Marty had retired from the Army. He was working for a military contractor in human interface with weapons computer controls. I was getting close to retiring. So we decided to hit the road for a golf outing in the desert.

i had been on several such trips with my friend Jim Hileman and Mike Kelly, telephone guys. We would go out to the Palm Springs area sometime between June and August. With coupons, costs were essentially cart fees. The drawback is the temperatures were always between 110 and 120 degrees. We would play 6-8 rounds in five days.

So Marty and i decided to try it. We would go the mountain route, which included switchbacks with climbs and descents ranging up to 5,000 feet. Naturally, we chose to go in my Mazda Rx7. It was July.

Now, being an Army retiree and a Navy retiree, we naturally put a case of beer in behind the seats with our clubs and minimum luggage. We didn’t drink the whole case, but we downed a number, yes, illegally, on the two-hour plus drive. Consequently, we were stopping at almost every turnoff for one of us to take relief in the bushes. i was happy it was over when we reached Marty’s condominium.

The next morning, we had the first tee time at PGA West’s Jack Nicklaus Resort Course in La Quinta. It was so new, the pro shop was a trailer, no club house yet. They had just finished watering the course. This resulted in a mist over the course. Marty noted it looked like the British moors. That image quickly faded as the temperature accelerated from a comfortable 80 degrees to 115 before we finished. On the back nine, the mist had been replaced by mosquitoes, the only time i encountered them on desert courses.

Being brilliant, we chose to play from the black, championship tees. That meant we played a 7,204 yard course.

Marty commented he had never hit so many drivers, three woods, and wedges on a round.

We drove from PGA West to the La Quinta Citrus Course, a public course. Back then, it was a 7400 yard course from the championship tees, which, of course, we chose to play. By the time we reached the pro shop, it was past noon and over 120 degrees. The only person on the course was manning the pro shop. He was amazed we were playing.

We teed off on a lovely first hole we thought. But when we had holed out, we couldn’t find the number two tee and realized we had played the tenth hole. So we drove back to the pro shop and began over on the first, correct tee.

To say we were beat when we finished the two rounds would be an injustice. That evening, we sat out in the unheated spa, drinking gin and tonics, a signature libation for Marty and me. We calculated the yards of golf we played that day. Because of the extra hole at the citrus course, we had covered over 15,000 yards of golf for our introductory twosome rounds in the desert.

We often laughed at how ridiculous that was. But in our way, we were proud of it.