If you know me or if you are following this blog quite regularly, then you might know, that I’m not a real golf traveller. My time is far too limited to take my clubs and travel around here and there to play courses just for the sake of doing it. Well, I’d love to do that, but the reality looks a bit different unfortunately.

Therefore I try to expand my golf course coverage every now and then when I’m on the road or out on vacation. During my road trip through the south-west of the United States there were definitely many many courses I would have loved to play but I could not find the time. Examples would be several courses in Palm Springs, the Riviera in Los Angeles (Pacific Palisades), the Wynn in Las Vegas or Wolf Creek just outside of the city, and for sure the famous courses in the Monterey area like Pebble Beach, Spyglass, Cyprus Point – that kind. But since golfing was not first priority on that trip, we had little time to spend on this.

But there was one day when we had the opportunity to spend some time on a course and my girlfriend surely realised that I was desperate playing in the United States. So we did. Just after reaching Visalia in California, on our way to Sequoia National Park, there was free time in the afternoon to play 18 holes. And since nealy every small town in the US has its own course, we were lucky to have a nice 27-hole resort just around the corner – the Valley Oaks Golf Club in Visalia.

Compared to Europe the first thing that comes to your mind is that everything is much more relaxed – there is no real dress code (I saw some people wearing basketball jerseys actually), you drive golf carts no question about it, and for everybody the main purpose being out there is to have fun. And that is exactly what we had. Loads of if! It was a bit crowded for a day middle of the week, but we had a very good time and I really enjoyed the small golf part of that fairly long vacation. Must have had a grin on my face all the time… But no doubt about it, the mentioned courses that we haven’t played still are on my list. So I keep you posted on the progress.