Torrey Pines Golf Course

Gavin and I slept much better last night, I only woke up once so I am getting over the jet lag. Gavin is doing well and seems back to normal, although I am still doing daily dressings of the wound. 

We had breakfast at 8am and then Luke and I went to collect our hired golf clubs and check in before playing golf. We did not think it was worth bringing a big bag of golf clubs with us for only one round of golf as they are heavy and could get damaged in transit. I was pleasantly surprised to be given almost brand new Titleist golf clubs to play with. 

Torrey Pines is famous as it’s where Tiger Woods won the US Open Championships in 2008 and Jon Rahm won in 2021. It also hosted the Genesis Tournament in February this year which was hosted by Tiger Woods. It’s not a private club and is owned and run by the city council. However it is very expensive to play a round unless you are a local resident, which is surprising for a public course. 

We played the South Course which is the harder of the two courses here. As it is always busy you are required to play as a four ball, so Luke, Adam and I were joined by another golfer who lives nearby in Palm Springs. Gavin and Tommy came around the course with us on the golf carts. Tommy enjoyed watching the eagles and all the bird life in this area.

I was warned that the course is very difficult. I actually found the first nine holes not at all challenging - maybe because at my level of play it isn’t, as I can hit fairly straight down the fairway although not very far, so factors like wind don't affect me as much as a big hitter and better golfer - Adam had a 315 yard drive into the wind! There is also no water on the course which is usually my downfall. It was windy and very cool, actually cold at times and by the end of the second nine the sunshine had gone and it was cloudy. However the second nine was more challenging due to the many bunkers being placed very close around the green. I enjoyed the golf very much and my wrist was fine as I wore the wrist brace, and although we had golf carts I still did a fair bit of walking clocking up 14,000 steps.

The golf course was rather slow. We had a four ball in front of us who took their time and made no effort to speed up play. They also very very disrespectful, not raking bunkers and being very noisy when we were playing. 

Adam planned a surprise evening for us. We went to the Taco Stand in La Jolla for an early supper - it is so popular you queue for quite some time but the tacos are worth it. This was followed by a night of comedy at The Comedy Store on Pearl Street. The headline act was an Australian called Monty Franklin who was extremely funny and we all had such a good laugh. 

Tomorrow we are going to the Joshua Tree National Park for one night.