Wanna Golf?

It’s easy to lose track of time out here, as I hardly have any idea what day of the week it is. Usually I can gauge the day based off of when I give my 40 minute powerpoint evening program because that typically happens on Sunday nights—but not always. Having Monday, Tuesday and every other Wednesday as my weekends typically screws up that timing quite nicely. However, having these days as my days off usually means a stress-free weekend without traffic and crowds—which I can always appreciate.

Pebble Beach

This past weekend I was lucky to have my parents fly out to California for a visit. They didn’t make it up to the park because they’ve visited Yosemite the past two years and wanted a trip to the coast. I wasn’t too upset about this because I usually take any excuse I can get to spend a bit of time out of the Valley, and I’m know to never turn down a trip to the Monterey Bay. Being avid golfers, my rents love visiting the south end of the bay, as golf Meccas like Pebble Beach and Spyglass dot the rocky shores and provide for some pretty amazing views.

Growing up I despised golf probably because my parents were so into it. I didn’t really see a whole lot of fun in walking around for half the day whacking a ball into a little hole, and it was usually pretty torturous to go out in the hot sun and sweat all day long. For me the only upside to going golfing was I usually was allowed to drive the golf cart, and as a kid, there is no greater satisfaction then being able to reenact all those racing videogames I spent all my free time playing. I could appreciate their enthusiasm, but other than driving the cart, golf really wasn’t for me.

Now that I’ve grown a little older I’ve really learned to appreciate those weekends my dad would take me out on the course. Being out in the wilderness and spending a lot of time each day trying to share my love of wild landscapes to others, I’ve had to take a lot of time to reflect on why my love for places like Yosemite are so strong. Through this reflection I’ve come to realize that one of the biggest driving forces for my love of Nature really stems from those afternoons riding around the Mount Prospect Golf Course and really looking at the changing landscape around me.

Mt. Prospect Golf Course

A lot of environmentalists are quick to hate on the suburban landscape for its dependency on cars, cookie cutter materialism, and whatnot, but if you look to the Chicago ‘burbs as a model, the city and regional planners really have done an amazing job protecting large tracts of land and exposing people to the outdoors through the form of golf courses. In the golf courses that I’ve experienced, the maintenance crews seem to have been utilizing native plant species in the areas, as they are often a more cost effective approach to having seasonal flowers and solving things like land erosion. Even parts of the desert, where having nice green golf courses can put a lot of stress on the water table in the area, you are starting to see more and more courses utilizing the natural landscape of the area and finding new cost effective ways to make their courses unique. Even in Mount Prospect, the Park District reintroduced foxes on the golf course to help curtail the exploding geese population.

I find this to be great because the main lesson I teach out here in the park is that people need to love and take care of the landscapes in their hometowns, and realize there are amazing places in their backyards and trips to the National Parks aren’t the only way to connect with the landscape. The downfall of people getting their Nature fix at golf courses, however is that they can often associate all wild areas with golfing.

If you want to golf in Yosemite, the park has a decent course about an hour south of the Valley in the town of Wawona. I haven’t been on the course, so I can’t speak to its beauty or skill, but by playing there you can always say that you played golf in Yosemite.

So back to my weekends. My evening program got switched around this week so instead of having it on a Sunday night, I had it on a Saturday night. In my head I completely forgot that it was Saturday and when I should have known better and rode a bike or walked to the campground where it was being held, I decided to take my car (pretty much so I could get home quicker at the end of the night).

Big mistake.

Saturdays in Yosemite tend to get filled with crazy amounts of people and cars, and it doesn’t matter what Saturday it is, there is always a huge traffic jam in the valley. A trip that can normally take no more than seven minutes quickly turns into an hour and a half hair pulling nightmare on a Saturday evening. Having a large brain fart, I found myself stuck in traffic.

Being stuck in traffic doesn’t bother me as much as I know it bothers others, as I just turn on some tunes, sit back and give myself some primetime people watching—as visitors who have been in the traffic all day get flustered, illegally park their cars on the side of the road, get out and walk. Last night was no exception, except this past Saturday brought out some of the best people watching I’ve ever experienced.

As I was stuck between Sentinel Bridge and the ‘camping’ are of Housekeeping Camp, I noticed two men who were falling over each other in laughter. I didn’t think much of it, as it’s always nice to see people really enjoying themselves in the park. Then as I kept watching I noticed one of the men was swinging a golf club. The main thing that made me notice he had a golf club was the fact that his swing was so bad that the head of the driver would hit the dirt with such force that I thought the club would snap in half. I start thinking to myself, “Why would they be swinging a golf club if….no…they aren’t really…”

I mean kinda looks like a golf course.

As my car inched forward I saw they had a whole bucket of golf balls that they were teeing up and hitting into the Merced River. Not only is this awful because they are littering by hitting those balls in the river, but an entire campground and a beach full of people were just on the other side of the river from them and in the rare event that they actually hit a good ball, they were going to hit someone in the head.

So I got out of my car and approached them in full uniform. They turned to me and smiled and asked if I wanted to hit one. I was awestruck at the ineptitude of these grown men. Grown men who should have known better than to hit golf balls into a wild, scenic and protected river, grown men who should have known that you don’t hit golf balls anywhere other than a golf course. So I scolded them, and they asked me what they should do. Since I saw them just dink one over the edge of the river I told them that at the very least they should get out of this area after getting that last ball that they hit. Not realizing how deep the river was at that point, the guy jumps into the river, completely dousing himself in water, gets the ball and they go on their merry way.

Just another day in the Yosemite Valley.