When it’s time to go out on the town, Cabo’s number-one restaurant is Nik San, a tiny spot in the heart of downtown where owner Angel Carbajal serves fresh sushi, much of it caught on the restaurant’s own boats the same day.

Though Nik San is generally crowded, the frenzied mob we encountered was like nothing we had ever seen. The explanation? Paris Hilton was having dinner inside. Deciding to pass, Brad and I made a quick round of the local nightclubs, staying one step ahead of the mass of partyers who progress nightly from The Office to Sammy Hagar’s rock-n-roll heaven, Cabo Wabo. Around midnight, everyone migrates to Squid Roe, an open-air mosh pit of tequila-fueled get-down.

Remembering from long experience that fish rarely bite the line of an angler with a steaming hangover, we called it an early night. The next morning we drove north out of Cabo to fish a couple of spots farther up the coast (see sidebar, page 98), and to check out the sites of several courses either under construction or in the works.

Projected to open in 2006, San Jose’s Campestre course, a Nicklaus design but without the prestigious Signature designation, is targeting the middle-tier golfer. Next to open likely will be Puerto Los Cabos, a mega-sized development at San Jose’s Playita Beach, which will have a new luxury marina and oceanside courses by both Nicklaus and Greg Norman. The first nine holes of each course will comprise a composite, presumably temporary, 18.

The boom also stretches north along the Sea of Cortez, where Tom Doak has broken ground on a course at Bahia de los Sueños. In the 300-year-old city of La Paz, Arthur Hills is building Paraiso del Mar. With courses also planned along the Pacific side, the Cabo golf experience will have evolved into a Southern Baja tour in a few years, with visiting golfers playing their favorite selections on a stunning semicircle around the peninsula’s tip.

After a successful fishing expedition that covered much of that ground, Brad and I motored back to Cabo del Sol for our annual Cabo shootout grudge match the next day. I’ve never won—which is why I carry a grudge—but I figured that having caught the biggest fish, perhaps I was due to teach Mr. Cabo a thing or two on the links.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who’s seen me play that I failed miserably. It wasn’t because I played poorly—I even squeezed out a par on the par-4 16th, a great hole made even better by the recent lowering of the fairway to offer a better view from the elevated tee of the fairway, green and ocean beyond. But my par did not match Brad’s birdie, his sixth of the round on the way to shooting a smooth 31 for the nine. No wonder they call him Mr. Cabo.

On my next visit to tequila town, I’m thinking about driving again from L.A., arriving as a middle-aged beach bum climbing out of a dirty pickup at the five-star Palmilla. If I ask nicely, do you think they’d disconnect the phone and the television? I’d be in heaven, and the world would not find me.