The Chase at Coyote Springs

My day started out great. Because our tee time wasn't until 12:30pm I got to sleep in!! That doesn't often happen for me so I took full advantage. I got up, had some breakfast, got all my clubs cleaned and loaded up the car.

The Entrance to Coyote Springs off of Hwy 93

Coyote Springs is in the middle of nowhere north of the Las Vegas valley. There wasn't any traffic the entire drive so I ended up getting out there about hour and forty five minutes before our tee time. The course is still under construction, kinda like how Conestoga is still under construction. The have a nice set up though. I think they are planning on being in the trailer for a while because they really have done up the exterior to make it look like it is NOT a trailer. I was greeted in the parking lot by some attendants who asked me to pop the trunk and proceeded to get my clubs out and get them on a cart, and that was nice.

I checked in and headed out to the range. The trip out to the range seriously took about 5min. The practice area and first tee will be a lot closer to the clubhouse if and when it ever gets built, but right now it's a journey.

The driving range is a thing of beauty. It's freaking huge! By far the largest driving range I have ever seen. It was pretty packed when I got there and I found a spot on the end a little bit away from everyone to warm up.

My warm-up started awful. I couldn't get anything working. The wind had really picked up by the time I was stretched and loose. There was a 15-20mph wind coming from left to right across the range. I'm not sure if I was just trying to adjust too much for it but I was driving me crazy. I went back to basics and started my session over with my SW. That helped a ton, I got more relaxed and starting hitting some good shots, finally! Driver was another problem. My attempts at my 3W were lackluster to say the least. I was I trouble before I even got to the first tee!! A good thing for me is about 30min before our tee time it started to come together. Drives were heading straight and the irons we doing much, much better. Still was having a problem with 3W and I should have remembered that because it bit me later on.

Practice facility. This is only half of it, there is more to the left!

I drove over to the putting green and quickly learned what my friends were talking about when they told me the greens were fast. HOLY SHIT!! These things were incredibly fast. So fast if fact that Randy even said if all the holes are like this, this aint gonna be any fun.

The putting green. One word descibe this and that's FAST

I had high winds to deal with, super fast greens on the course and a course that I've never played. Odds were not on my side that's for sure, but that wasn't the unfortunate circumstance we encountered. The course decided to let a group of 12, yes 12 go out in front of us and 3 foursomes. Problem was they all wanted to play together and from the start of our round we had a group of 6-8 in front of us. I have a photo I'll get up later that has 5 golf carts and 9 people on ONE hole!! It was unbelievable!

5 carts & nine people!

That being said and off my chest I'll get to how I played. The front started and ended most excellent. I hit a great drive on #1 and two putted for par. On the second hole my tee shot found a fairway bunker and after a very nice sand out I had a decent approach to the green. There was water right so I aimed a bit too far left and missed the green by a good ten feet. A solid wedge shot and a very nice putt had me scoring back to back pars! I was off to a great start. The next five holes need not to be mentioned. I'll skip right to 8 & 9. Par, Par. There that wraps up front. I had four pars and shot 49. Yeah, 3-7 were rough on me for sure.
The back started a little better, then got worse and I never recovered. My driver started slicing REALLY bad and I just have it in me to try and figure it out while playing so I switched to me 3W off the tee. I had some great success with it. I was hitting it straight and long. Some holes it was too long and I carried the fairway, but all in all my play with it off the tee was a success. It saved me from the 110's!!



I ended up with a 107. I've taken into consideration the new course the wind and the slow play on the front (that group of 12 left after the 9^th, there were a lot of complaints called in!) for my poor performance. Not that I would have shot in the 90's but it did have some effect on me. I hit my irons probably the best so far to date; they were crisp and had good flight (the majority) I just made some really poor choices on the course.
For example, twice I decided to play out of the dirt/rocks and attempt a shot I had no business taking. The first one was my second shot and it went through the fairway and came to rest on some pebbles just after the cart path, it at least a decent lie so I went at it. If I would have taken to penalty shot and backed up to the fairway I would have had a 110 yard shot to the green and that's a shot I'm very confident with. Instead a punched a PW and left myself a nice shot from 60 yards to the green. My error was choosing a 60 yard shot (which I'm not confident with) over the 110 yard shot. I struck the 60 yard shot with a wedge and caught it thin. It raced across the green into a bush. I hacked out of that and then had to chip to the green. Mental error number 1

View looking West from the front nine.

The other error came in a similar instance. I again carried the fairway and had a terrible lie with a LARGE rock immediately in front of the ball. There was water in front and a patch of fairway 90 to the right so I decided to try and get the ball to that patch of fairway. I had my left foot on the rock about 12" above the ball & my right foot was in the dirt about 10" below the ball. This didn't go well. I hacked at the ball (I'll call it hacking cause it was nothing near a golf swing) and it went about 8' in front of me in a worse position then in was previously. That attempt went worse, the ball ended up in the before mentioned water and I was left with a horrible place to drop. The next shot ended up where the original one as planned, just I was now hitting stoke 6 instead of stroke 3. The smart play was to take the penalty and back up to the grass and hit a 95 yard shot to the green and try to save par. I hit the wedge from the fairway and two putted for 8. I cost myself possibly 4 stokes on that hole more than likely 3 with a two putt but never the less I was a huge mental error on my part.

I have to work on my course management. That is a sure fire way that I can save some strokes. Making the correct play is very important and that has never been more relevant to me then it is now!

A good thing did happen as I was loading up the car. The course manager came out and apologized for that group that was in front of us and gave us all a complimentary round of golf. That was unexpected but very refreshing.

I'm looking forward to playing it again, it is a very fun course and I highly recommend it. Hopefully next time it won't be as windy and the pace will be a lot better!