Golf Fore the Good

While the annual Skins game kept a foursome of pro golfers occupied this holiday weekend in sunny California, a pack of
golf crazy New Englanders teed off in somewhat less benign weather conditions. About the only thing the two tournaments had in common was that each played host to a little levity with a hockey stick.

The pros might have been a little miffed about teeing off in between refrigerators, but we teed off feeling like we were in one. The mercury hovered right around 22 degrees when we teed it up and hovered there for a few holes before the sun warmed the course to a balmy thirty degrees.

“But it’s a dry cold” one truly optimistic player insisted. Trust me, there is no such thing as dry cold when you’re playing golf on a narrow, sandy peninsula surrounded by ocean water, even with the breeze blowing barely ten miles an hour. But we all knew it could be worse. In fact, one of my playing partners had just captured the Cape Cod Amateur Championship just weeks before, golfing in wind and rain of hurricane force. This round was a cake walk in comparison.

Our hearty little band of golfers would have made an outstanding ad for Under Armour, featuring those wearing high tech performance gear and those that weren’t. Pick a golfer that looked a lot like the Michelin Man and you were pretty sure he were relying on old school convention of many layers, the thicker and woollier the better. Some were so bundled under layers of sweaters and jackets and hats and gloves it was difficult to recognize even the most familiar of faces. It’s a great way to survive a round of strip poker but, of greater consequence, the mega-layer method can affect a major hitch in one’s golf swing.

A beauty contest it wasn’t. One must expect to abandon all vanity when it comes to dressing for winter golf; narcissists need not apply.

Personally, I was feeling streamlined in four sleek layers of upper-body clothing and just two on my lower half. Hugely impressed with my new Cold Gear, I was pretty toasty despite the wind chill that likened the temperature to twelve degrees.

Things were not so slick on the other side of my golf cart. My companion had on so many layers that when she stripped down for comfort upon completion of the round she hauled home a good size garbage bag of assorted garments, equivalent to at least a week and a half worth of laundry. SOLD: another golfer on the value of high tech undies!

Despite the cold, the tournament was nothing but fun, a three club scramble format. South of here a lot of you lucky golfers will be playing real golf all year round. But in these parts we have to find ways to pass a long, cold season that includes enough time on the course to satisfy the itch.

If you’ve never played in a three club tournament, you should try it, at least once. Note that it is not required to be played in sub-freezing temperatures – that’s just an added consideration to an otherwise already atypical contest. The format certainly limits, by a pre-determined process of elimination, a golfer’s consideration of which club to hit. Although you may find yourself wistfully longing for the eleven clubs you left abandoned in your trunk, you’ll also find new and creative ways to use the few clubs currently available to you.

The day found the course still green and in great condition. At least the tee boxes were still soft enough to get a tee in the ground. The greens, however, were frozen solid, making it next to impossible to stick a shot. Imagine chipping a golf ball onto a marble floor… are you getting the picture?

By the second hole I noticed an increased bounce on my seven iron – a nubby frosting of ice coated the sole. On the third hole I snapped the nib off my ball marker trying to press it into the rock hard, unforgiving green. On the fourth hole I broke out the Hot Handsand stuck them into my shoes to relieve the painful sting of frozen flesh that had crept into my big toes. Did I mention one has to be creative in this tournament?

Since we were playing a scramble format my foursome had attempted to strategize our individual choice of clubs, hole by hole, taking into consideration our myriad levels of playing ability. In this instance, teams had to have a combined handicap of at least 45 and our group ranged from scratch to 21. We were a sort of golfing version of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles; we were great as a group, but nothing special without our lead player.

I carried the lone driver of the group, assuming that, if our horse happened to hit one to the wrong side of the pasture with his incredibly long and nearly faultless three wood, I’d have enough of an advantage from the forward tees to keep us in the game. This left me painfully short of club choices for a second shot. As much fun as it was to hit driver off the deck, it was not particularly effective; I’d rethink our line of attack next time. That’s not to say I didn’t take the opportunity to hone a new repertoire of shots with my driver. If, in the future, the opportunity presents itself to place a ball on an uphill lie on the front edge of a divot, I can confidently coax that big dog into a long, low run… or I could just use a four iron.

Another result of the day’s labor is that the love/hate relationship I’ve had all year with my sand wedge is now officially over. Absence truly does make the heart grow fonder. I’m a firm believer in a bump and run chip shot whenever circumstances allow but had my fill of trying to pitch with a seven iron over hill and dale, with the frozen tundra giving rise to all sorts of odd kicks. I wistfully pined for my sand wedge, or at the very least, my pitching wedge. I vowed to spend quality time with both in the future, and set some lofty goals for our future.