This week fellow Dewsweeper Beef, and I flew out to Las Vegas where we have friends who put on a real fun charity golf event every summer. We played in that scramble event, but first we tee'd it up at the beautiful Aliante Golf Club in North Las Vegas the day before to warm up. What a great place!
This is a golf towel - believe it or not!
For golfers who have never played desert golf, you should sometime soon. It is a very different game overall, and although we prefer the beauty of northern golf, desert golf has its advantages. As you can see, we were in the shadows of beautiful mountains all morning long, and that makes for a fantastic backdrop. Also, the course was in great shape, with nice greens, and tight fairways. Needless to say, there is not much water to hit into on desert courses, trees are a minimum, but there are other challenges.
Incredible view from Clubhouse!
It's best to keep it in the fairway, as generally a few yards off it, is desert, or houses. There was plenty of sand too on this course protecting the greens that generally were very large. We also found that the thin air was giving way to extra length, especially with iron play so we had to adjust that part of our game as well, as we fired into the greens.
I came out firing, parring the first three holes and looking like I knew what I was doing. But then a penalty stroke induced triple bogey on the 200 yard number 4 par 3. I hit someones roof, lost ball, and a hack stroke, 2-putt. Yikes. And for good measure I took another triple on number 8, penalty stroke, 3-putt - sheesh! For a 45 on the front. But 6 over on two holes, so the rest I shot well. I can ususally stay away from big numbers.
Aliante Website
Beef shot a 46 on the front with just overall more consistent play with no real blow-ups like me, but a few doubles hurt. This is a very different game out here, so there is an adjustment period. But he parred the difficult number 9, and turned the corner. In fact,we both did.
We both got our desert feet underneath us and both shot a nice 40 on the back. Beef also hit one of the best 3-woods I have ever seen on the green after an errant tee shot on number 10. It was from about 275 yards to about 10 feet from the hole. We figured out the adjusted club selection, and the greens for a strong back 9.
Aliante is a wonderful course that you should consider if you make a Vegas golf trip. It has 4 sets of tees, Dove, Hawk, Falcon, and Eagle. We played the Falcon tees that were about 6,700 yards. The Eagles tip out at about 7,100. Hawk plays about 6,200, and Dove (women's) about 5,300. This is a very scenic course that is just trimmed out perfectly. The off-season rates were great, and the service was fantastic too. Plus, they served one of the best breakfast sandwiches I have ever eaten in my life. - Legit sandwich, weighed about 3 pounds!
We beat the heat too, by playing early, but it was still 101 when we finished up at about 11 am. Think about desert golf if you've never tried it. This was my fourth time to the desert for golf, and I love it. Every golfer should do it at least once just for the difference.
Scores
Wynn - 85
Beef - 86
