The Land of Milk & Honey

This is the road where Thelma & Louise made their great escape. The road where, after three years, two months, 14 days, and 16 hours of running, Forrest Gump finally stopped. It’s the road you conjure up when you dream of cruising across America in a pickup truck. And today, a little electric golf cart is going to have its own great American road trip.

I turn the key in the ignition, half-expecting the growl of something big. All I get is a default start up display on the cart’s LCD screen. I’m 999 yards from the fairway. I pat the dashboard, more like 200 miles little buddy.

We picked her up late last night at Lake Powell Golf Course after a brief negotiation with the proprietor. Jake had been out of town for a few days, so when I rolled up to ask if we could borrow one of his golf carts, haul it three hours to Monument Valley, and film it driving down Forrest Gump Hill for our SS25 campaign, I assumed he’d say no. In my extensive experience making stupid requests—people default to no. But the people out here have a different attitude.

The plague of power hungry middle management that hates “yes” and loves “no” does not seem to affect Arizona. At the bowling alley we putt one down the lane and the manager waved us through. At the Grand Canyon permits to film were $100 and no one checked them. At C2 Tactical Gun Range I was handed a waiver, a pair of glasses, and some headphones before unloading a semi automatic rifle into a cardboard cut out of the MANORS logo. Hell yeah.

Kolton was the first to show us the meaning of Southern hospitality. He’s 17 years old but could pass for 13. His wide-brimmed cowboy hat adds four inches to his lean five-foot-seven frame. His face is friendly, smooth, and hairless. In his free time, he fights bulls and wrestles humans. His appearance is unassuming but I’d wager his cojones are comparable to those of the bulls he fights.

“Our job is, whenever the rider falls off, we step in to distract the bull and keep the rider safe,” says Kolton.

“Doesn’t that put you in danger?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

“Yes, but we know what we’re doing. A lot of people think you just run away as fast as you can, but it’s more about footwork. It’s kind of slow motion for me. I can read what the bull is doing next.”

He doesn’t usually wear a cowboy hat for golf, but he knew the cameras would be rolling. At the top of his swing, his wide brim brushes his back, tipping it forward in some kind of John Wayne golf move. He drives it 200 yards with a baby fade and a level-headedness that belies his years.

“Whenever a space opens between the rider and the bull, we roll through the gap and make it around their horns to try to keep the bull’s attention on us instead of the rider. The bull can’t turn quickly, so you’re pretty much safe if you get past the horns.”

Kolton talks about reading bulls like he’s reading greens. As if a misread won’t leave him with a busted head or a broken bone. It’s a fearlessness that only makes sense this far west.

But even in the land of “yes,” we ran into a few “no’s.” Scottsdale National, Whispering Rock, Forest Highlands, and many of the other private Scottsdale courses flatly refused our requests to play. I worried that without access to Arizona’s most exclusive venues, we’d be hacking around in the dust. But it quickly became apparent that it’s not Arizona’s private courses that make it a great golf state—it’s the world-class public golf scene.

Phoenix alone has over 200 public courses, ranging from laid-back municipal gems like Papago and Encanto Park to championship-level layouts like Troon North and We-Ko-Pa. The climate makes golf playable year-round, and with twilight rates and off-season discounts, even the high-end courses are within reach. They don’t even seem to mind when ten blokes tumble out of a beat-up van onto the first tee.

After a few days bouncing around Phoenix, we took the party North to Arizona’s spiritual capital, Sedona, where red desert rock surrenders to green pines, and the two colors fight for sovereignty. Sedona is famous for its energy vortexes—people come for retreats, healing, hiking, and yoga. But we were here for golf. Specifically, the most photographed hole in the Southwest.

Standing on the 10th tee at Sedona Golf Resort, it was easy to see why it earned the title.

My favorite par-3s are those that separate you from the course. The 7th at Western Gailes, the 12a at The European Club. Holes tucked away or raised above the rest, offering an intimate experience between you and the green. At Sedona’s 10th, the walls to the VIP section are towering red rocks, some 2,000 meters high. We soaked it in for a moment—the silence, the scale, the feeling of being alone on a course carved out of a canyon. But we couldn’t stay long.

With the sun dipping behind the red rocks, we finished our round, threw the clubs in the U-Haul, and pointed it back toward the open road. We leave Cacti, Neon motel signs and the Grand Canyon in our dust as we pound a short section of Route 66 on our way North to Lake Powell Golf Course.

The course is wedged between Horse Shoe Bend, Antelope Island and of course Lake Powell - but it’s the only landmark we’re here for. The course that would define our trip.

Lake Powell Golf Course doesn’t appear in any state guides or top-100 lists. In fact, if it weren’t for our detour to the Grand Canyon, we wouldn’t even have found it. Too far, too small, not interested. But one grainy image on Google caught the attention of our Creative Director Luke, and that was enough to take a punt.

Unlike the canyons further south, the rocks at Lake Powell Golf Course are smooth and rounded. They roll through the landscape like waves, as if, when the weather warms, they’ll crash and the course will be swallowed by water once again. The fairways climb and turn, exposing us breathless to the cold desert wind. The sun and the rock conspire to flood the landscape with a rich orange light, which only the deep blue of Lake Powell dares to resist. It was an astonishing scene and an absurd place to build a golf course.

Drunk on the scenery, an idea struck us. Why don’t we take this golf cart down the road at Monument Valley? It will look awesome. And that’s how we ended up here.

The cart hums along the empty stretch of highway, its wheels kicking up dust where the dimples of a Titleist were never meant to touch.

We’re exhausted after five days on the road, chasing sunrises and drinking in the Midwest (literally). It’s 6 AM, -18 degrees Celsius, and the desert air is so dry it’s drinking from my eye balls.

A small toll to pay on the Drive To Nowhere.