What? Arizona is a lush and fertile desert? Well, yes actually, in places...but this is not one of them. I found myself at San Miguel. There is a San Miguel in Mexico, in the Phillipines, in El Salvador, even one in California, and a town of San Miguel in Arizona. But that is not the San Miguel of my adventure of the day, it was this San Miguel.
Yes, it's a golf course, and that lush and fertile greenery gets a little help from irrigation and the 5am greenery groomers that zip around the course. If you know me well, you know I don't golf. Hand eye coordination is not a skill I have consistently mastered, and the only ball sport I have ever really been good at is volleyball, which I can't help but think is due to the fact that the ball is larger than other balls like golfballs or baseballs, and the larger allowable surface area of contact (upper body vs skinny clubs or bats) means I have a larger probability of success if I just have to let the large ball hit my body without using some type of 3rd party stick to strike a smaller ball. So in short, I did not golf. I did a ride along and took a couple of pictures, much to the general happiness of all parties involved.
So without knowing anything about golf itself, I was pretty impressed with San Miguel golf course. It seemed pretty. The players seemed adequately challenged by the course. The golf pros and staff were friendly and approached me as a new face on the green to make sure I had offers of assistance. The post golf drink was pretty cheap compared to Bermuda prices -- ($3.50 for a beer or $5 for the daily designer cocktail). The attached restaurant had excellent food -- the menu was preset and usually 2-3 options, but delicious enough that we returned a couple more times. Prices ranged fro $12 for the all you can eat fish fry to $14.95 for the shrimp and broccoli fetticine alfredo and a started salad. Pretty reasonable and tasty all in all. The other thing I that was great was the sense of community there. Most of what I know about golf comes from the movie Caddyshack, and so I wasn't expecting to meet a whole group of people who took time out to introduce themselves to anyone new on the course that day. They seem to have a lot of mix-n-match team events, scrambles, mini tournaments, and encourage everyone getting to know one another.
So, even though I still don't know a thing about golf. I know that San Miguel would be a good place to go if you are in Arizona and planning to work on your game a few times. You will find a beautiful course, good food, and friendly people. And one can't argue the view.
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