Lake Las Vegas can be a great escape from the usual frenzied craziness of Sin City if you’re in the right mood. It’s even better for families with its ice skating rink and exotic kite shop (you read that right, exotic kites). You just need to go in with a warning: Avoid Bistro Zinc, a hyped restaurant (for Lake Las Vegas) that’s simply bad. It’s not just vastly overrated for what it’s supposed to be like Caesars Palace’s Bradley Ogden. On my recent meal there, it was simply horrid - by any standard. I don’t know what cat food tastes like, but ... full post »

It never bothers me when someone complains that golf is boring to watch on TV. Or when someone - usually a NASCAR loser who just spent seven straight hours camped out on the couch - whines that golf just takes too long to play. To each his own. Unless the golf complainer is an NFL Draft nitwit. Then … well, it’s beyond ridiculous. For there’s no greater waste of time in human history than actually watching the NFL Draft. Once ESPN and now the NFL Network started blowing this exercise in tedium up, paint drying breathed a big sigh of relief. It’s ... full post »

It’s a safe bet that Phil Mickelson didn’t call his longtime swing coach and good friend Rick Smith a “thoughtless little pig” when he reportedly essentially fired him. Smith has too much class to ever sling that kind of statement at Mickelson too - though it actually may sort of fit if you think about it in Phil’s case. With his game wobbly and his mental fortitude still mush after his 2006 U.S. Open blunder for the ages, Mickelson is set to throw Smith overboard and go with Butch Harmon, one of the great blowhards in all of golf. This after ... full post »

If you’re in Las Vegas, you’re going to gamble. Even if you’re one of those delusional folks who goes to Sin City swearing they will avoid the call of lady luck. And since you’re going to gamble, chances are you’ll see it carry over to the golf course. Those usual friendly little bets tend to take on a new life on Vegas courses. There’s just something in the air (besides all the oxygen pumped into the casinos). One of the best courses to get your wager on in Las Vegas is Badlands Golf Club. This course near the excellent TPC Canyons has ... full post »

Trying to equate Annika Sorenstam being out for at least a month with a back injury to the prospect of Tiger Woods going out with an injury on the PGA Tour is like comparing a computer glitch at the local 7-11’s cash register to a complete system-wide failure at IBM. Annika Sorenstam is a Hall of Fame golfer. She’s even become more interesting now that she’s talking about course design. But she’s no Tiger. And in terms of impact on their respective tours, it’s not close. The PGA Tour is completely dependent on its transcendent star. The LPGA Tour is not going to ... full post »

It turns out that Rudy Giuliani does not know the price of some basic groceries. When a reporter in Alabama asked Giuliani what the price of a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread was, New York’s former mayor shot back $1.50 for the milk and a $1.25 for the bread. In reality, the national average is $3.30 for the milk and between $2.20 and $4 for the bread. Some political pundits have seized on this to declare that Rudy’s out of the touch with the common man. To me, it just proves he is a man. I do my share ... full post »

Whenever the mainstream media touts somebody as a “normal guy”, you know he’s actually more boring than Charlie Gibson at a corn-growing festival. What do you expect from the new champion of the most mundane Masters ever, Zach Johnson, though? He’s from Iowa. Again, he’s from Iowa. That’s not one strike. That’s one, two, three and four strikes right there against the ability to be interesting. But that’s not all. No, Johnson has it even worse. His dad is a chiropractor. Yes, one of those quacks who no doubt wheels a plastic skeleton around a mall and offers free “consultations.” A chiropractor’s ... full post »

It always amuses when a golf writer who’s blog draws about as much traffic as a McDonald’s on the side of an Afghanistan mountain goes into a rant about TravelGolf.com, the internet golf giant, being too controversial. (This usually happens when said blogger’s editor is asking him why nobody reads him). You can double the delight when said attention-seeking blogger calls the Lodge at Torrey Pines the “best golf resort in the Palm Springs area.” (Lodge at Torrey Pines is actually in La Jolla in the San Diego area, a good two hour ride even by Porsche from anything Palm ... full post »

Everyone knows O.J. Simpson’s relentless pursuit of “the real killers” takes him to plenty of golf courses. The question is: Has Las Vegas become the wanted-to-be-author of “If I Did It"’s new getaway of choice? Several of my playing partners in a round at the excellent Badlands Golf Club became convinced of this after finding several balls stamped with “Juice” and the Nike logo on them out in the desert. If you’re playing Badlands, you’re going to be spending a lot of time looking for balls in the desert. O.J. or not. These Juice balls became the status symbol of the day. You ... full post »

People love to rip on Donald Trump. Usually it’s people who’s never meet or had a single dealing with the man, such as our own TravelGolf.com raving lunatic with Elmer Fudd hair Tim McDonald. Like many golf writers who appear to be sheep braying for Golf Digest, McDonald blasts Trump for charging that Golf Digest publisher Thomas Bair told him that he’d need to advertise with the magazine to get his Trump International - his private West Palm Beach course - on the magazine’s Top 100 list. Now, I have no inside knowledge on what went down between Trump and Golf Digest ... full post »

Who knew that Morgan Pressel is better than Michelle Wie now, will always be better than Wie too? In many ways it’s fitting that Pressel is the one who stole Wie’s marketing plan and became the youngest major winner in the history of women’s golf. Pressel is a golfer who paid her dues, won at every level, did everything that Wie’s advisors feared letting her do - to prevent the truth about her game coming out any sooner than it has. But even more than that, Pressel had the courage - something very lacking in today’s PC sports world of robots ... full post »

It’s hard to even walk through part of Caesars Palace Las Vegas these days. That’s because Caesars decided to go pure Sin City and set up a section of Pussycat Doll dealers. These are hot babes in skimpy leather - or sometimes just fancy bras - dealing the cards, spinning the roulette wheel, etc … Naturally the minimum bets are higher. It’s a blast of an idea, basically doing what The Palms did with its exclusive Playboy Club, only opening it up to everybody in the middle of the casino. It’s nearly impossible to walk Caesars without running into this open section. It’s ... full post »