Winter Fallback: Golf on the Simulators at Maggie McFly’s

Posted on January 13, 2014 by David Owen

Translation: No peeing in the potted plants.

We were all set to play golf last Friday, but when I got up at 5:00 to iron my golf towel I noticed that my car was covered with snow. WTF! It turned out that the entire state was paralyzed, golf-wise, so Hacker (real name), Rick, and I ended up playing eighteen holes at Harbour Town Golf Links, in Hilton Head, South Carolina, on one of the three golf simulators at the Maggie McFly’s in Brookfield, Connecticut.

I’ve written about these simulators before. They were made by a company called aboutGolf, which also makes the simulator you’ve seen on the Golf Channel. The simulators at Maggie’s are beginning to show their age—pretend-golf technology doesn’t stand still!—but they’re awesome nonetheless, and they do a remarkably good job of making you think you’re really playing golf.

The little marble things on the green move, to show you slope and speed.

And, of course, between shots, you can eat cheeseburgers, drink beer, and watch TV. Here’s Hacker working on his taxes while Rick struggles to extricate himself from a simulated swamp:

We sometimes talk about buying a simulator of our own—or, rather, we sometimes talk about tricking our golf club into buying a simulator and installing it in the basement of the club hall, for our personal use. If we were rich, we would instead do what a guy in Massachusetts did not long ago. He built a pool house next to the pool next to his house and put a golf simulator in it. Here’s the pool house:

And here’s what’s inside, including the guy:

As you can see, he’s got a bunch of other golf stuff, too, and he either doesn’t carry his own bag or is extraordinarily strong. The architecture firm that designed everything is Meyer & Meyer, in Boston. A publicist for the firm told me, “The plan revolves around the HD Golf simulator, with spectator seating on three sides. The homeowners entertain often and it was critical that the traffic flow and seating accommodate large parties. A see-through gas fireplace allows continuous views for those seated at the dining room table. Large windows face the pool deck and fire pit. Amenities include an artfully designed kitchen, first-floor guest room, en-suite bathroom, upper-loft guest room, and laundry facilities.” O.K.!

The owners have three teen-age sons, all talented golfers. Here’s the counter in the spectator area—which appears to have been fashioned from a single something. Put a coaster under your beer bottle, please:

The next time Maggie McFly’s does an upgrade, I suggest something along these lines. Or, at least, how about some new mats, balls, and tee holders? Still, even though there’s no swimming pool, playing at Maggie’s beats staying home on days when the weather is completely out of hand.

We Have a Winner; Plus, Good Shoes for Winter Golf

Posted on January 2, 2014 by David Owen

On New Year’s Eve, I challenged readers to identify a golf course and an intriguing locker-room accessory, based on a photo similar to the one above. There were several pretty good guesses regarding the locker-room accessory, but only one (by email) that nailed the golf course, too. That golf course is D. Fairchild Wheeler, known to regulars as the Wheel, a muny owned by the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut (although it’s actually next door, in the town of Fairfield).

The winner was Dave Malloy, a reader in Trumbull (another neighboring town). He wrote: “That’s the locker room at the Wheel. Red Course is open all year. Black Course is a diamond in the rough. Oh, function. Drinks, baby! Ashtrays, too, at one point, I was told. Always loved that locker room.”

There are other uses, too, as the photo above shows. And according to Stephen P. Roach, the head pro, regulars also treat the things as stand-up card tables—a great idea. I asked Malloy to tell me about himself and his golf. He wrote:

I am an 18-handicap hack who can lose balls impressively deep in the woods, both hooking and slicing. Fifty-two years old. Most of my golf is nine holes late Saturday or Sunday afternoon at Tashua Knolls, in Trumbull. Three kids and a full sports schedule kill golf until late June, then sports start up again in September. Grew up in Stamford playing Hubbard Heights and Sterling Farms. Occasionally enjoy away rounds at Smith-Richardson, Longshore, Oxford Greens. Play Highlands and Pines in Dennis, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. Took one lesson, and at the end of it the pro gave me a free can of tennis balls.

As promised, a disappointing prize is on its way to him, Winter Storm Hercules be damned. Meanwhile, my friends and I have played three rounds at the Wheel in the past week, including our final round of 2013 (on New Year’s Eve) and our first round of 2014 (on New Year’s Day).

The Sunday Morning Group visits the Black Course at the Wheel, January 1, 2014.

The Sunday Morning Group plays the Black Course at the Wheel. First tee, January 1, 2014.

When we teed off on New Year’s Day, at 9:30 or so, our cars were still the only ones in the parking lot. Where was everybody else? Home fretting over their New Year’s resolutions, maybe.

Playing golf in bad weather is easier if you have the right equipment. Remarkably, my friend Hacker (real name) and I both received winter golf shoes for Christmas. How did our wives know? It’s like a short story by O. Henry. My new shoes are Nike Lunar Bandon IIs:

They look a little like ski boots, but my winter golf clothes increasingly look like ski clothes, so I shouldn’t complain. They’re not as slipper-like or as comfortable as my beloved True Linkswear shoes, but they seal up tight, and, so far, I have nothing bad to say about them. I also like to wear them when I walk the dog in the snow.

Santa brought Hacker’s new shoes all the way from England. They’re made by a company called Stuburt, and they also look like boots:

Hacker loves them, but when he got home on Saturday, the first day he’d worn them, he discovered that seven of the cleats had fallen out while we were playing.

Cliff Dews.

He emailed the company to complain, and, a couple of days later, heard back from Cliff Dews, a representative of the distributor. “From your description,” Dews wrote, “I can only assume that you did not notice the label on the sole unit which explains that the studs are only hand tight during the manufacturing process and that they should be fully tightened before use.” I love England, but the only other country I can think of where they do things this way is Canada. If you’re willing to go to the trouble of printing up labels and sticking them to the soles of shoes, why not spend another ten seconds and screw the things all the way in?

Besides, as Hacker pointed out, there had been no such labels on the bottoms of his shoes or, indeed, anywhere in the box, which had contained just “the shoes and bubble pack.” At any rate, Dews did the decent thing, “despite our instruction label not being actioned,” and promised to send Hacker a new set of studs. And that’s the end of it—or so I hope.

45-Hole Golf Complex Stays Open for 5 Golfers

Posted on December 9, 2013 by David Owen

Golf weather, duh.

Our home greens are closed, so on Sunday four of us traveled a little over an hour to the east, to Tunxis Plantation Country Club, which has two eighteen-hole courses and one nine-hole course—all very nice, all completely open, carts available (although we didn’t use them), $35 walking. The parking lot was empty when we arrived, at 10:30. We teed off at 10:45 and were the only golfers on the entire property. The temperature was only 30 or 32, but there was no wind and the course was in terrific shape. I had brought some adjustable winter tees, which I picked up at the PGA Golf Merchandise Show in Orlando a few years ago:

They’re really meant to be used with mats on driving ranges, but they work pretty well on their own when you can’t get a regular tee into the ground. We didn’t need them, though, because the dirt was still semi-unfrozen.

Tim, Gary, Hacker (real name), Tunxis Plantation, December 8, 2013.

On the eleventh hole, a single golfer caught up to us, and we let him play through (see below). On the previous hole, he had sunk a six-foot putt and made a fist pump, even though he was by himself and didn’t know I was watching. He hit a huge, perfect play-through drive, well past all of our drives, but then he shanked his second shot into the pine trees. That made us all feel better about his big drive.

Hacker and I were both testing some Clicgear pushcart mitts, which we had bought independently at exactly the same time:

They have Velcro straps, and they attach (as a single unit) to the handles of your pushcart, so that you can slide your (gloved) hands into them. Getting the thumbs in the right place takes a little work. Each side has a pocket for a chemical hand-warmer, although the pockets are slightly too small for chemical hand-warmers, we found—an odd design flaw. We liked them, though. On the sixteenth hole, Tim noticed this sign leaning against a tree:

Translation: we shoot cross-country skiers.

We finished in three hours and had lunch at one of our favorite winter clubhouses, Flaggstead Smokehouse. They were out of brisket, but they still had my favorite: pulled rib meat. They were also offering a discount (see below). Only Hacker tried the voice (unsuccessfully), but they gave us the discount anyway, and when we left I bought a pound of pulled ribs and a big thing of beans, to take home.

Hacker (Real Name) Invents Great New Golf Game While Asleep

Posted on December 5, 2013 by David Owen

Recently, I wrote that I’d had an extremely rare dream-within-a-dream, about the rules of golf. Reading about my dream made my friend Hacker (shown above) recall that he, too, had recently dreamt about golf, and that in his dream he had invented a new kind of scramble. (In a scramble, all the players on each team drive on each hole, then choose the best drive and play their second shots from there, then choose the best second shot and play their third shots from there, and so on, until the ball is holed out.) In Hacker’s dream version, each four-man team had to count two balls on each hole. As he explained the rules to me: “All four drive. Pick two balls. Assign two players to play each ball until holed out. Score both balls. No handicap.”

Tim (left) and Paul, Sunday scramble, Atlantic City, October 20, 2013.

Tim (left) and Paul, Sunday-afternoon scramble, Atlantic City, October 20, 2013.

In Hacker’s dream, the purpose of this game was “to screw Tim” (another of our friends, who invented our game Perfect Skins “to screw Gilllen”). But it’s a great idea, no matter whom it screws, and we’re going to try it next fall, during the Crystal Anniversary of our annual golf trip to Atlantic City, if not before. Hacker’s dream format is especially attractive because it prevents a team from depending too heavily on any one player.

I love scrambles, and I’ve put some thought into what my ideal scramble team would look like, in any format. The first thing I want is a guy who can drive the ball really long and really straight. On my dream team, that will be me—but not the me who usually hangs out at my club. The me I want is the me who hits all my provisional drives, after I’ve pumped my first drive out of bounds. The provisional me never fails to find the middle of the fairway, and he is scary, scary long.

Next, I want someone who pures his approach shots, so that we can be sure of getting at least one ball close on every hole. That player will be me, too, but not the same me who’s so awesome with a driver. The me I want for approach shots is the me who, during my regular rounds, hits all my lay-ups. The lay-up me hits nothing but smooth, high draws, and he’s a club and a half longer than the me who hits my tee shots on par 3s.

Pitching, chipping, and bunker play usually don’t count for much in a scramble, because with multiple tries at every approach shot you seldom get into serious trouble, and when you do get into trouble you have multiple chances to get out. Still, it’s important to have at least one guy on the team who’s really good at sticking it tight from fifty yards and in. On my dream team, that will be me—but not the provisional me, the lay-up me, or the regular me. For the short stuff, we’re going to need the me who handles my up-and-downs when I’m playing by myself. That me has the softest hands you ever saw. He can knock it dead from any lie—with backspin!—as long as nobody’s watching.

The truly crucial skill in a scramble is putting. The secret weapon on my dream team will be a guy who is probably the best putter I’ve ever played with: me. In a weekend tournament at my club several years ago, every participant had a floating mulligan, which could be used on any shot. I forgot about mine until I got to the sixteenth green, where I faced a tricky ten-footer. I told myself that that I didn’t have to make the putt, because I’d have a second chance if I missed—and the ball went in. And I never even got to use my do-over, because just knowing I had it enabled me to one-putt the next two greens, too, from about as far away. “Leave your putters in your bags, boys,” the mulligan me will say. With a guy like that on the team, how can we do anything but win?

Ben and Shep, final hole, Sunday-afternoon scramble, Atlantic City, October 20, 2013.

Ben and Shep, final-hole gallery, Sunday-afternoon scramble, Atlantic City, October 20, 2013.

Dressing for Golf in Cold Weather

Posted on November 25, 2013 by David Owen

I’m working on a Golf Digest story about dressing for cold-weather golf. Tim, Hacker (real name), and I did some research on Sunday (see photo above). The temperature (21 degrees) equaled the wind speed (21 miles per hour), yielding a windchill factor of -459.67. Among the keys to staying warm was layering. Here are the five layers that Tim wore above his waist:

There were so many leaves blowing across the greens that trying to clear the line of a putt was usually pointless. Tim said he wished that Edwin Watts or Golfsmith or someone would sell a Tee Gun, like a nail gun, for driving tees into frozen ground:

Porter + Cable tee gun (artist’s conception).

Here’s Tim struggling to get a tee in the ground on the eighteenth hole (note the howling of the wind):

Afterwards, we warmed up over cheeseburgers at one of our several winter clubhouses, the G.W. Tavern:

The day before, I’d done some preliminary cold-weather research in New Haven, at the Harvard-Yale football game. It has become traditional, apparently, for residents of Yale’s Saybrook College to take off their shirts for a little while toward the end of the game—a ritual known as the Saybrook Strip. As in most of the schemes that men cook up for getting women to take off their clothes, virtually all of the clothes that were taken off were taken off by men:

My father was a Saybrook man. As far as I know, this ritual did not exist in his day. He and I did have a Game-related ritual of our own, however. We had a standing five-dollar bet, which the loser paid off in ways that did the winner no good. In 1983, when Harvard won, 16-7, he paid me with a check embedded in a block of Lucite:

If the Sunday Morning Group used the same payment method, I wouldn’t have been the big loser this past weekend. None of the cash you see in the photo below is moving toward me:

Nevertheless, it was a perfect day for golf, and you can never be sure how many of those we have left.

Did My Friends See a Gray Wolf on Our Golf Course?

Posted on November 14, 2013 by David Owen

A lot happened at home while I was in Ireland. For one thing, it snowed, and—as you can see in the photo above, which I took in a shady spot in front of the first tee—not all the snow had melted by the time we played on Thursday afternoon. Luckily, the forecast for the weekend is more Irish-sounding: no precipitation to speak of, and highs in the upper fifties.

Wolf food, fourth hole, November 14, 2013.

Wolf appetizers, fourth hole, November 14, 2013.

A second thing that happened while I was out of the country is that several of the guys saw a wolf on our golf course. Hacker (real name) saw it first, and Corey, Gary, Chic, and a couple of other guys saw it, too, They watched it walk from the ninth tee to the far side of the first fairway, and a little later they heard it howl in the woods. We have lots of coyotes around here, and everyone knows what they look and sound like, so they’re positive it wasn’t one of those. We also have lots of dogs (ditto). Wolves have been making their way into New England from Canada in recent years, attracted primarily by our burgeoning population of Lyme-disease-bearing white-tailed deer. The wolves are welcome to all the deer, as far as I’m concerned, although I hope they will continue to spare the almost entirely white piebald fawn that my wife and I have been watching in our yard since mid-summer:

On the golf course, my friends and I have also seen foxes and bears, and I once watched a bobcat circling a flock of nervously gobbling wild turkeys in the middle of the driving range. Nature red in tooth and claw, etc. Talking about the wolf this afternoon made someone suggest that we play a game we often talk about playing but can never quite remember the rules of: Wolf. But we couldn’t quite remember the rules, and we had six guys, so we played 30-Ball instead.

Austin and Corey, fifteenth hole.

We played kind of slowly, even considering that there were six of us—almost three and a half hours—and it was getting genuinely dark by the time we finished. In just six more weeks, though, the days will begin getting longer again, and once that happens spring will be practically around the corner.

4:30 p.m. EDT. Bummer.

Extra-Handicap-Stroke-for-Shorts Rule Now in Effect

Posted on November 6, 2013 by David Owen

The Sunday Morning Group gives an extra handicap stroke to anyone who wears shorts after November 1. My first grandchild—Alice Calbraith O’Keefe, shown above—was born November 2, just in time to qualify, assuming diapers count. The first Sunday in November was very cold and very windy, but several guys took advantage of the rule, including Fritz, on the left in the photo below.

The red plastic cup contains beer from one of our two new Kegerators. Hacker (real name) has planned a Kegerator-emptying party for this coming weekend. Guests welcome.

While S.M.G. was in session last weekend, eight of us were busy defeating our No. 2 Enemy Club in our annual two-day home-and-home match. My partner on Sunday was Corey, our pro, shown below, who did not wear shorts. (The matches were played at scratch, so there was nothing to gain.) Corey’s fiance is from Thailand. Before moving to the United States, last month, she had never felt weather colder than 58 degrees. She’s still playing golf, though, unlike some people I could mention. And we give two extra strokes for shorts after December 1.

A Ghost Course in Southern New Jersey

Posted on October 28, 2013 by David Owen

The Great Trial, Blue Heron Pines East, October, 2003.

On the morning of the second day of the Sunday Morning Group’s fourth annual autumn golf trip to Atlantic City, in 2003, Hacker (real name) gave everyone printed driving directions to Blue Heron Pines East, the course we were scheduled to play that day, but then drove himself and Harry, his navigator, to a course called Harbor Pines, which we weren’t playing until the next day and which was twenty-five minutes from Blue Heron. We had to shuffle the tee times while we waited for them to realize they’d screwed up. Then, after the round, we held a trial in the clubhouse—there were several lawyers on the trip—and sentenced the two of them to buy everybody’s lunch. Harry never fully understood why he was being forced to pay for so many bacon cheeseburgers, but everyone else, including Hacker, thought the whole thing was pretty funny.

That's Hacker in the middle and Harry on the right. Harry claimed later that he'd been represented by incompetent counsel.

The reading of the charges. That’s Hacker in the middle and Harry on the right. Harry claimed later that he’d been represented by incompetent counsel.

Blue Heron Pines East, which was designed by Steve Smyers, was one of our favorite golf courses, but in 2007 a real-estate developer bought it, and announced a plan to build an enormous condominium complex right on top of most of the holes. A year later, the global economic implosion helped to kill the condominium project, but the golf course remained closed and was allowed to revert to New Jersey. Earlier this month, during this year’s S.M.G. trip, Hacker and I drove over to have a look at the ruins, after playing a round at what used to be called Blue Heron Pines West. (It was designed by our close personal friend Stephen Kay and is still doing business, as Ron Jaworski’s Blue Heron Pines). Here’s what used to be the sign at the entrance of the East course:

And here’s the old driving range and part of the old parking lot:

And here’s the ramp leading down into what used to be the cart barn:

And here, through the opening in the trees, is what was once the fairway of the first hole, a really nice short, uphill par 4. The green was on the rise in front of that bank of trees in the distance:

And here’s the patio outside the clubhouse. We held the trial on the other side of those double doors, in what was then the grillroom:

And here’s another view of the clubhouse, and of what used to be the entrance of the golf shop:

We learned during this year’s trip that the property has a new owner, who just received approval for a new condominium plan. That means, I guess, that people aren’t suddenly going to come to their senses and give us back our golf course. We like the surviving course a lot, but it would be nice to have both. And if the condominiums really do get built we won’t even be able to explore the remains.

A few years ago, for The New Yorker, I wrote about another ghost course, on an island in the Outer Hebrides, in northwestern Scotland. You can read about that lost golf course here.

Flat Pete Goes on a Golf Trip

Posted on October 26, 2013 by David Owen

Peter P., a regular member of the Sunday Morning Group, was in a car accident back in August. He’s finally out of the hospital, but he isn’t walking again yet, much less playing golf, so we had to improvise in order to take him on our annual autumn trip to Atlantic City. We made a two-dimensional version of him, called Flat Pete, because we figured that in that form he would be easier to pack and lug around. The photo below shows him from the side. Notice how his eyes seem to follow you around the room:

Flat Pete was made possible by Reese, who not only printed him on the fancy color plotter in his office but also put himself at tremendous personal risk by inhaling clouds of spray adhesive during assembly. Flat Pete is so eerily realistic that my dog went crazy when I brought him up to my office after cutting him out in the basement. He rode down in my car, with Hacker (real name) and Gene. Here he is with Hacker, in Hacker’s driveway, when we were loading up to go:

And here he is in the parking lot of the first golf course we played in A.C. That’s me on the left and Gene on the right. All three of us are wearing hats that Hacker had had custom-made for the trip, at a place called Fat City:

Flat Pete made a better impression on bartenders than the rest of us usually do, even though he brought his own beer. He was also the only guy on the trip who didn’t snore.

And he won fifteen bucks playing golf—which is better than Mike A. did. Here he is in a golf cart with Other Gene:

Anyway, it was nice to have him along, and we’re all hoping that next year, or the year after that, he’ll be able to make it in person:

Les, Peter P., Tim, Basilicos Ristorante, Sea Isle City, NJ, October, 2013.

How Autumn Leaves are Deposited on New England Golf Courses

Posted on October 14, 2013 by David Owen

If you don’t live around here, you may not be familiar with the process shown in the video above. The leaves are imported from China, or someplace, and the wind does most of the work. The colors are nice. I shot the video on Monday at our Enemy Club No. 2, where I played with Hacker (real name) and Paul. We have a big team match coming up there in early November, and Hacker and I were studying the greens. Paul joined us because he had nothing better to do. We played 10-Ball with a Snake add-on.

Hacker, seventh green, Enemy Club No. 2.

Hacker, seventh hole, Enemy Club No. 2.

The course is my second favorite nine-holer in our part of the state—after our home course, naturally. It was built on the former estate of some rich guy, and it has lots of old apple trees, which are left to look after themselves. Whenever I play there in the fall, I cram apples into my golf bag. They taste a million times better than any of the apples in a grocery store. In fact, I hate apples, except for these.

I had a little trouble zipping this back up.

There were very few other people on the course—a surprise, given how nice the day was. We saw a guy on the practice green who said he was trying to become a less crappy putter.

I think the thing on his left arm may be a practice gadget, too.

And we saw a kid who, apparently, had invented a game that’s even more complicated than the stuff that Hacker and Tim come up with.

My Usual Game: David Owen

ADVENTURES IN GOLF

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