No Place Like Home

THE REST OF MY ROTA
Steele Canyon Golf Club ★★★★½, Jamul, $99-$139, steelecanyon.com, 619-441-6900.
You'll wear out the brakes on your cart traversing this steep, 27-hole Gary Player design carved from the rocky hillsides east of San Diego. The Canyon/Ranch 18 is the best of the three layouts.

Salt Creek Golf Club, not yet rated, Chula Vista, $90-$110, saltcreekgc.com, 619-482-4666.
This course southeast of San Diego features wide, fast-running fairways and large, firm greens routed over rolling terrain and wetlands.

Sycuan Resort ★★★★, El Cajon, $70-$92 for Willow Glen and Oak Glen courses, $18-$24 for par-3 Pine Glen, sycuanresort.com, 619-442-3425.
Always well-tended, the two championship 18s at this low-key resort play through a river valley. It's traditional golf, with narrow, tree-lined fairways.

Encinitas Ranch Golf Club ★★★★, $77-$97, Encinitas, jcgolf.com, 760-944-1936.
This fun, forgiving course is 20 minutes north of Torrey Pines, on a bluff with views of the Pacific.

OFF THE COURSE

San Diego has so much to do, no one could possibly list it all. But here are some of my favorite nongolf diversions.

PONIES: From mid-July to early September, the festive Del Mar Race Track is Where the Turf Meets the Surf, as its slogan promises.

OCEAN DWELLERS: From December to April, hop a boat to glimpse migrating gray whales. San Diego Harbor Excursion and Hornblower Cruises & Events depart the pier at the foot of Broadway for 3½-hour narrated tours.

SAND: Our beaches are always in season. For people-watching, rent bikes or inline skates and join the bikini-clad and tattooed throng cruising the boardwalk along Mission Beach, a dense district of bungalows, beach bars, restaurants and an amusement park. More peaceful, Coronado's Central Beach is a deep, sublime sweep of sand stretching nearly two miles, backed by dunes, mansions and the Hotel del Coronado.

Left to right: Balboa Park, El Agave.

EATS: The fish taco has become shorthand for San Diego's Mexican cuisine, but that's not the whole enchilada. Though the chips-and-salsa crowd flock to the heart of Old Town, true gourmands venture several blocks south to El Agave. Don't be put off by its setting: above a liquor store next to a chiropractor's office. Inside a rustic dining room lined with more than 1,500 tequila bottles, feast on chicken or pork in sophisticated moles, filet mignon with goat cheese and a dark tequila sauce, and a killer fresh-cilantro soup. (619-220-0692).

San Diego teems with dive taco stands. Most of them are good, but La Posta de Acapulco, at Third and Washington, holds a special place in my stomach.

TWO OTHER BITS OF ADVICE

1. If you're tempted to cross to Tijuana for that photo op with a burro painted in zebra stripes, know that tourist visits to the border town have tumbled amid a recent spike in violence, mostly between drug traffickers and police, though some tourists have been subjected to shakedowns by people posing as law enforcement. You might be happier checking out a real zebra at the San Diego Zoo.

2. Allow ample time to reach the golf course. Our freeways run at a 2 on the Stimpmeter. Gridlock is the pimple on the shoulder of this supermodel city. It's probably just as well: You don't want to fall too hard for this place. You still have that flight home.

Mike McIntyre has written for the San Diego Union-Tribune, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. This is his first article for Golf Digest.