Weekend Escape: Baja California : The Golf of Mexico : Three Sporting Friends Swing South to Two Seaside Links With Uncrowded Fairways, Spectacular Views

We leave the South Bay at the crack of dawn one Monday. A sunrise, a few cups of coffee, and 2 1/2 hours later we’re at the U.S.-Mexico border. It goes even more quickly from there. Thirteen minutes and 12 miles down the road we are at our destination, the first cars in the parking lot. After a few minutes to collect ourselves, we are set to begin the real journey.

We are on the first tee.

We have come to Baja to play golf.

Mucho golf.

Really.

This is not the first power-golf outing for my group, but it is our first such extended venture into Baja. My fellow sports journalists on this trip are Rod Millie, an editor for the The Times’ Valley edition, and Dave Strege, who covers the Rams for the Orange County Register. Rod and I are fairly evenly matched. Dave is a player whose handicap borders on single digits. He gives Rod and me a good example to follow, which we rarely seem to do.

The next 33 hours will consist of 54 holes over two spectacular oceanside courses, a sumptuous dinner, a generous sampling of our favorite cantina’s inventory, and a night’s stay at a hotel overlooking a vast stretch of beach.

Yes, urban golfers, it doesn’t get much better than this. One Baja club pro estimates his course averaged 160 players a day during the active summer months; the other course might not have had that much traffic during an entire week.

Not that these courses, which officially opened in August, are trying to keep their existence a secret. If you’ve been to Baja in the past year or so, chances are you’ve seen the giant roadside billboards along the Highway 1 toll road south from Tijuana. “Meet our challenge,” proposes an advertisement for Real del Mar Golf Club, just 12 miles south of the border.

“Try to keep your eye on the ball,” encourages a huge billboard for Bajamar, 50 miles south of the border. Another Bajamar billboard boasts the course is “much like Pebble Beach . . . in 1918.”

*

I’m happy to report there is some truth in advertising. Real del Mar, easily accessible with its own exits from the toll road, certainly provides a challenge. Designed by Mexican architect Pedro Guereca, it is a course rich in character. The contours of the hilly terrain are fully utilized, resulting in a layout with spectacular views and demanding golf holes.

The par-72 course isn’t especially long--6,400 yards from the “tips,” (championship tees), as described in eloquent golfese by assistant pro George Petro--but there is a premium on accuracy. The fairways are narrow and a wayward shot is likely to end up either on an inaccessible bluff or in a virtually unplayable lie in a preponderance of landscaped flower beds. Real del Mar’s signature hole is the par-5, double-dogleg 17th, which beckons wickedly from its island green in the middle of a pond near the entrance to the course. The well-groomed greens are a little slower than you would expect at most California courses of this quality, but the putting lines are true, unlike my putting itself. At $39, the green fees are a good value, and the amenities are outstanding: pro shop, an alfresco bar and eating area adjacent to the clubhouse, and a refreshment cart (with soft drinks, beer and a margarita or other mixed drink if the quality of your golfing calls for it) that caters to golfers on the course.

We are the first group to tee off, and after 36 holes of inspiring, sometimes perspiring golf, we are the last group off the course.

OK, so it wasn’t all golf and no play. On to the beach.

For our layover between courses, there are countless places we could stay. Real del Mar is only minutes south of Tijuana and Rosarito Beach is nearby to the south. The course advertises a hotel package with a resort in Rosarito that, for $69, includes two rounds of golf and one night’s lodging.

*

But for us, there is only one place to stay in Baja: La Fonda.

Forty miles south of the border, the oceanside hotel and restaurant is hardly a well-kept secret. There are no phones, but that is about all it lacks. It sits above a wide stretch of beach, and a dining veranda affords a cozy vantage point from which to see the coastline. Rooms are available from $46. The monotonous sound of waves crashing at the shore is as intoxicating as anything served in the well-stocked bar (except, perhaps, the $1 margaritas).

It’s first-come, first-served, and on a holiday or busy weekend the 30 or so rooms can go in a hurry. Because there is no phone, reservations are available only by mail. But in my dozen or so visits to La Fonda, I’ve been shut out only once--on a Memorial Day weekend several years ago. But this is a Monday night and we have our pick of the place.

After the daylong appetizer of golf, we opt for the patio overlooking the beach, and gorge on black sea bass, stuffed calamari and wine. But much of our conversation over dinner and drinks that evening is about Real del Mar. We have doubts that the next day’s course, Bajamar, can match up to the new kid on the block. I will have to find out on my own. My friends leave in the morning to return to work, and I make the six-mile trip south to Bajamar. The toll road winds through hillside along the coast and it is a particularly clear and crisp morning. Ideal conditions for golf.

With no other development in the vicinity, the Bajamar grounds are easily spotted to the west from the highway. There is a guarded entrance to the resort, and a long, curving, cut-stone road serves as a runway that leads the mile or so toward the beach, then south past condominiums and housing developments to the hotel and golf course.

*

Like Real del Mar, Bajamar officially opened in August (after a two-year renovation). At 6,800 yards, the par-71 course is 400 yards longer than Real del Mar, but given the constant ocean breeze, it plays much longer than that. I tour the first six holes quickly before I see another group on the course. Because I am playing alone, they allow me to play through on the next tee.

By the time I make the turn I have already, in the last two days, played 45 holes of golf on what I consider to be scenic and challenging courses.

But what awaits will make my jaw drop. Simply put, the back nine at Bajamar is stunning. Nine golf holes along the edge of an escarpment overlooking the Pacific. I don’t know whether to golf, stare, take pictures or bask in the sun. I do a little of each, mesmerized by 180-degree ocean views, feeling a million miles removed from the world--and liking the feeling. Starting at the 14th hole, what was an ocean breeze seems more like a gale. Now, the course plays dead into the wind. That’s said to be the prevailing condition. It is too beautiful to anguish over.

I play the final three holes behind a twosome--the first time in two days I’ve had golfers in front for more than one hole. I birdie the 17th, missing a hole-in-one by less than two feet. (Just as well. No one would have believed me anyway.)

I bogey the last, finishing the round in 2 1/2 hours. As I return to the clubhouse, it occurs to me that I have rarely felt such contentment after a round of golf.

Bajamar is a developing resort. It has a hotel, restaurant and bar. Room rates range from $50 to $135. Greens fees are $40, $30 for hotel guests. These rates, part of a grand-opening package, are scheduled to double in February. Thirty-three hours and 54 holes after arriving, I get in my Honda CRX and head for home. There is still the matter of the border crossing to contend with.

After a wait of about 30 minutes , a U.S. border inspector motions my car to his booth. Looking at the long line of cars behind me, he asks the usual questions: Where have I been and what have I been doing. I tell him. Somewhat skeptically, he looks me in the eye. “So, you live in Redondo Beach and you came all the way to Baja to golf?”

Yep. And I won’t be back soon enough.

Budget for One

Gas: $15 Road tolls: ($2.25 per toll) $9 Green fees, Real del Mar (36 holes): $78 La Fonda, one night: $69 Lunch, Real del Mar: $6 Beverages, Real del Mar: $10 Dinner, La Fonda: $22 Breakfast, La Fonda: $8 Green fees, Bajamar (18 holes): $40 Lunch, Bajamar: $6

FINAL TAB: $263

Real del Mar, telephone 011-526- 613-3401; Bajamar, tel. 011-523- 669-5536. La Fonda, P.O. Box 268, San Ysidro, Calif. 92073.