Vegas Week IX In Review

I know what you guys are thinking. “Well, Czabe. How was Vegas?”

In a nutshell: it did not disappoint. I will be coming back again next year for my 9th consecutive March Madness.

I did however, on this trip, come to an understanding of what you need to do in order to really have the best Vegas Vacation possible with “the fellas.”

You need to be brutally honest about two things.

1. Who are you going with?
2. What are you going there for?

In other words, are your guys boozers, partyers, gamblers, golfers, sports watchers, tourists…. What exactly? If you say “a little bit of all of that” then fine. Ask yourself honestly what will they be wanting to do while out there.

And if that’s not what you want to do, then you just need to find another crew to roll with. It’s that simple. There’s no hard feelings there. Just find guys who generally like to do what you like to do, and the rest will fall into place like an 8 of spades on your 4-9 hand against the dealer 6.

I used to come to Vegas with a group of high school buddies. We had some really fun trips. But their deal was simple. They stayed downtown at the Main Street Station casino. They played almost all of their table games at the place. They got the comped pile of free bar food around 2 a.m. and then they ran it back the next day.

This trip usually went 48 hours plus, and it was fine.

I however, wanted to play some golf while I was out there, and those guys didn’t play. I also had the chance to stay at a really nice place like THEHotel and I decided: “I don’t ever want to slum it again!”

I also like to walk the strip and check out some other casinos each year. I like to stop and watch the fountains at Bellagio, the Pirate Show at T.I. and other stupid Vegas tourist attractions, if possible.

I like to hit a late nite lounge at a casino with either a cheesy guy on the piano, or a cover band playing 80’s tunes.

I like a buffet.

I like the Rhino.

Well, in short, my high school buddies made the fatal mistake of letting this annual trip “lapse” this year, and that’s too bad. But I was able to cull together a crew from various connections and we dialed in a primarily golf related, Sweet 16 related trip.

It was sweet.

But had I not come to figure this out over the years, I would have likely been frustrated. I hope that next year my original crew from H.S. gets their act together and convenes at the Main Street. In years past, I liked rolling down there around midnight to partake in the action before slinking home at 3 a.m. to Mandalay Bay.

So, without further adieu, some observations from this year’s trip.

1. Crew
Big ups to my boyee Eric “Go” Gitter, the Head Pro at Fire Ridge GC in Grafton. Gitter is an easy wingman to be with, and a very good golfer. Granted, he sucks at picking basketball games, even though he’s also a high school referee in the winter. Gitter went 0-8 on his picks this past weekend, prompting me to call him “Owen.” As in “Oh-n-8.” He did however, get too damn mopey about it, especially since he only lost $110 in the process. Plus, I told him he’s just gotta “keep shooting” like any great shooting guard. Instead, he clammed up, and got scared at the window. As my friend Craig always says: “Scared money don’t make money.” Finally, on Sunday before leaving he decided to dip his toe in the water. Texas, money line. Oh-and-9. Good work, Jon Starks.

Footnote to Gitter’s luck this weekend: We were playing Silverstone GC on Saturday and they had a GPS system on the cart. It calculated your drive distance, as well as distance to the pin. So on the 2nd hole, we decided if you call your drive down to the YARD, it pays $20. So we go about 12 holes and nobody is getting closer than 6-8 yards. Finally, on a hole where I’m down the middle and Gitter is left in the desert scrub, he calls 271 on his, I call 255 on mine. We get to his bush, carefully pull the front wheel up to the ball (our standard to ensure accuracy) and sure enough, it is 271! Ding ding ding! High fives, laughs and all of that. I leave him with a wedge and go over to my ball. He hits out, and Is say to him: “Um, Gitter. You need to cover here, you are not going to believe this.” Sure enough. There we were. 255. Unreal. It was that kind of weekend for the kid.

2. Golf
I’ll be honest. Golf is so damn expensive in and around Vegas, I am starting to think it’s simply not worth it. Plus, the quality of the courses is often average at best. One generic desert framed hole, melts into the next one. The weather can be fantastic. Or brutally windy. No fun. I actually paid to play each day, which as you people know, for ME is rare. Pay? Steve Czaban ? America’s moocher? Egad! You can’t even get comped on golf courses out in Vegas, or at least I can’t. Must be my weak $10 a hand action. Snark.

TPC Canyons ($235)
In excellent shape. Greens were simply flawless. Otherwise, I have a hard time remembering one hole from the next. And for me, that’s rare, because I remember almost every course I play with near photographic recall.

Rio Secco ($175)
Didn’t see Butch Harmon, but we did get one of their “Tee-Mates” girl-caddies. I thought these gals were just glorified strippers to ride along for the round, but ours was actually a DAMN good caddy in her own right! Katie was a hustler, and a very friendly, very knowledgeable gal who is a showgirl at night in Bette Midler’s Vegas production. Very worth the $50 extra (plus tip) per player, in my opinion.

Silverstone ($175)
Yawn. I mean, double-yawn. Easily one of the most forgettable courses I’ve ever taken a divot on. Greens were okay on the front, aerated and sanded on the back. Ick. Very short, and absurdly forgiving. Still, not easy enough for me to shoot any kind of decent number. Highlight of the round was watching my buddie Clarkie hit a shot that caromed off a rock in front of his ball, and crush him in the ribs. Nice.

3. Everything Else
We stayed at THE Hotel at Mandalay Bay. There may be better spots in Vegas, but I don’t even care to see them. This place is so money, why would I ever want to go anywhere else. Being on the end of the strip, and because it’s a higher end place, much less drunken gang-related riff raff than mid-strip. Thanks again to Scott Ghertner of the MGM Group sports and media relations for helping hook us up.

High definition is something that Vegas hotels and sports books have yet to figure out. This is becoming a GENUINE deal breaker for me. Why watch the Sweet 16 at a sports book with a standard def picture, that is often degraded significantly by the time it gets projected on the wall? And while the rooms at THEHotel have flat screen plasmas, they only show SD. Why bother? I imagine that running HD to all these TVs all over a casino, is a daunting proposition, but they better get on with it. Some of us are simply not having it. Only one place had an HD sports projector that I saw, Planet Hollywood.

How did I do on games? Fair. I think about .500. I went 2-3 on night #1. Then on the second night broke even after blowing the first two games, I doubled up on Memphis. They are up 34 points, and decide to go into a COMA while laying a mere 7 to Michigan State. I’m in my room watching the ticker on top (since my one CBS feed was showing the other game) and I am watching the lead dwindle thinking: WHAT IN THE HELL IS HAPPENING! Thankfully, they pulled their head out of their ass in time to save my win. The previous night UCLA killed me when they were up 41-20 at halftime, and fail to cover against Western Kentucky. Think about it. They hold WKY to 20 at the half, and then allow 50-plus in the 2nd!!!! Aaaargggghhh!

All in all, a good trip. See you next year, Sin City.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

AND NOW, YOUR PIC O' THE DAY!!

This is probably one of the marketing campaigns that never quite made it to the final approval stages. Ya think?