24JaNUar Y 2011 n trooNGoLfaNdtraveL.Com
LAST LAUGH
Golf or a Lime Exfoliation at the Spa?
GEORGE FULLER By
THE CHOiCES Can BEFuDDLE a rEGuLar Guy
Spas, I’ve come
to discover, are
quite civilized
places. Golf
courses are not.
my wife Landry and I are differ- ent. on vacation, we both enjoy
golf, but she’d much rather play seven
holes and then beat a quick retreat into
an orange-scented spa somewhere for
some luscious-sounding treatment like a
mango-papaya body polish, or a quatros
manos (four hands) massage. Some-
times she’ll skip golf altogether to get
straight to the good stuff, like a kid who
passes on the Brussels sprouts to get to
the dark chocolate faster.
me? I’m playing golf … all 18 holes …
five hours and 85 +/- strokes of sheer
frustration and occasional success.
we’re different all right: she’s smart;
I’m a golfer.
we found ourselves in exactly that
situation on a recent trip to Cabo San
Lucas, mexico. as I was sweating it out
in the desert, playing don Quixote with
the cactus and my golf clubs, she was on
the beach under a palapa for yoga class.
She then moseyed to the resort’s spa for
her daily water ritual followed by a grated
coconut and lime exfoliation or hibiscus
anti-oxidant flower bath, treatments that
sounded like they were invented long ago
for the queen of Sheba.
when we’d meet back in the room
around noon, she’d be calm and emit
the pleasing aroma of fresh fruit. I didn’t
know whether to refrigerate her or nosh
on her. I was angry, hot and stank like a
boar just ran me up the valley. the best
idea was to take a shower and worry
about it later.
while in Cabo, we did discover that we
both liked Corona beer. hers was in the
form of a facelift; mine was in a longneck
at the pool bar.
this scenario plays out every time we
travel, as I’m sure it does for many guys
like me who have smart wives.
on another recent excursion, to pebble
Beach this time, I was lured by the
tremendous array of golf courses we all
know about, and Landry was tempted
by an equally tempting potpourri of spa
treatments. that’s not to say that smart
women don’t also enjoy the golf courses
on the monterey peninsula, they cer-
tainly do. But what makes them smart
is that they will play one day and make
a beeline to the spa the next, if not that
same afternoon.
Spa directors are like chefs for the
body. they use local ingredients (
man-goes, seaweed, pumpkins), cook up
elaborate schemes to tempt and please
(wraps, polishes, cocoons and massages)
and offer it all on a smart-sounding
menu, just like their kitchen counterparts.
Spas, I’ve come to discover, are quite
civilized places. Golf courses are not. on
golf courses, you get sweaty, dirty and
irritated. Your playing partners will empty
your wallet for you and laugh about it
gleefully.
If I wanted to do the smart thing—a
concept that generally escapes golfers
altogether—I’d join Landry in the spa. my
golf game might still stink, but my skin
would smell like roses...or pomegran-ates…or papaya...
