Yuma Golf - Part 2

Sunday, 30 December 

With better weather, we made today a golf day.  Sunny, high temperatures in the 50s and light and variable wind.  As we were warming up on the range at 38 degrees, it already felt warmer than the 55 degrees in the wind yesterday.

Today we played Mesa del Sol golf course in east Yuma.  Booking via their website was easy, and the practice facilities were quite nice.  We both made bogey on the first hole, but Darrell’s birdie on the second hole put him up two strokes.  Kris made those up over the next two holes, and we were close till Kris found the lake.  A sand trap on hole 8 did not help, and she was back 5 strokes at the turn.  We both settled down and played the back nine pretty well, going back and forth.  Kris was starting to gain till Darrell made a second birdie on #17.  We wound up tied on the second nine holes.

A nice course that played well.  The greens were a little rough in that ball marks were not being consistently repaired.  We both liked the course, and hitting from the fairway was preferred as the rough was hard pan with not much grass.  A course we would play again.

After Darrell paid up at Starbucks, we did some errands, then made it back to the campground in time for a nice sunset.

Monday, 31 December

Yuma only has five public 18 hole courses, and having played 4 of them and deciding the fifth one wouldn’t be any fun, we would have to play one of the courses a second time.  After some thought, we decided to play the Coyote Wash Golf Course in Wellton, AZ, in part because the forecast winds were expected to be less in Wellton than in Yuma.  Not sure why since they are only about 20 miles apart.

As expected, Coyote Wash Golf Course was popular.  After warming up, we got in line to tee off.  We were behind a four-some that we noticed had a two-some in front of them.  We knew that the groups that went off before them were four-somes and five-somes.  As I got ready to hit my tee shot, a thought that crossed my mind was what if the four-some in front of us uninvited us to play through and join up with the two-some in front of us.  Seems pretty far-fetched, so I decided to concentrate on my tee shot, which landed perfectly in the middle of the fairway.  Kris hit hers well too.  Kris went on to make birdie, while Darrell three-putted.  Darrell was already behind two strokes with 17 more holes to play.

We waited for the group in front to play the second hole, and after they hit their tee shots, they waved us up.  And invited us to play through.  And play with their friends Dean and Linda who were in front of them.  So we joined Dean and Linda who were a delight to play with.  They were both snowbirds spending the winter in Yuma.  Dean had a Class A Allegro Bay by Tiffany and was staying in the foothills area of east Yuma.  He has been coming to Yuma for 12 years.  Linda was in a fifth-wheel staying at one of the places in Wellton.

Kris continued to play very well on the front nine, finishing with a 38 which was par for the ladies.  Darrell was three strokes back.  Darrell played the back nine better to finish one stroke ahead.  Kris remarked that she shoots an 80 and does not get to buy.  She did better her score from last week by 5 strokes.  Just as well, as the day was cloudy, the wind picked up, and the temperature did not get as warm as forecast.  We played the last four holes with a light sprinkle of rain too.  So we were too chilled to enjoy a frozen drink from Starbucks.

Another surprise was that the pace of play was quite nice.  We finished in 4 hours, which was surprising considering we saw at least two five-somes go off about 30 minutes before us.

On the way back to camp, we made a provisioning stop at Walmart - us along with hundreds of others.  Quartzsite has limited grocery shopping, so we wanted to stock up.

The campground put on a New Years dinner/party.  We enjoyed a pasta dinner and meeting some of the other folks in the campground.  Leaving everyday to play golf combined with chillier than normal temperatures have not afforded us much opportunity to meet but a few other campers.  Like us, everyone seems to be hunkered down in their rigs to stay warm.