Twilight at Torrey Pines

I needed a winter break, so hubby and I flew west to the San Diego area in search of weather warm enough for golf. I shipped my old set of Ping G2s out there for the unexpectedly low price of $22 via FedEx 4-day ground, which sure beat carrying them on a plane. Somehow the stars aligned and hubby and I decided it was a good time to cross another bucket list course off our list. So we decided to play Torrey Pines South Course.

The website makes it look like a hassle to get a tee time; if you're a non-resident, you either pay a big fee to book ahead or get up at the crack of dawn and sign up for the daily waitlist. We didn't have to do either. Instead, we went in at around 9am on a Wednesday and put our names on the walk-on list for twilight, which starts at 1pm in winter. The starter said to come back around 12:30pm and we'd be out shortly after 1pm. I had a feeling if we wanted to pay the $183 morning greens fees, he would have been able to get us out without much delay. But $110 for twilight was about what we wanted to shell out, so after putting our names on the list, we headed to Carl's Jr. for breakfast and came back at around 11:30am to hit balls and warm up.

There's not much of a driving range at Torrey Pines, although it was a good place to check my distances and try out my assemblage of "new" clubs that I'd procured from the used clubs bins at Golf Mart, including a 12-degree Ping G15 driver and a Ping G10 3-wood that cost me $99 and $49 respectively.

At around 12:20pm, we headed back to the clubhouse to mill about and soak in the atmosphere. You know you're at a famous golf course when there are lots of people just there to take pictures. At around 12:45pm, our names were called, and I nearly wet my pants.

This is it. The big show, I thought. Torrey Pines South Course.

As it turned out, the whole affair started with a bit of confusion. The starter said we'd be going out at around 1:05 or 1:10, so we paid for the greens fees, got a receipt, rented 2 walking carts and headed down to Hole 1. The first holes for Torrey Pines North and South Courses are right next to each other, and there was a kiosk there, but it was unstaffed, so we waited near the first tee ground, thinking they'd announce what time we were actually going out. At around 1:05, I got antsy and went back up the starter.

"What time are we supposed to go out?" I asked.
"1:05 or 1:10," the starter said. He looked at the clock, "You should be on the tee box now."
"Are we 1:05 or 1:10? It's already 1:05!" I said. I didn't understand why the guy didn't give me an exact tee time, like every other golf course in the world. I tried a different tactic. "What are the names of the 2 others in our group?" I asked.
And he told me 2 names which I remembered long enough to run back to the first tee and call out. The two guys on the tee turned around and identified themselves as the 2 people in question.
"Okay, then," I said. "We're playing with you two."

I was a bit annoyed that the start was so disorganized. It was also perturbing at the end of the round when we were returning our pull-carts and the unfriendly staffers kept their heads down without a "thank you for playing" or even a "how was your round?" But I had to remind myself that this isn't a TPC resort course, but a municipal course run by the City of San Diego, with workers about as motivated for the kind of pay they are probably getting.

From that point, the round progressed as usual, with handshakes and self-introductions. One of the guys was a Scottish teaching pro and the other was a shaggy local, the kind who enjoyed hearing himself speak. Later, he would start telling me what I was doing wrong on my putts, and I would feel tempted to punch him in the nose. But for now, I did my best to tune him out and focus on my game.

From the forward tees, the South Course is a manageable 5467 yards. The first fairway is wide and welcoming, with the kind of grass that makes you want to have a picnic. I double-bogeyed the first hole, a par 4, but I didn't feel too bad about it at all.

If you've ever seen Torrey Pines on television, you already know there is a lot of the ocean in view. And parasailers love the coastal winds blowing along the cliffs on the front nine.

Hole 3 is a lovely downhill par 3. The back tees have to carry that scrub on the left. The forward tees are on the right, only 105 yards from the green.

I made it on the green, just barely hanging on the edge.

I four-putted from there. What can I say? The greens are wicked fast and too much mustard could send your ball right over the edge into the ocean.

The course is filled with Torrey pines like this:

And this:

Here's another fairway to heaven:

Look closely and you can see how close my approach shot landed to the pin:

Here was an intimidating par 5 fairway. Rolling hills, multi-staged bunkers.

I made it to this point in two shots. Just one more to get on in regulation. But I blew it. My third shot ended up in one of those bunkers.

On the back nine, the sun started disappearing. We could see the remnants of the Farmers Insurance Open, which Tiger Woods had won just a few weeks before. The excitement still lingered.

The last few holes were a blur. We rushed. At one hole, after I'd three-putted again, the shaggy local shook his head and said, "Right and short, right and short. Don't you see a pattern?" Now I know I suck at putting, but this guy missed so many putts I was surprised he even claimed to be a golfer. I thought he had some nerve to criticize anyone, let alone a perfect stranger.

After teeing off at the 17th hole, hubby and I starting running to our next shots. The Scottish pro had gotten a lift from the cart-riding shaggy local by now, and as they whizzed past us, the shaggy local said, "You don't have to run." And I rolled my eyes, thinking, first you're telling me how to putt, now you're telling me whether to walk or run? Knowing that I would soon be leaving the company of this buffoon was the only upside to realizing that our twilight round at Torrey Pines was soon coming to an end. The Scottish pro, on the other hand, had behaved like a perfect gentleman, exclaiming "Good drive!" or "Good ball!" whenever merited, and remaining politely silent when not.

There's a water fountain guarding the last green, and it was so dark that I couldn't find any yardage markers to gauge the distance for my approach shot. I took a guess with an 8-iron and came up a few yards short. My ball bounced on the fringe and rolled back into the water. Unfazed, I dropped a ball a club length or two from where the ball went in, and chipped it up, just to have the satisfaction of finishing a full 18.

Hubby and I shook hands with the other two, and somehow I think the Scottish pro was sincere when he smiled as he shook my hand and said, "Well-played!"