LA la land: Episode 2

Well, we are back on the road again. Mike just took over driving for me and we are currently 180 miles south of San Francisco, our destination.

So the last 36 hours in LA can only be described as ridiculous. In LA fashion, let me use a movie line to more accurately convey what I mean.

In the movie, "the A Team" with Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper and Liam Neeson; Jessica Biel's character is trying to describe the A Team. "they specialize in the ridiculous."

Well, so do Mike and I. We specialize in the ridiculous. After I played Riviera on Saturday afternoon with two of their assistant professionals, I drove to LAX and picked up Mike. We then drove to downtown LA to see and stay with our friend Alex Stevenson (another Clemson buddy). After Mike realized he was super jet lagged, we called it a night.

At 6:30am, we raced over to Bel Air Country Club. My friend Mason Merrins ( the son of the legendary "little pro" Eddie Merrins) set us up to play with member Arnie Messer. Arnie owns a movie production company and was thrilled to be playing with two golf professionals. Bel Air is a great little George Thomas designed golf course and is a crazy experience. Tunnels and elevators and the swinging bridge are all part of your round. The house where they filmed the first two seasons of the Bachelor show is right off the fairway on # 14. When we finished, they were setting up for a classic cars party/show/exhibition. And we saw Al Michaels, the ABC sports announcer.

And that was just the morning.

After a quick lunch in the grill room at Bel Air, we drove ten minutes over to LACC. A national member and former club champion at Baltusrol, who is also a member at LACC, Mr. Jeff Kiley was our host at LACC. The North course was totally awesome, the third George Thomas design we played....maybe the best too. Riviera gets more publicity but the north course at LACC is tougher I promise.

Be sure to check out the picture of Mike trying to peek through the fence of the Playboy Mansion, which backs up to the north course.

After meeting some cool people in the clubhouse at LACC, we changed up real quick and headed back downtown to Morton's Steakhouse with our friend Alex and a few of his friends. ( the one girl we were with was from Conestoga...go figure). We ate like 200 pounds of food at Morton's. Alex is a bartender there and he gets 50% off. Win. After checking out a rooftop bar called the Standard Bar, we headed back to Studio city, where we spent the night at the Bernstein's house again. Better than any hotel, that's for sure! Thanks again guys!

So as one ridiculous part of this trip ends, another one starts right up. We have 7 rounds of golf in the next four days....starting tomorrow with San Francisco Golf Club in the morning followed by Lake Merced Golf Club in the afternoon. Mike's boss at Ridgewood, Dave Reasoner is joining us for the next week as is our buddy from Clemson, Andrew Black, who is an assistant professional at Mayacama Golf Club in Santa Rosa.

Tonight we are staying at the Argonaut Hotel in San Fran...thanks to Reasoner!

Anyways, we got the oil changed on the truck this morning and we have now gone 4500 miles on this trip.

And as we drive up the coast, the temperature is dropping. We are getting dangerously close to sweater vest weather again!!