With the continued excellent weather, I was hoping to at least get to a driving range before I play in San Diego next week. Discount Tire in Burnsville got my snow tires off quickly and I found myself at Valleywood in Apple Valley on the first tee just before 10AM. Amazingly, I walked 18 holes and was back at the car by 12:25. Gotta love that!

As you can see above, work is progressing nicely on their new clubhouse. I wasn’t quite clear from the news reports exactly where it was going up, but it’s basically right outside the old pro shop door. It was a little noisy around the site, but the safety fences and temporary paths were clearly marked and not much of an inconvenience.

The rest of the course was the same old Valleywood. They opened for play on March 16th and it seemed like they had cut most greens at least once. Conditions were decent and they had sodding projects started on a few holes. There were also a few new distance signs up that were very helpful.

I basically went from my last round of 2011 to the first tee with no practice shots, stretching or warms ups. After a scrambling bogey on one, I hit pin-high on the 136-yard par three second hole and made the birdie putt en route to a decent 86. I need a little more practice before the big tournament at Sycuan, but this was a good start…