Any trip to Palm Desert in California involves some golf. Earlier this month I was able to spend a few days in the city. Excited to get out of the rain in Seattle. The sun was a welcome sight as the plane touched down in Palm Springs. The first afternoon of golf was planned to be played in just a couple short days. The Norman Course at PGA West would be the first round of the trip. I had only played at PGA West during a trip to the desert, some years prior. During that previous trip I had played the Stadium Course, along with the Nicklaus Course. Those two courses had been mighty challenging, but they were a lot of fun to play. Going to the PGA West facility had been a revelation. As somewhere I had often dreamt of visiting to play, spending two days of golf there had exceeded my expectations. Leaving me excited for the next opportunity to play golf at PGA West. This time, I wanted to take on the challenge of playing the third of the courses, open to the public. The Norman Course was just about ready to close for reseeding and other small changes. Making the timing of the trip to Palm Desert ideal. Another new experience would be playing a golf course just before it underwent the reseeding process. I was excited for the new experiences awaiting me on the Wednesday afternoon.
The speed of play was going to be a thing. With the fall season moving into the winter, the daylight was limited. It was the early part of November with the sun disappearing in the later stages of the four o’clock hour. The round of golf was set to begin at 1:30, providing the possibility of about three and a half hours of light. The positive aspect of the situation was an empty golf course waiting for play. The shotgun tournament being played in the morning hours was going to clear the course just after one in the afternoon. Making our grouping the third in line to play from the first tee box. It was until finishing the round that I learned about the handful of groups starting their afternoon on the tenth hole. We were all paired up with four players to each group. Our group joined by a fella from the Napa area of northern California. We learned quickly of his kind nature, as we all introduced ourselves. He was a high school golf coach who spent a career in law enforcement. The starter made his presentation, providing knowledge about a golf course none of us had previously seen. Don’t hit the golf ball close to the water hazards, as the ground around them slopes towards the water, leading your ball right into the hazard. The bunkers in the fairway were deep and many of them were already being worked on. Following our quick words of caution, we were ready to play golf.
Looking down the first hole, a couple of things were noticeable. The first was the seemingly dryness of the golf course. Which I presumed was due to the preparation for seeding the following week. The fairway didn’t look horrible by any stretch. Green was still the predominate color when I looked down the first hole. There were just small inclines of the browning grass mixed in amongst the turf. The second of my initial impressions of the Norman Couse was the desert feel it seemed to be providing. Along either side of the first fairway was waste area. The grass of the fairway running right up to the sandy surface with shrubs dotting the landscape. Everything appeared to be right out in front of us, at least on the first hole. The hole appeared to be a good way of beginning a golf course. The par-4 of average length was straight away. The putting surface was visible from the teeing area. With each side of the fairway having a gentle uphill slope, just before the desert area. The design feature would lead a rolling golf ball back into the middle of the fairway. Protecting the ball from leaving the grass. The started had mentioned the sloping along the edges of the fairways. Taking it the picture of the first hole, the sloping didn’t appear significant, but anything can be helpful. I placed my tee between the two red markers and under sunny skies, it was time for golf.
There were two hopes I had for the afternoon of golf. My first was to see as much of the golf course as possible, before darkness closed the fun. The light was bound to steal something from the afternoon. The hope was that seeing the entire golf course was not something stolen. However, I fully understood the challenge of multiple groups of four golfers, playing eighteen holes of golf in under four hours. On the other hand, it didn’t feel advantageous to play with too much urgency. The Norman Course was a new experience, and I wanted to enjoy the exploration of a new place. My second hope was to hold myself back from feeling rushed. I didn’t want my desire to finish the holes, taking anything away from breathing in the design of the course, or the experience of the afternoon. Throughout the round of golf, I started having the feeling of my two hopes being accomplished. None of the golf shots I took felt rushed. One of the main modifications I made during the round was to strike one putt. If my initial putting attempt didn’t fall into the cup, I picked my ball off the green. It was an easy way to help the group continue moving at a good pace. Saving time that would be wasted, hitting short putts back and forth, in an attempt to fully complete a hole. Another tactic I employed was picking up my ball if a short chip shot went rolling over the green. When I was faced with a short shot, say within ten or fifteen yards of the green and I shanked it clear over the putting surface, I just picked up the ball, instead of trying to hit a similar shot, again. There would be better days with more time, to work on improving my golf game around the greens. I wanted to see as much of the Greg Norman design as the sunlight would allow.
When the sun started falling behind the mountains of the Coachella Valley. I didn’t have the experience to know how much daylight was left. The sunlight began to dim during the early part of the second nine. My instincts nudged me with the thought that there probably wasn’t going to be enough light to finish. I thought we might get within two or three holes of the finish line, which felt satisfactory. As we played along in a warmth that allowed for shorts and shot sleeves, I paid attention. With the condition of the golf course, the golf ball rolled down the fairways with abandon. The dried-out fairways in preparation for the overseeding process acted like a runway for any ball moving along the ground. I hadn’t played on a course like that since I was a kid. When the golf course I played only watered the greens and tee boxes, in the summer. The golf ball running out so far added fun to the round of golf. The Norman Course felt like a desert style golf course with waste areas on all sides of many holes. Some holes would have the desert feature running across the fairways or in front of greens. After playing the three publicly accessible courses at PGA West over two trips. For me, the Norman Course was the least challenging of the three. Even with the large number of fairway bunkering. I was happy to have played this golf course first, on the trip.
The trickiest section of the golf course came in the final few holes. The sixteenth was a par-5 with water running down the right-hand side. There were two large bunkers jetting out into the middle of the fairway, about twenty yards short of the putting surface. The intimidating look caused me trouble, as it was challenging to know what filled the space between the bunkers and the green. By this time of the evening, the sun had all but disappeared. The lack of light could have been the main culprit of my confusion. The seventeenth found me in a similar state on befuddlement. The hole was a cool looking par-3 with a pond on the left side of the green. The shot was relatively short from the red tee markers, which didn’t help me at all. My shot was short and off to the left. Bouncing on one of those slopes the starter warned us about and drowned in the pond. I had hit two golf balls in the water on two consecutive holes, but I would say they were good finishing holes. Arriving on the final hole, I looked down the fairway of the par-4 and saw no water. Following the struggles of the previous two holes, relief ran through my bones. Even without the water, the darkening evening had become an issue. Like I had done many times as a kid, I hit my tee shot with special attention being paid to how the contact felt. Hoping the feeling would provide an indication of the ball flight in the lengthening dusk.
When I turned my head up in the direction of my ball flight, I caught a glimpse of the golf ball. The darkness was closing in, but there would be just enough light to finish. I was thankful for the opportunity to experience the entire Norman Course at PGA West. Not knowing when the round of golf began, how many holes darkness would steal. But we made it all the way and the design was impressive. I can feel my enjoyment of a golf course when I experience the desire to play it again. The next round of golf in the desert would be played in a couple days. It would be on a more challenging golf course and while I was excited for another challenge, I found myself wanting another chance at the Norman. That feeling telling me everything I needed to know about my enjoyment of the golf course. The Norman course was a good middle ground. Providing enough challenge to keep things interesting and the golfer wanting more. But never feeling to me like the design was becoming too hard. On a golf trip to the Palm Springs area, the Norman Course felt like a good place to start. From there, moving on to the more challenging golf courses would be ideal. I was hoping the Norman Course would provide a soft landing for my golf game in the middle of November and it did the trick. After not having played golf since the early part of October. Following the golf day, I was ready to take on the Stadium Course, next.
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