Driverless taxis? The mad bastard things are called “Waymos” and they roll around the streets like terrible droids. They’re storm trooper-white, there’s a spinning thing on their rooves, and I don’t like ‘em at all. They weird me out, even if they do appear to drive perfectly. It’s like they’re too perfect. They’re not right.

The golf, though? Dear sweet home of Johnny Miller, it is pure.

We played TPC Harding Park (where Miller grew up playing), after massively enjoying Poppy Hills, Bayonet & Black horse (36 holes, a former course for military types), and, you know, Pebble Beach, all of which are two hours down the road on the glorious Monterey Peninsula.

Well, I didn’t play Pebble, because over a thousand Australian doneros with no guarantee of not finishing in the dark did not itch the pants of the accountants at Cleary Inc.

Cracker of a track and all, and it would certainly create some life-long Instagram memories.

But in Australia you can play Royal Melbourne, New South Wales and Cape Wickham for a thousand bucks all told, and I’d take all of them over Pebble, sexy as it is.

My pals on tour played Pebble, though, because they were there, and completed 17 holes and one drive off 18 before heading into the clubhouse in the dark for a $25 pint.

And they greatly enjoyed the majestic vistas and pounding surf we’ve seen on the telly in the Pro-Am which Bill Murray and Clint Eastwood get to, and upon which Rory McIlroy won the celebrity Pro-Am this year, head and heart, we like him for the Masters.

Was that $25 for pint? It was, friend. Because of our ordinary exchange rate and the fact things in American golf world can be very expensive; things are very expensive!

Example? First hour in Los Angeles we found a coffee shop called Riot House in West Hollywood (used to be a famous rock venue, apparently, it's in that movie Almost Famous) , where a medium-sized flat white coffee cost 15 Australian dollery-doos.

And that was before a tip, which suffice to say didn’t find its way into the pocket of our man Raul, nice a chap as he was.

Wasn't that flash a coffee, anyway. 

But the golf, friend. It is golden. 

Poppy Hills has been my favourite; winding through an old pine forest, with cracking bunkering and quick, hard greens which wouldn’t be laughed at by Sandbelt supers.

It’s a beautiful chunk of land there on the Monterey Peninsula; the region seems carved from sandy dunes. 

What else is good? Post-round luncheons.

Post. Round. Bloody. Luncheons.

Even warming up at Poppy Hills is pretty. PHOTO: Matt Cleary

They do a “sandwich” (what Americans call rolls or burgers or anything in which there's ingredients between bread, it is a Thing) called a "French Dip", which is succulent roast beef or pink meat of some description with horseradish and aioli, and so many meat juices.

Dear lord, the juices. So meaty and good. 

And if you haven’t had enough meaty juice goodness, it comes with a coffee cup of brown liquid which could be a beef broth or stock or something, that you’re meant to dip into.

it might be what they do in France, we may never know.

But I am telling you, friend, it is one-hundred-percent goddam delicious. Incredible food.

Incredible food. Don't know why it's called a French dip, other than there's a meaty broth of sorts into which one might dip their meaty sandwich, but all part of the cross-cultural exchange of your golf tour come holiday. PHOTO: Matt Cleary

Breakfast hasn’t been that flash, overall, however.

At TPC Harding Park - an otherwise incredibly pure golf experience and a public course that hosted the 2020 PGA Championship won by Collin Morikawa - breakfast was a meat pattie, fried egg and cheese concoction that came inside a “biscuit”, which is what they call this sort of scone thing, possibly, it's a bit like damper.

Regardless, it’s a dud bit of kit, the biscuit, and not recommended.

But you should play golf at Harding Park, and Poppy Hills, and Bayonet, and Pebble, and as many courses as you can in San Francisco and the Monterey Peninsula and other places in the great state of California. 

It’s weird and expensive, and we may never, ever know what's French about the meat dip broth thing. But the golf, friend, is really, really, really good.

Fact.

The dominant organism on the Monterey Peninsula is the pine tree. Makes sense they'd chop them for use as hole markers. PHOTO: Matt Cleary

 

Oh, deer,. At Poppy Hills. PHOTO: Matt Cleary