarking on a job search to find out where a retired Tour Player fits into the golf world after he decides to stop. What are the options? Design is one option but according to Golf.com only 15 18-hole golf courses came on line in 2011. With one of my heroes, Ben Crenshaw right up the street doing some design and doing it well with Bill Coore, who needs a one-time Tour winner and Texas Aggie to boot to design? The fact that I have one on the ground and doing well, High Meadow Ranch in Magnolia, Texas puts me ahead of the curve.

 

Teaching is obviously another aspect of golf that I could do. I know what I am doing and know what I believe. I am also pretty good at conveying the message to folks. Most of that training comes from all the pro-am events I played in where one big draw is helping a new friend get better. I prefer group setting over individual settings only because I find golf social. However to be a good teacher the individual lesson is so necessary and I need to get better at that. There are difficulties to the vocation of teaching pro. One I see is the individual pro has to be a great self-promoter, relentlessly pushing and marketing himself. Part of that is many teachers I have chatted with feel compelled to disrespect another teacher. That is a turn off to me, and I have not gone back to a few intelligent teachers because of that. The other difficulty I see is an expectation that technology is a cure for the golf swing and the ability to play golf. Technology is expensive and a launch monitor and swing analysis software are also costly. I envy the pros who have the equipment; it gives them a leg up.

 

Let me digress a second here on technology. The most fabulous and wonderful computer ever assembled to help you with golf is: your brain. The human brain still outstrips any collection of chips and crystals in computing and executing a golf shot. The mind can also ENJOY the GAME of golf. This is why I find the most compelling and successful golf teachers to be more like coaches rather than a mechanic. Teachers such as Chuck Hogan, Lynn Marriott, and Pia Nilsson who coach players how to run their brain to run their game get so much done with so few bells and whistles. The best strategy I can ever share with a golfer is learn how to run your brain to make golf as fun and exciting of an event as you can make it. A local youth camp here in New Braunfels has a slogan, “Don’t waste fun!” I agree!

 

Administration is another place in golf where I might fit. I know this because the last year I had ten months of general manager experience and have found I am better at it than I thought I would be. The problem here is three fold. First it is not as if there are a lot of jobs out there, available, worth having. The second is my accreditation is unconventional especially as it pertains to the PGA. I am PGA Tour by brand not PGA. It is kind of technical but there exists a soft barrier to entry for me because I am not a PGA Class A pro. The third is related to the second in that the experience I do have, which in my opinion is every bit as functional as if I had spent eight or ten years as an assistant pro, scares employers. Employers have this stigma about Tour Players in part because they wonder if the putts start falling the Tour Pro will scamper. I can actually see the validity in all these and the fallacy. Good is good. Smart is smart. Golf is golf. If the right job was there, I’d take it in a heartbeat.

 

As I go into Christmas 2011 I am looking for a gift; the gift of where I fit. I am sure there is not much money in being a blogger. It will come. I have my resume out and my intentions known that I am into my post Tout career. It will be a blast to see where I end up. Hopefully I can be consistent with my posts too. That way if you follow me I can share what I know about golf and the world in which we live and make your day a little brighter. Peace on Earth and goodwill toward men. Until next time have fun playing the great game of golf.

 

 Ten Things to Do

1.       Learn to play percussion so that you can get the job doing the Progressive Insurance Jingle.  You know, "Life from Progressive...(ding)...Tips from Flo".  I wonder how much that cymbal player makes.  It has to be $40,000 a year just to be on cue during the commercial.  Which brings up the ultimate question, who would you choose; Flo or Neanderthal Guy?

2.       Buy a Roku and hook it up to your TV then watch all the really bad shows ever created.  I am partial to Netflix and have watched all of Grey's Anatomy, Lie to Me, and now into Nikita.  I tried Psych but ask why did the first two shows have to be so stupid?  The Mentalist is better.

3.       Read a real newspaper cover to cover.  I am not talking about reading on line, but on real fish wrap.  There is a smell, a feel, and real ink residue that ends up on your fingers which has been lost via laptop, iPad, and iPhone.  Coming home from San Francisco waiting to get on board our Southwest flight I looked around and nobody had a newspaper and everybody had a device.  That is good news for the trees.

4.       Pick any subject and Wikipedia it.  Once there on Wikipedia follow all the blue words.  The blue word rabbit trails are amazing.  It is very educational.  More so than text books since I found my son's economics book under a pile of abandoned papers of mine last week.  So Wiki "Economics" and discover why our global economics are in a mess.

5.       Follow all your kids and family on Twitter and Facebook.  Calmly watch, read, and learn and when the time is right post a really snarky and funny comment.  It is so wrong to post a mature comment from a 50+ person on a media designed for Taylor Swift fans.  It'll prove to your kids and grandkids wisdom is acquired and not learned.  It is like the house and stuff surrounding me right now; acquired.  How?  Who knows?

6.       Visit an Occupy site before it fizzles out.  I had the chance to visit the Occupy Cal folks at Cal Berkeley last week.  Now here is the thing about Occupy Cal; the faculty, staff, regents, and president of Cal are all just rolling their eyes since truly the "establishment" at Berkeley all have BTDT!  Once the powers that be put down the cabernet and brownies they should go teach the current protesters how the pros did it back in the day.

7.       If you are going to visit Occupy then go to a Glenn Beck / Sarah Palin / Tea Party rally as well.  There is nothing more useful as a well-rounded fair and balanced education when you get back to watching Roku and posting on Twitter and Facebook.  Then again fair and balanced has come to mean agreeing with the Beck Palin Party and sending Occupy back where they came from: the suburbs.

8.       Getting real for a moment you MUST play more golf.  If you already play, play more.  If you never have played, well, play now.  It is winter in North America and I know cold and rainy is not conducive to playing but the solutions to the temporal problems of life are on the golf course.  With that said I point out our current President has been reported to have played more golf than predecessors.  This HAS to be a good thing putting him in the middle.  Radical Republicans alternate between criticizing him for golfing and rejoicing that he is not at the office.  Radical Democrats criticize him for partaking in the bourgeois activity of the elite.  Do what the President does, play more golf!

9.       Procrastinate on Christmas shopping.  Wait!  Black Friday and Cyber Monday are all hyperbole.  They are way overrated.  Here is my review for the hot gift items for Christmas 2010...

10.   Investigate the meaning of this sentence: "Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead."    

My blog are what George Carlin called "Brain Drippings".  I am serious about Jesus Christ.  I am serious about my wife and family.  I am serious about golf.  Look for more drippings on www.davidogrin.com.

I just got home from California.  My wife and I have been married 25 years and we took a second honeymoon to San Francisco, Napa Valley, and golf mecca Pebble Beach.  The biggest difference between the journey 25 years ago and this journey is that I weigh 30 pounds more.  That is one pound for every year of marriage and an extra five I never shook from baby number one in 1988.

The last 25 years have been kind to northern California.  Despite the often assumed barriers for development when they get around to doing something they do it right.  In San Francisco every site was either renewed or reborn with class and style.  The Cable Cars are in pristine shape.  Lombard Street is as beautiful as ever.  Union Square was alive with all of the modern stores and despite being in the heart of digital world, people where out shopping in droves.  SFO airport is fresh and clean.  Fisherman's Wharf remains excellent.  So in my opinion San Francisco gets five stars as a place to visit.  Three tips: Da Vinci Villas on the corner of Van Ness and Filbert turned out to be a great place to stay; Jackson Fillmore Tratorria continues to be a fabulous restaurant; and a local pointed us to Street a comfort food place on Polk and (about0 Broadway.

Napa and the Napa Valley also have undergone a change, an upgrade, and a renewal.  First off in 1986 Napa itself, downtown, was not much to behold.  Since then they have done a river flood project, developed along the river in a stylish fashion, and have made Napa to have a desirable look.  Next off development has brought a Westin Hotel, the Oxbow Market, and the Wine Train to life.  When you go, take the Wine Train.  Excellent food, great scenery, and a great presentation.  The Westin looks first class in every way.  Oxbow Market has a charm to it that makes it worth stopping in for lunch.

The main difference between 1986 and today is that the wine tasting experieince itself has become big business.  On out first honeymoon I remember stopping at 10 wineries and tasted for free.  Here it is 25 years later and California wine, the wine business, and the food and wine presentation are so advanced and so popular that the vinyards all have gotten smart on tasting.  We stopped at two vineyards on purpose.  Folie A Deux makes our favorite table wine Menage a Trois and we stopped in to taste and say thanks.  We also went to Artesa which is up on the west slope.  The view from there was awesome and they also make some great wine.  We also stopped in and peaked at The French Laundry restaurant but that alone migh have cost us $300.

One tip I have if you visit Napa is go ahead and drive up to Calistoga, but do not ignore the low country around Carneros winery.  The loop around the lower Napa looks as if it could be great fun.  I wish we'd have had time to stop at Cuvaison, Acacia, Ceja, and the other wineries.

Drving to Monterey from Napa we hugged the coast which of course means we crossed The Golden Gate, went through the Presdio, and we took a detour through Golden Gate Park.  Every inch worth the trip.  We drove right past Olympic Club where I played two US Opens and caught back up to Highway 1.  Coming down the One is spectacular and every bit as worth it as taking the One from Carmel to points south.  We stopped at a produce stand at one point, and make no mistake, saw the best vegetables in our country.  I never knew brussel spouts were so awesome.

We never actually went inside the 17 Mile Drive instead focusing on Pacific Grove.  PG is worth your time all by itself with the drive around the point, around the charming Pacific Grove Municipal Golf Course, as scenic as the more famous drive.  PGGC looked great by the way and it is worth playing.  We stayed at The Pacific Grove Inn, a B&B on the corner of Pine and Forest.  Very much a great place to stay.  Our main tourist thing was Monterey Bay Aquarium that has the finest in exhibits and radical environmetalism.  Walking up and down Cannery Row was excellent and we stopped into Bargetto tasting room.  We've been going to Bargetto since 1987 and the host, Joe, has been there all that time.  Bargetto makes two wines I like: a dolcetto and a zinfadel.  Stop in and say hi to Joe.

On Tuesdays downtown Monterey turns into the best Farmer's Market we have been to.  We rolled in at 4:15 and spent over an hour looking at the finest produce and some of the strangest (New Age strange) products imaginable.  Arugala looked sexy on the street.  Should your travels take you to the Peninsula, and you are there on a Tuesday, don't miss Farmer's Market.

Odds and ends of things to do in San Francisco.  You don't need a car at all.  Use BART, Muni, and all the other forms of transportation.  You can take the Wine Train from SF by taking the ferry to Vallejo and they pick you up.  Buying an all you can ride pass is worth it.  Stopping in at Tourist Information is worth it.  Walk the Golden Gate Bridge.  Eat the food and taste the wine.  NorCal is all about fine wine and the presentation.  Go with it.  Enjoy it.  SF is getting better by the year just like a fine wine.  And this trip? I took no clubs and no computer.  A great idea!  San Francisco, Napa, Pacific Grove are all five star places to take a vacation.  Go enjoy.