For those of you who happen to travel some 60 miles due east of Lake County into the Sacramento Valley during the winter months, you have surely experienced the intensity of the valley fog. There is a certain harshness to valley fog, oftentimes making the ability to drive quite difficult and sometimes unsafe up and down the Interstate 5 and Highway 99 corridors.
Last weekend our family spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Chico, a North Valley university town adjacent to Highway 99. Our younger daughter, Liz, plays basketball at Butte College, and they had a home game against Chabot College on Saturday evening. Spending three days in Chico meant that I would have golf time on Saturday with my son Nick, a U.C. Davis student who is the reigning Adams Springs club champion.
I made a tee time for the two of us for 10 a.m. on Saturday. I went with that tee time so that it wouldn”t be all that cold and so that the morning fog would be burned off by then. We decided to tee it up at Tuscan Ridge, an Algie Pulley-designed course just south of the town of Paradise. We had never played there before and we were looking forward to a new golf course to collect.
Saturday morning dawned and the valley fog was very thick. By the time we left Chico at 9 a.m., the fog was still abundant and the sun was non-existent. As I started up the Skyway toward Paradise, the fog seemed even thicker. I was barely able to see the lights of the car in front of me. At one point I wasn”t sure whether or not I”d gone past the golf course entry road because I could hardly see beyond either side of the Skyway. Finally, the Tuscan Ridge sign appeared and we turned into a parking lot with some 25-30 cars. Yes, there must have been golfers somewhere out there, but we couldn”t exactly tell you where.
Nick and I checked in and were told that we could proceed directly to the first tee. A fivesome of locals had just finished teeing off as we got there. Visibility was at approximately 125 yards and we were grateful that the scorecard had a detailed course map as well as maps of all the greens. Trying to see through the fog, we never would have realized that the first green was an enormous 44 yards deep had it not been for the card.
From hole to hole, the fog would either lift somewhat or get more intense. On the fourth hole, a dogleg right par-4 measuring 320 yards, I hit my tee shot that I was able to locate in the light left rough. Nick was about 70 yards ahead of me. I had a short-iron uphill shot to a green that was 33 yards deep. According to the card, the pin was deep. I hit a 9-iorn that appeared to head for the green. Suddenly, Nick yelled out, “I think I heard it hit the flagstick.” The fivesome who had teed off ahead of us and were now on the nearby No. 5 tee yelled back to us, “It went into the cup!”
I walked the 110 yards to the middle of the green, found my ball mark, and then walked the next 30 feet to see my ball nestled in the bottom of the cup. I had made an eagle-two without ever seeing the ball land on the green, nor go into the cup.
The fivesome had us play through at that point and suddenly we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere with visibility getting worse all the time. When we got to the 210-yard par-3 seventh hole, we could barely see the ladies tee box some 35 yards ahead of us. Nick hit his tee shot at the green and was in for quite a surprise when he located his ball on the front of the green, some 110 feet short of the flagstick with a finger of the sand bunker between his ball and the cup. He had to putt around the bunker and did make a nice 15-footer for par.
We got to the 460-yard par-4 eighth hole and noticed that it was a slight dogleg left, according to our card. Visibility was at about 50 yards and we both hit tee shots that seemed to go up the middle. However, we couldn”t find our golf balls in the fairway. We then looked first in the left rough because both of us hook the ball, but they were nowhere to be found. After much wandering, we located Nick”s ball, some 50 yards off line and to the right, in the heart of the adjoining second fairway. We then located my ball, 40 yards behind him, also in the second fairway. All we could guess was that the dogleg on the eighth hole was much more severe than we realized or maybe we were misaligned because the tee box didn”t aim down the heart of the fairway. Just don”t ask me to describe the eighth hole at Tuscan Ridge. I played it, but I never saw it.
On the par-5 ninth hole, Nick hit his second shot up the middle or so he thought. He located it barely off the fairway in a grove of scrub oaks. He hit a 70-yard punch shot toward the green and once again we heard the clank of the ball hitting the flagstick. Nick had holed out for an eagle-three. As we walked off the front nine, he had carded a 1-under-par 35 while I was in at 2-over-par 38. It was becoming a surreal experience with great golf that we couldn”t see or visualize.
Suddenly the fog lifted while we were on the 12th tee. The sun was everywhere and the fog had dissipated. Before us was the entire Tuscan Ridge Golf Course and it was a sight to behold. There were volcanic rocks everywhere, sort of like Buckingham on steroids. As we looked across the fairways, we saw rock walls and very few trees. Perhaps part of our front-nine success was due to the fact that we hadn”t seen all the problems that the course offered.
I”d like to say that because we could see the course in its entirety, we played even better, but such was not the case. We made some bogeys and when the card was added up, Nick shot 74 and I shot 77. And while I can”t tell you all about the course nuances at Tuscan Ridge, I do know that I putted on some of the finest greens in Northern California and that the staff was friendly and professional. It was an easy walk and our weekend prime time green fees were $26 per golfer. It”s always a great day of golf when I play with my son, but the foggy nature of the day made it memorable along with the two hole-out eagles. I”ll have to go back one of these times, if for no other reason than to see a golf course that I”ve already played. Such is the nature of valley fog. Such is the nature of trusting your instincts in golf.
