Inside Comments: Steve Turcotte

Road Trip Time: A drive to Yuma

You never know what you might stumble across when you drive through the desert. On a recent trip through the southern part of Arizona – on the road to Yuma, there is not much to see. Plenty of desert. Sage brush. Mountains. Railroad tracks. A few gas stations. Some run-down buildings.

As you get closer to Yuma, things change. On this trip I wasn’t thinking golf, just a trip to see relatives Dennis and Linda for a few days. And to check out a new town. Dennis promised some golf when I was in town, but I didn’t expect much. I googled golf in Yuma and there wasn’t much to see. There were a few golf courses, but not much information attached to the web site. So I guess it was going to be a little trial and error if and when I decided to tee it up in Yuma, which is located in the far Southwest corner of Arizona.

The first morning had a tee time at 6:30 a.m. – that’s no typo – 6:30 in the a.m. (Ok, I do like my sleep and since the group of 20 older guys at Foothills Executive Golf Course are used this ungodly hour, I had no choice). My first taste of Yuma golf came at this 9-hole layout with holes ranging from 120 to 490 yards. Lots of short par-4 holes and a cool par-5 hole with a bush carved like an elephant.

The next morning the alarm rang at 5:50 a.m. and the time was 6:20 a.m. for tee off Mesa Del Sol Golf Club. This course was a treat. There was water on several holes, including a pair of par-5 holes with water up and down the left side of the hole making the fairways seem higher than they were. The course is an Arnold Palmer design and you could easily tell with the wide fairways and water challenges.

The third day featured another early morning wake up ring and an appearance on the first tee of the Las Barrancas Golf Course before 6:45 a.m. This is a course with great views of the nearby Gila Mountains and a course that winds its way through the desert. I was promised to see a rattle snake, but they must have been sleeping and hiding because none made an appearance.

As you search the golf directory for Yuma you stumble across other courses in the area – including a couple that are part of RV parks. And that makes plenty of sense since the RV parks in Yuma are packed to the rafters during the winter months with snowbirds from around the country. Some golfers in the group said that when it’s snowbird season the prices go up, the tee times are harder to get and the rounds are slower. That is why this Yuma regular like those rounds of golf when the snowbirds head out of town.

There is also a private country club in town called Yuma Country Club and a little more than an hour away and in the town of Page sits a course called Emerald Canyon. There wasn’t time to head north and see this place, but the pictures Dennis had on his computer spoke volumes. This was a must play next time in Yuma.

And there will be a next time. I had heard some indifferent talk about Yuma. All wrong. This is a place with history like the Yuma Territorial Prison, a chance to head across the border for a visit to Mexico and golf courses. Interesting note about the prison. Yuma High School moved in for a few years when the prison closed in the early 1900’s. And the nickname for the school became criminals. It stuck. But sometimes Yuma High School goes by Crims. But what a nickname. And what a place to make a visit.

Steve Turcotte can be reached at sdturcotte@comcast.net.