Number 42 At Number 18

I've only been to one other golf tournament in my life, and that was a bunch of years ago when the huge crowd and I followed someone named Tiger Woods from hole to hole. This weekend we had freebie tickets to the Humana Challenge in La Quinta, California, and I was hoping to follow some upstart named Bill Clinton, but this time from the Champions’ Lounge at the 18th hole.

And BTW, yes, that’s the reissue camera bag that I recently bought back after selling it for some crazy reason.

But wait, let me rewind a bit. La Quinta is the golf destination in the desert area because of its predictably beautiful sunny weather in the dead of winter. Except for today. I woke up to a rainy Pasadena, and the weather forecast was so dire for the Palm Springs area that I chose to leave my (cute but white) planned outfit at home. But as we got closer and closer to Palm Springs, the drizzle stopped and the clouds parted till all we could see were wind generators.

And by the time we pulled into the parking lot for the PGA West, it felt like 80 degrees, especially in my black pants and sweatshirt, so it was quite pleasant to get to the lounge for some shade and a cold drink. We get settled in for about an hour and grabbed lunch, when I looked up and saw a strange rainbow halo effect around the sun.

And then it got weird thirty minutes later. The winds started coming in, blowing huge ripples across the water. The tent’s roof suddenly looked/felt really flimsy and flower pots fell over. Then ladies with headsets came in and asked us to evacuate the tent. We all filed outside and while it looked so deceptively beautiful, signs and scoreboards bent over then fell into the water!

Kiosks also collapsed…and that’s when the sheriffs showed up to clear out the entire event. By the time we got to our cars and filed out of the city, a dust storm blew in so quickly that in an instant visibility was down to almost zero.But a few miles later, it was as if nothing had happened. There was not a single cloud in the sky.

So much for finding Number 42 at number 18. I’ll just have to settle for this photo I snapped at the lounge. Sigh.

January 22, 2012