Salt Lake Tribune Photo / Scott Sommerdorf
We interrupt this regularly scheduled golf blogram to bring you some college basketball. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to send my best wishes to the my University of Utah Runnin’ Utes basketball team. The Utes, under coach Larry Krystkowiak have had a hell of a season. The team has been ranked as high as 8th and spent much of the season ranked in the top 25, including a very tough schedule with many teams played in the top 15. This is amazing considering that four short years ago the program was at perhaps its lowest point in history, ranked somewhere near 310th out of around 315 teams.
The Utes made the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2009. In the first round they beat a “pesky” Stephen F. Austin team to advance to the round of 32. In their next game the Utes faced Georgetown, who had some big players including one center who tipped the scales at 350 pounds! That game was tied at 32 at the half, but the Utes pulled away to win by 11.
In the attached photo you can see the two star Ute guards (Delon Wright left, Brandon Taylor right) just after time ran out in the Georgetown game, both realizing they’d just made it into the Sweet Sixteen. Credit goes to my pal Scott Sommerdorf, a Salt Lake Tribune photographer, for capturing such a cool moment.
Delon Wright has been so much fun to watch the last two years. He is an amazing player and has been a big part of the Utes’ success. Taylor, the shorter of the two, is 5-feet-9-inches of stud. When he’s on and draining 3-pointers, the Utes are nearly impossible to beat.
Duke
The Utes face one of the most storied programs in the history of college basketball, the Duke Blue Devils. Not too many give the Utes a chance at winning this game. The Utes have a much better chance than most realize, provided their offense clicks and they don’t have some of those bad offensive droughts which have popped up in the few bad games they had this season. One thing we can count on is a solid Ute defense, which will hopefully cause Duke some fits.
I’m greatly looking forward to Friday’s game. Regardless of the outcome, it has been a fantastic season for my Utes and it is great to see this once-great program back where it should be.
GO UTES!
The most popular golf course in Salt Lake, perhaps even the whole state of Utah, is Bonneville Golf Course and for good reason. This is one of my “home” courses (yes I have several) and I really have fallen in love with the layout. The greens are always well maintenanced, and challenging. There is a very good amount of elevation change at “Bonney.” And one of the most unique oddities about the course is the fact that it has no fairway bunkers. None. Can you think of any course which has no fairway bunkers?
Left of hole #2, irrigation materials staged…
Since its beginning, Bonneville has been watered by hand. “Night watermen” pick up big hoses and patrol the course starting at about sunset, and work until sunrise to keep the course green and playable. I’ve befriended several of the night watermen, one who is no longer with us. A plaque sits at the base of the tree behind the par-3 17th green, dedicated to my friend Jeff. Night watermen are a unique breed; one which is going to be out of a job very soon. Construction on the long awaited irrigation system has begun.
Bonneville Golf Course Aerial Photo by Tony Korologos
Last year I had a fantasy idea about tagging along with the night watermen and a video camera at Bonneville to do a sort of behind-the-scenes interview/story. I dropped the ball, favoring my beauty sleep. Maybe I’ll still have the chance if their services are needed before the irrigation system is completed.
Top Golf
In the previous Hooked On Blog article the opening of a new Top Golf location in the Salt Lake City area was announced. Top Golf is a very successful business model, a “Dave and Busters with a driving range” sort of gig. The atmosphere is one of hot wings, hack golf swings, and flowing rivers of alcohol.
A great business model indeed, but will it fly in Utah?
Utah isn’t just another state. It is planet all its own. As a lifelong non-Mormon resident of Utah I’ve got some insight and comments which Top Golf may have not considered in their Utah location’s business plan. I’ll attempt to pen them in an entertaining top 10 list, without ruffling too many feathers with the local predominant religion.
Ah hell with it. Never mind. Let’s poke some fun…
Top 10 Hurdles Top Golf’s Utah Location Will Face
- 3.2% beer: We Utahns are not “adult” enough to drink beer as strong as the rest of the world. Our legislature has our backs though! Next year the new “wipe the citizen’s asses for them” bill will be passed too!
- Green jello: I hope Top Golf has a great green jello recipe. That nasty stuff is popular here amongst the Utahns. Make a few extra bucks by putting shredded coconut inside. It’s an all-out barf fest!
- Cheap patrons: Top Golf’s servers should have a second job. Utahns are notoriously bad tippers, if they tip at all.
- Black market booze runs to Evanston, Wyoming: IF Top Golf gets a liquor licence (see #5), I hope they’ve factored lower profits on booze sales into their business plan. The state runs the booze here. Citizens as well as businesses who have liquor licences must buy from the state and it costs far more than in neighboring states. Top Golf could do like the rest of us heathens: make a monthly top secret drive up to Evanston, Wyoming and fill the car up with cheap booze. Just hope to hell you don’t get caught by the highway patrol. Oh, and pick me up some bottle rockets and throw $10 on the lottery for me while you’re up there.
- Liquor licence: There are a fixed number of liquor licences available and all sorts of funky laws and regulations involved in getting one. Top Golf should be brushed up on the ever-changing, ever-bizarre Utah liquor laws. You know, do the macarena and recite shakespeare in latin backwards. Also, make sure the Top Golf location isn’t within 98 square miles of a Mormon ward house or no booze licence for you.
- Extra highchairs and booster seats: Utahns looooove to procreate. The average children per household is 17 here in Utah, not to be confused with the number of wives. When families come with all their babies (and wives), Top Golf had better have enough highchairs and booster seats ready to roll.
- Ice cream: Does Top Golf serve ice cream in their current locations? One SURE way to assure profitability in Utah is sell ice cream. Lots of it. Bank on it.
- Snow: We get snow here in Utah, usually quite a bit. It’s damn cold here for half the year too. The Utah Top Golf location must have some kind of heated bays or enclosed structure or there will be NO customers in the winter!
- LOTS of appetizers: We have a very strange law here in Utah with regards to selling any drinks stronger than 3.2% beer (yes I know that comes as a surprise). It is illegal for a restaurant to serve alcohol stronger than 3.2% beer unless the consumer is ordering food. Most restaurants with bars here get around this dumb law by offering a 99 cent order of chips or some other cheap appetizer. In fact, one can order a drink and get around the law by simply telling the waiter that he/she “intends” to order food at some point.
- Zion curtain: The idiots in the legislature think that if an under age person sees an alcoholic drink being poured, that the under age person will lose all control and begin drinking. So they passed a law that restaurants who serve alcohol must erect a “wall” between the seating and the bar. The restaurants made a mockery of this by first making the wall two feet high, as the legislature didn’t specify the height of the wall. After the legislature changed their rules on height, restaurants made the wall glass! Top Golf may need to erect one of these walls, known as a “Zion Curtain,” so that youngsters can’t “see” drinks being poured. When I was under age I saw my mom and dad pour cocktails every day at exactly 5 PM and look how I turned out. Oh, perhaps I’m not a good example.
- (Bonus) 21-year-old telepathic servers: Top Golf should only hire telepathic servers over 21 years old. It is illegal for a server in Utah to ask the customer if they want to see a wine list. Only if asked can the server give the wine list to a customer. Further, and I experienced this personally, the server must be 21 or older to give the customer a wine list. I had a 19 year old young lady as my server at a restaurant once who I asked a for a wine list. She told me she could not give it to me because she was under 21, and had to go get another server who was 21, who I then had to once again ask. My reaction was, “so it is illegal for you to give me a piece of paper with printed letters in the alphabet which form words, one of which is wine?” Her answer, “yes.” So there you have it. An under age person might lose all self control if they so much as read a word related to alcohol! Welcome to Utah.
There you go Top Golf. Hope these items above help you succeed because it is quite obvious the local government doesn’t want you to if you sell alcohol!
The golf industry is “struggling,” right? Tell that to one of, if not THE fastest growing golf companies in the world, Top Golf. Top Golf is a driving range on steroids, complete with all sorts of fun ways to hit balls and enjoy some food and frosty beverages.
Top Golf
Top Golf has announced plans to open a massive location here in the Salt Lake area, in the city of Midvale. I do my grocery shopping at a store right next to the location which is about five minutes from my house. How convenient.
I find it very telling that a successful company sees fit to INVEST in the Salt Lake golf industry while the city of Salt Lake is desperately trying to close courses which are losing money. Can you say mismanagement? I would presume that Top Golf does some pretty detailed research before they decide to dump millions of investment dollars into a new facility, to make sure it will be successful. I’m happy to see that the Salt Lake area is worthy of such a venture.
I do understand that Top Golf isn’t exactly real golf. You can rent clubs and you’re in a sort of a “Dave and Busters” or “Buffalo Wild Wings” atmosphere. The good ways it is not like real golf is that anyone can participate, and it doesn’t take 4-5-6 hours to play. I hear Top Golf can be as expensive or even more than a round of golf however.
It is sad that the city has screwed up its golf division so badly. During the years when the golf courses were making profits the city diverted those funds to its coffers and funded other money-losing amenities like tennis courts and who knows what, rather than saving the money for improvements or a rainy day. The courses and the supporting infrastructure now need improvements while at the same time that rainy day came. Now there’s no money, so the city’s answer is to close the courses.
That is stupid.
Not well played Salt Lake City.
What will happen to the land if they do close any courses? The land will be turned into a park or sold. Yeah great. A park generates NO revenue, unlike a golf course which generates cash flow through tee times, driving range, food and beverage, leagues, and equipment/apparel sales. A park would not produce any tax revenue or generate any kind of economic flow. And a park would not employee the number of people a golf course does. Think about a golf course’s staff: pro shop, food and beverage staff, maintenance. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars per course in employee income (taxes, spending money, and so on) which will simply go away from the city/state economy.
Maybe the courses are in the red a little bit in this down economy, but the total dollars lost between taxes, wages, tee times, range balls, food/beverage, retail sales, will have a far greater impact on the local and state economy. Unfortunately the city mayor and council can’t think past their initial bean counts it would seem.
Golfers are also mad that somehow the “bike loving” mayor managed to find some $8 million in city funds to pay for bike paths but can’t find a fraction of that to keep the courses running and fixed up.
Say, how many dollars does the city bring in from bike revenue? I’m guessing about zero.
Sandy, Utah 12/13/14 – I just got back from a quick aerial photo flight with my hexacopter at Sandy, Utah’s Hidden Valley Country Club. I lucked out between rain and snow storms to catch some photos of the redesign of the par-3 Mountain Course 9th hole. The hole is being moved to make room for the pending swimming pool which will open next year. The pool will be located in the soon to be former location of the Mountain 9th green. In these photos you can see the old green still intact. I presume when the shaping is ready for the new green, they’ll move the old surface over.
Hidden Valley Country Club Mountain #9 Redesign – click image to see larger version
In the photo below you can see that the new tee on Mountain nine looks to go through a chute of trees. Slightly reminds me of the 18th at Augusta National.
New tee box on lower edge of photo – click photo to see larger version
In the photo below you can see a photo shot directly above the old 9th green and the new 9th green location.
Right: me and my white car. Middle right: old 9th green. Middle lower-left: new 9th green (I presume)
For more Hidden Valley Country Club photos, visit the Hooked On Golf Blog Hidden Valley Country Club photo gallery.
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