Joe Walser helped change the desert

How many people can you say have really, truly shaped the Coachella Valley? Not just had an impact or been a presence, but truly shaped the desert?
Joe Walser was one of the people who shaped the desert.
Along with his partner Ernie Vossler, Walser turned the 1980s into a time of explosive golf course development in the desert. As the main movers and shakers of Landmark Land, Walser and Vossler put together deals that developed courses at La Quinta Resort and Mission Hills Country Club as well as the courses at Westin Mission Hills Resort and, perhaps most importantly, PGA West.
Walser died last Thursday in Dallas, four days short of his 80th birthday, after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
Imagine what the desert was like in the 1970s, particularly in the east end of the valley. It had very little development and a very small population base, with most people still living in the west and central parts of the valley.
That started to change when Vossler and Walser, already legends in Oklahoma because of their amateur and professional play and their development of courses like Oak Tree, turned their attention to the Coachella Valley.
Along with Gerald Barton, Walser and Vossler put a specific plan of action into motion. The Dunes and Mountain courses at La Quinta Resort allowed for home development to spring up around the layouts. At PGA West, they showed that digging the courses down into the desert and raising the home lots to look down on the course could raise the value of the home.

They built clubhouses with a specific look (pro shop to the left, restaurant and bar to the right as the golfer walks in). And being touring professionals at one time themselves, they stocked with pro shops with people who could play the game at a high level.
People driving out to the first course at PGA West in 1985 down Jefferson Street might well have though they had missed the place, it was so far off the beaten path. And they could easily have thought that Walser and Vossler were crazy for building anything so far out into the desert. People thought the same thing when Johnny Dawson built Thunderbird Country Club in 1951 in a barren area that is now the heart of Rancho Mirage.
A key to Landmark’s success was the club pro mind set of Walser and Vossler, the idea of treating members and the public well, of strong but easy-going customer service, of value for the customer. And the idea that marketing their courses through television was important. That’s why so many PGA Tour and PGA of America events were played at Landmark courses. In fact, because of the connections of Vossler and Walser, there was a plan at one point for then-Commissioner Deane Beman to move PGA Tour headquarters from Florida to PGA West.

Things went well for Vossler and Walser and Landmark Land until the mid-1990s, when they lost the courses as part of the widespread saving and loan scandal that had nothing to do with them. There was a settlement later in their favor in a lawsuit against the government, but the courses and developments had new owners. Restarting their efforts resulted in Landmark Golf Club (now Terra Lago in Indio) but the success never reached the same levels as the 1980s for a variety of reasons.
But the success that Walser and Vossler had can never be forgotten and likely will never be repeated. And that’s why people like Walser will be missed in the desert.

What is your favorite valley golf hole?

Okay, so here’s a question all golfers have to love: what is your favorite golf hole in the desert?

Is it a tough hole? A beautiful hole? A quirky hole? A hole you’ve never played but seen on television? Or just a hole where you made your first birdie or where you feel comfortable being able to make a par on a regular basis.

This is a question that I’m thinking about a lot these days, and so I’m soliciting your ideas on the subject.

Please send me your suggestions for great holes in the desert, either by leaving a Facebook comment at the bottom of this blog or my e-mailing me at Larry.Bohannan@thedesertsun.com

And remember, there are no wrong answers to the question, “What is your favorite golf hole in the desert?”

Sawgrass vs. PGA West: Dye’s better stadium?

I had a little exchange with someone on Twitter recently (if you don’t know what that is, it’s okay, you aren’t missing much) about Bubba Watson deciding to skipping The Players Championship this week to spend more time at home with his wife and newly adopted son.

And I happened to menti0n that some players (perhaps now Bubba) would like any excuse to not play Pete Dye’s TPC at Sawgrass, the home of the Players Championship and about one-quarter mile down the road from PGA Tour headquarters. Because while the players might not admit to it to the media, there are quite a few players who believe the Sawgrass course is too tricked-up for its own good. In other words, they just don’t like the course.

Now of course a lot of player would quietly say that about a lot of Pete Dye’s courses. But one of the first Dye course to actually get lambasted in public by players was the TPC Stadium Course at PGA West. The general idea of the comments at the 1987 Bob Hope Classic, the one and only time the Stadium Course was in the Hope rotation, was that the course was fine for an event like the Skins Game, but not for the stroke-play competition of the Hope.

The demanding par-3 13th on the TPC Stadium Course at PGA West gets overshadowed by the more famous 17th hole (Desert Sun file photo)

Having played both courses, I can say that I truly like the Stadium Course at PGA West more than I like the Sawgrass Course. That may be a coastal bias, I suppose, but I like the desert’s island green more than the island green in Florida.  I like the scenery better, and I just like aspects of the PGA West course better than I like the Sawgrass Course.

Some player will likely say they hate both courses equally. Some would say that they love both courses equally. But it is the Sawgrass course that gets the most coverage because it is the home of the Players. the PGA West Stadium Course host only the PGA Tour qualifying tournament these days, and then just three of the six rounds.

But as you are watching the Players this week, remember that the is a similar (and maybe a better) course from Pete Dye just up the road in La Quinta.

A walk through Palm Canyon

Over the weekend, well before the Wells Fargo Championship came on television, I had a chance to do a hike through Palm Canyons, one of the three canyons in the area known to locals as the Indian Canyons south of Palm Springs.

We reached the entrance (it’s $9 a person to get in) just as the place was opening at 8 a.m., and drove past Andreas Canyon to get to Palm Canyon. Palm Canyon is a relatively easy hike, far less difficult than the Murray Canyon Hike. You do face a little bit of an uphill climb just as you come back from the hike, but hey, if I can handle it, you can handle it.

Here’s so photos of the day:

I have no idea what these flowers are called, but they are nice (By Larry Bohannan)

See, Northern California isn't the only place with big trees (By Larry Bohannan)

A fellow hiker marveled that the palm trees seem to come right out of the rocks (By Larry Bohannan)

Can you find the lizard? (By Larry Bohannan)

There is a reason they call it Palm Canyon (by Larry Bohannan)

I was a little lucky in catching the sun at just the right moment behind this massive rock structure (by Larry Bohannan)

Tiger is just one struggling hot mess

A few weeks ago a gentleman sent me an e-mail criticizing me for picking Tiger Woods as one of my favorites to play well at the Masters. Woods didn’t play well and, well, this guy couldn’t contain his comments about how Woods can’t play and I was an idiot (he didn’t say idiot, but you could read between the few lines he wrote).

I wanted to respond to him at the time that clearly I had no reason to favor Woods, as Woods has only won the Masters four times, had been fourth in the tournament in 2010 and 2011 and oh-by-the-way two weeks before the Masters Woods had beaten a strong PGA Tour field by five shots to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational. What could I have been thinking??? I wanted to say it, but I didn’t.

Tiger Woods gets a free drop at the Wells Fargo Open today (AP photo)

Now, Woods has played his first event as the Masters, and it seems as if it has been a major disappointment. Not all the players are finished, but it appears Woods is going to miss the cut today at the Wells Fargo Championship. That will be two missed cuts in a row at the Wells Fargo for Woods in two years (he’s missed just eight cuts in his career starting in 1996) and you can figure that the Wells Fargo event has seen the last of Woods.

So how do you explain all of this? How can he win at the Arnold Palmer by five shots and appear sharp with his full shots and putting well, then do very little at Augusta National, then play so poorly he’ll miss the cut at the Wells Fargo (he even had the benefit today of a very generous free drop ruling by the PGA Tour, and even that didn’t help him make the cut)?

The answer is that Woods is continuing to struggle his way back to some kind of consistency, and while he does that, he’s just a kind of hot mess of a player. You can’t tell from one minute to the next what he’s going to do. He could hit a brilliant shot to four feet from a fairway bunker, or he could hit a shot from a bunker to another bunker and then another bunker after that.

It’s clear that some of Woods’ issues are with his confidence. But other issues are with the physical nature of his swing and his willingness to commit to the shot. And his putting, well, all you need to know if that Woods used to devour four-foot putts, and today, needing a four-foot birdie on his 17th hole just to have a chance at the cut, he miss what used to be a gimme for him,

Woods will play again at The Players Championship next week. He could win. He could miss the cut. He could do anything in between. That’s what a hot mess is.

Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be football players

There was a time in this country when nothing would make a father and mother more proud than if their son was a football hero. It was fame, the promise of fortune and the knowledge that their son was physically healthy. What said athletic superiority more than success in football, a real man’s game?

I wonder today, with all the bad news that has hit NFL just in the last day, much less that last year or so, how many fathers and mothers would be happy if their sons never took up the game of football and never had the success that could lead to an NFL career.

Wednesday was supposed to be the day when NFL punishment over the New Orleans Saints and Bounty-gate hit the players involved. Indeed, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell hammered four players with suspensions between three games to an entire season. The NFL Players Association then continued its hypocrisy which sees it saying out of one side of its mouth that player safety is paramount, but out of the other side of its mouth defending players who were involved in a payment-for-injury plan. The players are crying foul over the penalties, saying the league has no evidence. Yet the head coach and defensive coordinator of the Saints have both apologized for the program.

Junior Seau died Wednesday at the age of 43 (AP photo)

Then came the Junior Seau news.

Someone called me last night and asked me how many football players have now killed themselves. The fact that question has to be asked shows the NFL has a problem that could shake it to its very core. If the NFL thinks that lawsuits from retired players over concussions and pensions and medical issues are bad, imagine when will happen with the first lawsuit over a player’s suicide hits the front pages.

No one can say for sure at the moment what caused Seau to kill himself. It could have been emotional or mental distress from concussions, but it could have been the physical pain of having played football so long. Or it could have been the struggles of a life without football for someone whose life WAS football for so long. Or, for all we know, it could have been financial or relationship problems. Eventually, some reasons will come out. But these days, when people jump to conclusions on a regular basis, a football death leads to talks of concussions.

Football can be a brutal sport. It can be brutal on the high school level, where I’ve seen kids’ careers end on devastating injuries on seemingly routine plays. It can be brutal on the college level, where the physical demands of bulking up to be a 300-pound lineman can overwhelm a player’s body. And it can be brutal on the professional level, where players are bigger and faster and stronger than at any time in history, and those bigger and faster and stronger players can inflict more damage to opposing players and themselves than ever before.

But as the sport becomes more brutal, and as more players show both the short- and long-term effects of the physical nature of the game, the NFL is in serious danger of losing its luster. For a lot of people in the San Diego area, and frankly for just a lot of NFL players around the country, some of that luster was erased Wednesday with the death of Junior Seau.

No one is required to pursue a career in football, of course. And if you do pursue that career, you do so accepting that there are risks in the game. For most of NFL’s life, those risks have been physical. Now we are understanding those risks can be mental and emotional as well.

So you have to ask yourselves, fathers and mothers of the world. Do you still want you sons to grow up to be football heroes? Or would that time and effort be better spent on a golf or tennis career, or better yet learning to be an architect, or maybe a doctor who could have football players as patients?

PGA Tour announces latinoamerica Tour schedule

As the PGA Tour continues to globalize its brand with event now in China and Malaysia and with a growing association with the Canadian Tour, the tour took a big step today by announcing the schedule for the first season of the latinoamerica Tour.

That tour, to be played in Mexico, Central and South America, is designed to be a feeder tour. Top players from the latinoamerica Tour could work their way onto the Nationwide Tour. More importantly, the latinoamerica Tour could be the spark for growth of the game in Central and South America, an area that is already starting to be the focus of the go,f world with the game to debut in the Summer Olympics in Brazil in 2016.

Here’s the latinoamaerica schedule, complete with a qualifying school in June.

June 21-22: Pre-Qualifying Events TBD Buenos Aires & Cordoba, Argentina
June 25-29: PTLA Qualifying Tournament TBD Buenos Aires, Argentina
July 26-27: Pre-Qualifying Events TBD West Palm Beach, FL
Aug. 1-3: PTLA Qualifying Tournament Doral Golf Resort & Spa, A Marriott Resort (The Great White Course) Miami, FL.

Sept. 3-8 Mundo Maya Open, Yucatan Country Club, Merida, Mexico $150,000
Sept. 10-16 Monterrey Open, La Herradura Golf Club, Monterrey, Mexico $150,000
Sept. 17-23 Colombian Open Club, El Rincon de Cajica, Bogota, Colombia $125,000
Oct. 1-7: Brazil Open, TBD, Sao Paulo, Brazil $130,000
Oct. 8-14: Roberto De Vincenzo Invitational, San Eliseo Golf Club Buenos Aires, Argentina $125,000
Aug. 29-Nov. 4: Peru Open, Los Inkas Golf Club Lima, Peru $125,000
Nov. 5-11: Dominican Republic Open, Cana Bay Golf Club, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic $125,000
Nov. 12-18: Puerto Rico Classic, East Course-Dorado Beach Resort, San Juan, Puerto Rico $125,000
Nov. 26-Dec. 2: Colombian Coffee Classic, Club Campestre de Cali, Cali, Colombia $125,000
Dec. 3-9: Olivos Golf Classic – Copa Personal, Olivos Golf Club, Buenos Aires, Argentina $125,000
Dec. 10-16: Argentine Open, Nordelta Golf Club, Buenos Aires, Argentina $125,000

Lots of local golf after a week away

Gee, a guy goes away for a week and look at all the Coachella Valley-based golf that happens. For instance:

–La Quinta’s Troy Kelly made the cut in the Zurich Championship on the PGA Tour,  making it five cuts in 10 starts this year. He tied for 62nd to earn $13,632.  Kelly has $68,350 for the year and is now 178th in the FedEx Cup standings.

–Palm Desert High School beat La Quinta High School in a key Desert Valley league competition. Both teams will be looking for post-season success starting next week

–The Prestige college tournament traditionally in November is moving to a higher-profile date of February. That will give the desert two big college golf events in February, along with the University of Wyoming event at Classic Club that same month.

And all of that was just in nine days of me not being in the office. Imagine what will happen in the next nine days.

Payne Stewart and other morning golf thoughts

–It’s tough to watch the coverage of the plane circling in the Gulf of Mexico with an apparent unresponsive pilot (that place just crashed into the Gulf) and not think about Payne Stewart. Stewart and others died back in 1999, just months after Stewart had won the U.S. Open, when something went very wrong on their plane and the plane drifted into the midwest and crashed in South Dakota. Everyone on that plane was unresponsive, too. Very sad.

–Anthony Kim’s mystery season continues today in the first round of the Valero Texas Open. Kim is 8 over through 14 and tied for last among the golfers on the course. He took a quadruple-bogey on his third hole of the day. I’m still convinced this guy has way too much talent to play this poorly for such an extended period, especially after having a strong fall season in Asia last year. It’s is indeed a mystery to me.

–The LPGA’s Lotte Championship in Hawaii this week is having a Wednesday-Saturday schedule instead of the traditional Thursday through Sunday schedule. That sounds innovative, but when you think about it, Wednesday through Saturday here is actually a traditional Thursday through Sunday in South Korea. Lotte is a South Korean company, and the tournament is of course being broadcast in that country. Hmmmmmm.

–The Valero Texas Open is suffering from some of the same problems the old Bob Hope tournament suffered in terms of the field. The top-ranked player in the San Antonio field this week is Matt Kuchar, but he’s the only player in the top 25 in the world rankings in the field. By comparison, the Humana Challenge this year had four of the top 24 players in the world rankings. The Valero tournament also keeps getting a different date every year. This year, it is two weeks after the Masters. Next year, it will be the event directly before the Masters.

–Quick update. Anthony Kim has withdrawn from the Valero Texas Open after being 8 over through 14 holes. Again, hmmmmmm. . . .

National Golf Day

So today is National Golf Day. What did you get me?

Actually, National Golf Day is an initiative that is designed to bring attention to the game and how it is more than just a game. For instance, the game is said to produce 2 million golf in the country. I don’t know if that includes golf writers or not.

But National Golf Day does focus some of the attention on how the game can grow. Recent numbers from the National Golf Foundation indicate that the game’s participation remained flat in 2011. For all the efforts on things like The First Tee program and junior golf and women in golf and the like, the game just isn’t growing. And the mantra for why remains the same: it’s too expensive, it takes too long, it’s too hard.

So let’s make National Golf Day a homework assignment. Your homework is, in your life as someone who plays the game or is interested in the game, how can you do something, anything, even the smallest of things, to grow the game of golf in your family, your community, your city or your country?

It’s a tougher question than you might think.

And you can start planning my 2013 National Golf Day gift now.