Barona Creek Golf Course
Here at The A Position we’re given a topic to address (or not) each month for The A List feature, in 150 words or fewer. For September we did as we have in the past few months, with Editor James Frank polling the TAP roster of writers. This time out he asked us to vote for our five favorite U.S. golf cities, in order, as the Ryder Cup approaches in Chicago.
Then he tabulated the results (using a system known only to him) to come up with the best dozen. He parceled out the assignments: “I tried to give everyone either his/her first or second-place city, but it was harder this time than with the top resorts piece we did in August. But again, it’s a team effort.”
My top five looked like this:
1) San Diego
2) Orlando
3) Phoenix/Scottsdale
4) Traverse City, MI
5) Kohler, WI
All made the list with the exception of Kohler, which I nominated for much the same reason as I nominated San Diego. And, indeed, some of what I had to say about San Diego repeats the argument I made here. Still, here it is below.
Click here for the full list of the 12 Best Golf Cities in the U.S.
***
Stone Brewing’s 11-11-11 Epic Vertical
What puts San Diego in the top rank of U.S. golf cities? One word: beer.
Not just any bellywash, mind you, but some of the best brews in the tsunami of the craft-brewing art are streaming forth here from Stone Brewing, Ballast Point, Port Brewing/Lost Abbey, AleSmith, and many others. The brewing passion is such that the annual San Diego Beer Week lasts ten days.
All this makes the local 19th holes rich in possibilities, and the golf menu is tantalizing as is, beginning with the two Torrey Pines municipal courses. There’s a Tom Fazio track at the Grand Del Mar, an Arnold Palmer layout at the Park Hyatt Aviara Resort, a renovated William Bell design (he also did Torrey Pines) at the Rancho Bernardo Inn. And there’s the splendid Barona Creek Golf Course in nearby Lakeside, with an onsite casino.
Great golf, delicious beer, and blackjack? What kind of dream is this?
Related posts:
California Sweet: Pints and Pars in San Diego
Birdies and Brews Part 2: San Diego
