We just purchased a golf membership in Talking Rock Ranch in Prescott. Oh boy! This will allow us to play without worrying about greens fees accrued in the course of a month’s play. Today, we’re heading out to golf for the second time this week. I continue to work on my handicap, and am still very inconsistent with my game. I did manage a Par and a Birdie when I played on Tuesday – but those are the exception rather than the rule.
I am becoming more intimately familiar with the course and its challenges. It all used to be one big mish-mosh in my mind, but now I can walk the course mentally in pretty good detail. It’s helping me with club selection and strategy (that is, as much as someone at my skill level has a strategy).
HOLE 1: A fairly simple hole, unless your drive goes wild right into the retention pond…
HOLE 2: A straightforward Par 4, right behind our house!
HOLE 3: On this tough little Par 3, you have to hit over a small desert scrub-covered hill on the left. I use a 3 wood. “3 on 3” is how I remember it.
HOLE 4: The beautiful sweeping fairway on 4 often is a runway for jackrabbits.
HOLE 5: A oddly challenging hole, fraught with fairway bunkers.
HOLE 6: Ron has nicknamed this “The Death March”. It’s a 606-yard Par 5 that gives my 3 wood a workout. Very little hope for us chicks to par this hole. The best I’ve ever done is a double bogey, and happy to get it.
HOLE 7: Another Par 3. I use my 7 wood –
“7 on 7”.
HOLE 8: Native landscape on the left and bunkers on the right. Stay in the middle, for sure.
HOLE 9: Front 9 finishes with a Par 5, and a water hazard on the right. Hit too close and your ball bounces right- splashing into the pond. The ducks scatter when they see me coming.
THE TURNAROUND: I recommend the panini-grilled hot dog. Delicious.
HOLE 10: A wide open, forgiving fairway. A fresh start for the back 9.
HOLE 11: Nicknamed “The Chasm”, on this Par 5 hole you must hit over a deep, dry ravine before approaching the green. I have lost many, many balls on this darn hole.
HOLE 12: Here, your drive has to fly over a “mini chasm” to get to the fairway. Not so bad. The green is elevated, which is a bit tricky.
HOLE 13: An uphill Par 3 surrounded by bunkers. If your drive misses the green, you are probably in trouble.
HOLE 14: My least favorite hole for a reason I have yet to determine.
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| A beautiful day on 15. |
HOLE 15: The course’s signature hole is at a higher elevation, with a downhill approach to the green. The view of Granite Mountain is spectacular from the tees.
HOLE 16: A Par 3 where I very nearly got a Hole-in-One earlier this week. My first birdie on this course.
HOLE 17: A fairly straightforward Par 4 on the home stretch.
HOLE 18: This Par 5 is a tough way to finish, with prevailing winds often in your face from the west. Watch out for the big bunkers on the right, and the water on the left!
It’s a beautiful and challenging course – and it’s helping me become a golfer!
Talking Rock Ranch has a stunning golf course. It has emerald green fairways, but the desert hazards have their own beauty. This time of year, the high desert is smudged with dramatic swaths of gold, green, rust, and purple. Native birds provide flashes of blue in the landscape, and jackrabbits and roadrunners dart among the scrub oaks. Climbing the hill up to the 15th tee is rewarded with the gift of a 360-degree mountain view. The color of the sky is only upstaged by the intense sapphire blue of the pond between 9 and 18; the water attracting ducks and the occasional heron or other water bird. 
