Man does not live by golf alone.

[Tommy Williamsen]

My annual five week trip to Colorado. Arapahoe Basin has some of the gnarliest terrain round.







What do you do for non-golf fun?

[Mike Bodo]

Skiing is exactly what I do in the winter. I also road/mtn. bike in the spring, summer and fall months in addition to golf. Beautiful pic's of A-Basin, BTW. I've skied Vail, Beaver Creek and Telluride in my times in Colorado, but I hear A-Basin is the whip!

[mike_beene]

Although I quit skiing years ago, golf and skiing have one thing in common: varied playing fields. Just as I love to look at golf course routings, I have always loved maps of ski areas. Vail feels like a 36 hole club. A Basin a tough little nine holes

[Ally Mcintosh]

Although I quit skiing years ago, golf and skiing have one thing in common: varied playing fields. Just as I love to look at golf course routings, I have always loved maps of ski areas. Vail feels like a 36 hole club. A Basin a tough little nine holes

Yes I always wanted to design ski resorts the same way as I wanted to design golf courses.


Just back from the Alps. Only holiday I can think of that helps you totally blank out your day-to-day worries.

[Greg Chambers]

Hanging out on the beach at A-Basin on a sunny spring day is one of the great joys in life.

[Dan Kelly]

“Annual” made me a little envious. But “five-week” pushed the whole Post into the Cruel Zone. (Emoticons and emojis omitted.)


In the winter, I read — mostly. The New Yorkers pile up during golf season.


Haven’t skied in many years, and really miss it. It was my second favorite sport (tied with baseball).i

[PCCraig]

Here in Minnesota, it's impossible to live by golf alone given the length of the season.


When golf season ends, it's bird hunting season here through the new year. And from the end of golf season to the beginning of golf season I play a lot of squash (mainly hardball doubles these days).

[Steve Lang]

   Tommy,


Looks a little more challenging there than the VA "mountains"


Like to make sawdust out in the garage or work on club-making...  when not playing guitar...

[Tommy Williamsen]

  Tommy,


Looks a little more challenging there than the VA "mountains"


Like to make sawdust out in the garage or work on club-making...  when not playing guitar...

I live in a little golf/ski resort. The vertical drop is 500 feet. Summit/Eagle counties are on another planet. I ski with my kids and grandkids. Some of my favorite weeks in the year.

[Ben Malach]

Honestly, the best thing about being home in Alberta this winter has been the access to the mountains. It's something I used to take for granted having them 45 min out the door. Its been a great year here for snow as well with two or three big dumps. I am hoping for on this week as I will be heading up to Banff on Thursday for some skiing and a cameo at the CGSA conference.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Honestly, the best thing about being home in Alberta this winter has been the access to the mountains. It's something I used to take for granted having them 45 min out the door. Its been a great year here for snow as well with two or three big dumps. I am hoping for on this week as I will be heading up to Banff on Thursday for some skiing and a cameo at the CGSA conference.

I want to get to Banff for both golf and skiing. I skied Whistler/Blackcomb two years ago and thought it was the best area I ever skied. The terrain is a ten. The vertical is so great that there are three environmental areas. It was raining at the bottom, snowing in the middle, and sunshine up top. It was brilliant.

[Jay Mickle]

Having chosen wisely where I live, golf is almost never out of the picture. When it is my blacksmith/woodworking shop is the where you are likely to find me. Always considered skiing to be making the best of a bad thing.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Having chosen wisely where I live, golf is almost never out of the picture. When it is my blacksmith/woodworking shop is the where you are likely to find me. Always considered skiing to be making the best of a bad thing.

Jay, I wish I had the talent for woodworking. I just don't. I have tried so many times but I lack the right gene. When I was a kid I helped my Dad put a tongue and groove floor in our upstairs. After three futile days of watching me, Dad said, "Son you are going to have to make a living with your head because you'll starve if you try to make it with you hands."

[Bill Seitz]

We did Telluride this year for the first time.  My experience is limited (single days at Breck, Keystone, Copper, and Vail; multiple at Deer Valley, Big Sky, Jackson Hole, and St. Anton Austria), but Telluride is probably the best all around experience I've had.  I don't know that it's the best at any one thing, but it's very good at everything.  Not as steep as Jackson.  Not as big as Big Sky.  Not quite the customer service as at Deer Valley.  But it's got a fun town, great mix of terrain for all levels of ability, excellent infrastructure, and easy to get to from Chicago.  I'm an advanced intermediate (I can do steep, and I can do bumpy, but I'm not so good at steep and bumpy), and there was plenty to challenge me and keep me busy.


Best part about it is that the place is virtually empty.  I've spent more time in one lift line at Vail than I spent in lines at Telluride over four days combined.  I think I saw more people on one run at St. Anton than I saw all day at Telluride.  And it's hard to beat lunch and a glass of wine at the highest elevation restaurant in North America.

[James Brown]

Wine.

[Tommy Williamsen]

We did Telluride this year for the first time.  My experience is limited (single days at Breck, Keystone, Copper, and Vail; multiple at Deer Valley, Big Sky, Jackson Hole, and St. Anton Austria), but Telluride is probably the best all around experience I've had. 

I took my son to Lech/St. Anton when he was in high school. St. Anton was pretty busy but Lech is not. It is one of my most favorite times I ever spent with my son.

[James Brown]

We did Telluride this year for the first time.  My experience is limited (single days at Breck, Keystone, Copper, and Vail; multiple at Deer Valley, Big Sky, Jackson Hole, and St. Anton Austria), but Telluride is probably the best all around experience I've had.  I don't know that it's the best at any one thing, but it's very good at everything.  Not as steep as Jackson.  Not as big as Big Sky.  Not quite the customer service as at Deer Valley.  But it's got a fun town, great mix of terrain for all levels of ability, excellent infrastructure, and easy to get to from Chicago.  I'm an advanced intermediate (I can do steep, and I can do bumpy, but I'm not so good at steep and bumpy), and there was plenty to challenge me and keep me busy.


Best part about it is that the place is virtually empty.  I've spent more time in one lift line at Vail than I spent in lines at Telluride over four days combined.  I think I saw more people on one run at St. Anton than I saw all day at Telluride.  And it's hard to beat lunch and a glass of wine at the highest elevation restaurant in North America.

I grew up skiing 40+ days a year and pretty much gave it up when I moved from New Mexico to the Mid Atlantic 20 years ago, becoming only a very casual skier.  Learned to ski at Taos and Telluride when I was little and my fondest memory in skiing is when my dad took me to St. Anton when I was 14. 


Haven’t reflected on this in years, but my fondness for skiing then is so similar to my love of golf now.  Fresh air, being outdoors, appreciating the land, the value of good technique. 

[Bill Seitz]

St. Anton - it was fun, mostly for the Apres*, but man was it crowded.  I'm a decent skiier, but that last run of the day, with the whole place skied out, and about 100 people within a 50 foot radius was not ideal.  We had pretty bad light for a few days as well.  Lech was nice, though.  They just put in a gondola that takes you from Zug to Lech/Zurs.  We had to take the bus.  Also, it was my first experience with so few trees (and so little grooming), and combined with the bad light, I was scared to death of skiing off of a cliff.  The Rendl side was really fun, though, with great off-piste skiing for someone without a lot of off-piste experience.


I will say that the price is right, assuming the exchange rate is decent and it doesn't cost too much to get there.  Lift tickets were about a third of what we pay over here, and we paid about $135 per person per night for our chalet.  Accommodations were not quite as nice as we've had out west, but that charged included unlimited beer and wine, and almost all of our meals, cooked on site by a Dutch couple who lived there for the season.  And I can't say I get to stop for lunch in Liechtenstein very often.

[Charles Lund]

Here are some links to photos of my property and garden:


https://photos.app.goo.gl/uaTn2CzjwVz2jEhBA



https://photos.app.goo.gl/hF86kUWYcDbvKH7G9


I have about 30 years of time invested in working on my property and garden in the Pacific Northwest.  Despite extensive overseas golf travel the past several years, I've managed to expand and tidy up the property and garden.  Having a John Deere 870 with multiple implements helps.  I rented a Kubota mini-excavator to open up some areas for additional utility trails and footpaths last summer.


I can appreciate the skills of equipment operators in buliding, maintaining, and renovating golf courses.  You learn by doing and cleaning up mistakes.  The meter on my John Deere hit 750 hours last summer, but thirty 30 years ago I started with a Stihl chain and brush cutter.


Charles Lund

[Ally Mcintosh]

St. Anton - it was fun, mostly for the Apres*, but man was it crowded.  I'm a decent skiier, but that last run of the day, with the whole place skied out, and about 100 people within a 50 foot radius was not ideal.  We had pretty bad light for a few days as well.  Lech was nice, though.  They just put in a gondola that takes you from Zug to Lech/Zurs.  We had to take the bus.  Also, it was my first experience with so few trees (and so little grooming), and combined with the bad light, I was scared to death of skiing off of a cliff.  The Rendl side was really fun, though, with great off-piste skiing for someone without a lot of off-piste experience.


I will say that the price is right, assuming the exchange rate is decent and it doesn't cost too much to get there.  Lift tickets were about a third of what we pay over here, and we paid about $135 per person per night for our chalet.  Accommodations were not quite as nice as we've had out west, but that charged included unlimited beer and wine, and almost all of our meals, cooked on site by a Dutch couple who lived there for the season.  And I can't say I get to stop for lunch in Liechtenstein very often.

Accommodations in the Arlberg are fantastic if you wish to pay for it. Lech - after all - is the hunting ground of the royals and glitterati.


St.Anton is definitely a little crowded (and wild). We stay in Stuben which is a sleepy but cool little village right in the centre of the area. Turn right for St.Anton, turn left for Zurs and by extension Lech, all on skis. Pity you got bad light. When the sun is out, I much prefer skiing mountain topography without trees. Again, a bit like golf courses.

[Peter Pallotta]

That's a very lovely place, Charles -- and those were the first photos from gca.com I've ever shown to my wife (who is now more determined than ever to move to the west coast for gardening reasons, in our case near Vancouver).
Me, I probably give golfers a bad name, because it's the only sport (or physical activity of any kind) that I engage in. Come winter I focus on playing the clarinet & saxophone, in a vaguely jazzy way and with limited technique (I like to think of it as sounding 'artistic'...)

[Ira Fishman]

Peter,


As you know, I never go outdoors except to play golf, and I have no musical or artistic talents so you give golfers a good name compared to me.  However, I can cook without poisoning anyone (a low bar admittedly), I can drink with the best of them, and I am quite content reading and listening to music.  Oh, and discussing inside baseball about politics with a couple of my friends from 30 years ago is a great sport.


Ira

[Tommy Williamsen]

Charles, what a stunning garden!! Well done. I can imagine just wandering in the garden with a good book or just drinking in the beauty.

[Pete Lavallee]

My wife, who is English retired in November of 2017 and always promised she would take up British Lawn Bowling. She’s completely addicted and her golf game has been neglected because of it! I retired on November 30, 2018 and have bowled about a dozen times so far. It certainly seems to be the closest game to golf: you bowl on a putting green, must visualize the break of the balls and distance control is king. The manners are extremely similar to golf with good sportsmanship and good all around British discipline enforced. All white is only enforced on Tournament Sundays. Half the members of our Balboa Park Club are South Africans.

[Steve Lang]

Pete,


still brewing in the garage?