Herculean effort needed to complete Bob Hope classic

CADDIE'S ROLE: I met Hercules behind the fourth tee on the Palmer course at PGA West in Palm Springs, California, last Tuesday.

He was a tall, athletic-looking man dressed like any golfer would in this golfing mecca. Most people see Kevin Sorbo in his Roman-toga type attire on the TV show Hercules. Last week he was preparing for a cameo part in the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic as an amateur golfer, when he introduced himself to me and my player.

The tournament is all I imagined country-club living to be. Played over four neighbouring venues with almost every hole on all courses surrounded by houses, Palm Springs and its environs is like a retirement camp. The Palmer course, at PGA West, Indian Well Country Club, La Quinta and Bermuda Dunes are all gated communities inhabited largely by golfing snow birds.

Back in the 1970s this must have been the nucleus of the plaid, loud chequered pants. You pull up to the club, valet park your car and jump straight into a gas cart for your round. The spaces allotted in the "parking lot" for each vehicle is a testament to the by-gone era of massive automobiles.

The average age of the people I saw last week is well into 60. I noticed a few spectators at Indian Wells sitting in their deck-chairs beside one of the greens hooked up to drips and nebulisers.

The courses are all wonderful members courses but rapidly becoming extinct as a challenge to the modern pro. The trouble with house-lined fairways is that there is very little room for expansion. So who knows where the future lies for these clubs as serious venues for top professional events?

It seems from the condition of the courses that Palm Springs is the ideal venue for a greenkeeper. Just don't forget to water the course and the rest will look after itself.

I have never seen a set of courses in such good condition. Sitting on a huge source of water and getting virtually no rain, the greenkeepers are very much in control.

It rained for about 10 minutes before we teed off at La Quinta on Wednesday last. It was viewed as some sort of exotic spectacle by the locals.

You move with the sun in the desert. It is pitch black by 5.30 p.m and the old-folks are hammering on restaurant doors by then for access to their early-bird menues.

In the morning the traffic jams start building up before 6.30. With street names like Frank Sinatra Drive, Bob Hope Drive and Gene Aughtry Drive my imagination of the place is of shows and cabarets and margaritas and cocktail hour and swell people just having a ball.

That's how it was in the 1950s and '60s when the desert retreat started to be developed as a getaway from LA. Rancho Mirage is the plush part of town where all the stars used to live.

The city planners got it right when they set the building standards for these desert towns. Virtually every building is single storey. The result is that you have perfect views of the surrounding mountains. The foothills of the Santa Rosa mountains creep into play on some of the closing holes at the Palmer course at PGA West. They also come into play on the 18th at Indian Wells.

Gone are the heady days of Sinatra, Dean Martin and the Brat Pack. The order in this part of the desert seems as defined as the line that the San Jacinto mountain cuts at dusk against the clear desert sky.

For the newcomer to the Hope event it is possibly the toughest golfing week you will experience. Four courses and five rounds if you make the cut. The cut is made after the fourth round, so it is a real waste of time if you don't make it to the final day. The last round does not include the amateurs, it's just pros in regular three-ball format.

Having seen what the amateurs pay to play in a one-day regular Wednesday pro-am, the $4,500 fee for teeing it up in the Hope is a relative bargain. They get to play four rounds with four different pros. The problem is getting onto the invitation list. When you have your foot in the door it's easy. One amateur we played with said it was his 13th appearance in a row.

There is a great sense of tradition at the event. One great custom of the Hope is that the team captain tips the pro caddie. On Saturday last at Bermuda Dunes our team captain tipped me before we even got to the first tee. Where else but in America could you meet Hercules on the golf course and get tipped in advance. May the tradition continue.