The best FAM trip, ever!

Golf journalism is a tough job ... but someone's got to do it.

I mean look at the hassles one has to face getting where one is going. The trip to the airport. Expensive parking at the airport. Security line-ups and delays inside the airport. People hacking and coughing on the airplane. And on and on.

But hey, I'm a trooper when it comes to answering the call on a FAM (familiarization) trip, so I'm right in there.

I have been afforded a few of these junkets while working for Inside Golf (insidegolf.ca) to such places as the premiere of Golf Channel's Big Break  Mesquite (AZ); a seven-day journey through the Rocky Mountain courses in Alberta and another journey down to the host site of the 2015 U.S. Open tourney at Chambers Bay (near Seattle). Yet my latest adventure, to the Wigwam Resort in Litchfield Park, AZ tops all of those by a mile.

And it wasn't just the golf that was great in the West Valley of Phoenix. No, it was the "outside" offerings we were afforded by our hosts that made this trip something extra special.

Prior to the FAM beginning you're given a list of what's going to take place. This usually involves lots of golf and lots of food.  And yes, lots of fun.

And the trip to the Wigwam though had all that plus more. Lots more.

After a meet-and-greet the first day, we gathered for breakfast and golf the second day. After playing 18 holes on the redesigned Gold Course (a monster of a parkland track that's challenging but still fun) we had lunch and then began doing things I only dreamed about as a kid, or never dreamed of doing at all.

One of those that I'd never dreamed of was being afforded the opportunity to fly an F16 fighter jet. Well, OK. "fly" is maybe a rather broad term. What we were given the chance to do, after watching these war machines land and take off from about 200 yards away (the ground actually shakes when these jets take off!), was take over the controls in a simulator at Luke Air Force Base.

The F16's flight info centre - tough to focus on one thing with so many dials, buttons and switches in front of you!

As the only Canadian involved in this trip, my only thought was, "Don't cause an international incident by crashing your pretend jet into a populated area."

That didn't happen but at the same time, I can see why I never got a pilot's license. I was cruising along, quite happily I might add, when someone said to me, "Uh, you may want to slow down a bit. You're going so fast your jet, if it were real, would be disintegrating around you!"

Yeah, OK. So, where are the brakes for this thing?

The good news is I never did create a monster-sized pothole in the earth. The bad news, if you will, was that I never got to contact any "enemy" fighters so I never really had the chance to shoot at anything with the jets armament, other than the sky.  Well, maybe I "downed" a few clouds.

The real thing, which we didn't get to fly but in hindsight, that was probably a very wise decision on behalf of the United States Air Force!

The next day started with a trip to the Spring Training home of the Cleveland Indians where we six writers undertook a "homerun hitting contest" using golf clubs and golf balls. While it would seem easy to clear a fence only 110 yards away with a golf ball, the choice of clubs was limited to a 9-iron or wedge. Still not that far, true, but when you figure the fence was likely 30 feet high to replicate the Indians home park, Progressive Field, things did get a bit tougher (especially at my age and with my swing!)

I also had to hit the ball to right field, and as a left-hander, it was a somewhat awkward cut. In minor ball I was a spray hitter without a lot of power and it showed here, even with a golf ball. I took one over the fence in fair territory and another that was foul. As for the other three shots, I had a bit better than warning track power hitting the middle to lower third of the fence with each shot.

To top that off, I "ran" (and I use that term loosely) the bases which seemed awfully far apart!

The set-up for the HR contest at the Indians Spring Training site in Goodyear, AZ.

We then went into the hitting cages where I was able to take a few cuts. It's been years since I swung a bat with the thought of hitting any moving object so my timing was off, but I did connect solidly a few times, including one line-drive right back at the writer throwing the BP. That cared both of us, so that was the end of that.

Surprisingly, well maybe not so much, no one from the Indians office rushed out to sign me to a tryout contract, so I guess my days of dreaming of being a pro ball player are now officially over.

Maybe to help soothe feelings of dreams dashed, we then headed to the Phoenix International Raceway, or ZoomTown, USA, for some track action. While we weren't allowed to drive around the 1-mile oval track with a dogleg in the backstretch, I did ride shotgun. Officially we were going 75mph in the official pace car; unofficially it was somewhat faster (like over 100mph).

What intrigued me most was the things the NASCAR drivers look for while driving. This isn't as easy as simply always turning left. The "chauffeur" pointed out track signage that is used to accelerate or brake coming out of corners and the pylons, along the homestretch straightaway, that drivers use to count down to braking for a turn.

The pace car we rode in around the Phoenix International Raceway.

Since I thought those guys just got in and went it was interesting to find out how much timing and how many things there are to do out there - especially with 42 other cars zipping around at the same time.

From there it was back to the golf course for a few holes before dark, then dinner, than a whiskey taste testing put on by a local distributor that was enjoyed by all.

Sunset over the Gold and Patriot Courses at The Wigwam Resort in Litchfield Park, AZ.

The last day was quiet, a round of golf on one of the two other courses at The Wigwam I hadn't played and then it was back to the grind of being a golf writer - you know that whole airport thing in reverse.

Yeah, it's a tough job, but hey, somebody's gotta do it!