Last night we celebrated the longest day of the year, shortest night of the year. It was a warm, balmy night. We must be thankful to be alive on such a beautiful night, living in such a lovely community!
Real Estate: here in Pleasant Hill, CA home sales are slowing, inventory is creeping up. The federal tax credit ended April 30th and the urgency went away with its ending. But interest rates remain good and there are buyers in the market, thankfully, just not as many, and they are not moving as fast. Does this mean prices will start slipping again? Possibly.........some firmly believe so. One thing we can say for sure; time will tell.
Golf: a year ago when the US Open ended tickest for this year's US Open held at Pebble Beach went on sale so we jumped online and ordered them for Thursday and Friday. Observations: Thursday both Tiger and Phil Nickelson, the two top ranked golfers looked flat. Missed putt's and no birdies left them both walking the course without swagger, without smiles on their faces. Friday Tiger played again much the same. Many times it looked like his ball was headed straight for the hold only to swerve away, like one of his ex-lady friends put a hex on holes! Phil however was ON IT! The man was making birdie putts and had his smile back.
Watching it on TV Saturday and Sunday: Tiger was ON IT Saturday while Phil, not so much. Meanwhile younger, less known goflers like Dustin Johnson and Graehm Mcdowell were in the groove! Friday we were sitting in the bleachers at hole 4, watching 3-somes play through, when we saw the then unknown Graehm sink a birdie putt and do the celebratory fist pump. I commented on how fun it was to see as, following Tiger and Phil, those had been sadly missing thus far. That night and the next day, that putt and the fist pump by Graehm were played over and over on TV! Seeing it in person? Priceless. Over and over on TV? Cool!
Weather: cold/hot, windy, cold/hot, windy; and that was while walking from hole to hole! So Friday I wore shorter pants only to have it be cold/windy; brrr!!!
Crowds! Wow! Whose idea was it to sell 35,000 to 40,000 tickets PER day? How do they handle that many people wandering the paths of an 18 hole golf course? Greed, I believe, set in. A few times I personally ran into people gridlock and it was creepy! Not moving forward, not having a way out of the crowd....just stopped and stuck. Then the slow moving forward would begin again and with patience we moved forward and out of that logjam.
Want to watch top players? It meant getting to a hold about one hour before they were to play through to get a seat in the bleachers or a fairway side view. Any later then an hour in advance you would be on tippy toes hoping to catch a glimpse through the crowd. Would you see the golfer, the ball, the swing, the result? Not too often! And against the foggy while sky the ball was rarely visible so we simply watched where it was likely to land and hoped to see the final result.
Trophy Club: for $75/day extra we had access to it. Flat screen TV's lined the huge tent pavillion filled with tables, two bars, a food area with some good eats for sale (salmon sandwich, fried shrimp or calamari, breakfast buffet were standouts and a nod to the sea-side setting) plus Executive Latrines in trailers were a lovely convenience compared to using the ones on the golf course. Of course it was at least a five minute walk from hole 1 which was a long walk from hole 2 and to walk the course, to see them play out to hole 10 was a long hike, along with long waits to cross holes golfers were playing through. The Trophy Club offered a place to re-group, relax and have lunch before heading back out into the crowds.
Merchandise Pavillion: lovely assortment of US Open 2010 labeled clothes, hats and accessories in a 30,000 sq ft tent; they expected to sell $2million worth Thursday alone!
Traffic and Parking: half an hour to drive from the freeway 2-3 miles to park; gridlock. Not too swift! Then got on buses for 20 minute ride to the golf course. Leaving at the end of the day lines snaked around metal posts to get back on a bus to get back to our car, taking half an hour. Driving to Santa Cruz for the night, a 45 minute trip took two hours due to freeway gridlock! It was all a bit much.
But all in all it was gorgeous at the Pebble Beach Golf Course and I am glad we went!
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