Swinging in the New Year!

Normally, the photo above would show a great view of the Channel Islands from Glen Annie. Since the photo wasn’t great anyway, I decided fireworks would be more appropriate for the occasion.

Glen Annie Golf Club, which we played today, is one of our favorite courses around here. Within a fifteen minute drive, there are probably 10 courses we could play. Extend that to an hour drive and it’s probably more like 30 or so. 1.5 – 2 hours? Holy cow… I don’t even want to try to count.

At a “good traffic” time, Glen Annie is exactly an hour away, in Santa Barbara, CA, and basically across the street (freeway) from the more celebrated Sandpiper Golf Course. Sure, Sandpiper has a couple beautiful ocean holes but other than that, it’s simply another beautifully groomed resort-like experience. Cross over to Glen Annie and you’ll find equally good conditioning, interesting golf holes, a challenging layout, great greens, friendly and professional service, fewer people, and… you’ll spend less than half what you would at Sandpiper. If you live in the tri-county area (that’s Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties), you’ll get even better rates.

All the tee markers are in the shape of frogs, which I find quite cute, and there are frog crossings on a couple of the holes from which you get a free drop. I haven’t found anyone who has actually seen a frog using the crossings because evidently it’s too warm for them to travel during the day and golfers aren’t out at night.

Watch out for those frogs!

You may not get the ocean holes, but you’ll get plenty of ocean views. Stunning ones at that. Today was so clear and calm we could see every single Channel Island (Greg – the frog – can point them all out by name) and that’s not an uncommon day at Glen Annie. It was a great way to end our 2007 year of golf. We played with two great guys who happen to belong to the men’s club there – Paul and Brian. (Paul lives right off the course and can hear the frogs at night, especially in mating season!) Actually, in all our rounds there, we’ve only ever been paired up with one annoying creature. He was harmless, he just talked too much and offered unwanted advice trying to show off his course knowledge. But we have good memories and enjoy making fun of some of his more memorable antics. He knew we’d played there before but he just kept it up. Not just shot-making advice, either. I happen to do a pretty good impression of him warning us to “be careful on this steep hill… gotta watch those speed bumps.” Yeah, even if we hadn’t been there before, we’d need that, right? We laugh about that every time we play that hole. So we’re simple – sue me. But I digress.

Back to Glen Annie

It was cold when we arrived at a little after 7:00 AM but after a couple holes, the sun had warmed everything up including us and it turned into a perfect day with perfect weather and we had a great time. There was hardly any wind to speak of until the last few holes and that was only a matter of determining direction and adjusting by one club maximum. When we got home, we were welcomed by the familiar Santa Ana winds that were (and still are) gusting at unpleasant levels for golf, to put it mildly.

We’re not playing tomorrow to swing in the new year. We did that today. I predict tomorrow will be a lazy day of recovery from the festivities tonight. Actually, I still need to clean my house after coming home to the disaster area I left when I went to visit my family for Christmas. More disaster than usual, that is. I’m not much of a housekeeper anyway – and I’m being kind to myself there – but now this place is strewn with holiday mess as well. Perhaps I’ll resolve to do better with that in 2008. Yeah, perhaps.

Speaking of plans

Thank you all for reading. I’m looking forward to more blogging next year. And I have some new ideas that should be fun, but they’re still in the planning stages so I don’t want to say much. I hope you’ll stay tuned and keep your comments and emails coming. I really enjoy doing this, especially when it includes interaction with you.

Crap – it’s getting late and I have to go get dolled up – or at least cleaned up – to go out and celebrate.

I hope you all swing in the new year in style and have a happy, healthy and prosperous 2008. See you next year!

Happy New Year!

May they all roll true in 2008.

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