Ode to Winter Golf: The musings of cold weather golf
Cold weather and winter golf is much like getting a tetanus shot. You don’t always look forward to it, but you’re always glad you did it.
The clock has turned on another golf season in the Midwest. The fairways are blanched, the sand traps have hardened, and the rough’s gone thin and scraggly. Leaves are now more troublesome than any hazard, gathering errant balls and tucking them away for a long Winter slumber.
November golf is a different game in the cold weather states. It thins the herd substantially, separating the weekend hackers from the deeply devoted. It takes gumption to see 48 degrees and 60% chance of showers on the weather app and think, “I wonder if the boys are up for a round?”
Everything feels different, too. During winter golf, the body is less resilient, the hands chapped and rubbed raw, and the shoes feel stiff and heavy. The grips become as hard as a broom handle. An off-center hit can be felt well beyond the elbows. Even the softest tour ball comes off the clubface like a stone, taking odd bounces and rolls down the weather-beaten fairways and greens.
Can a person make a fluid, loose swing with four layers on? No, not really. If anything, November golf is the great handicap manager. Everyone loses significant distance and course conditions make every lie an crap shoot. In winter golf, nothing is taken for granted.
Like to take a big divot? Go ahead and schedule that rotator cuff surgery now. If you are a sweeper, prepare your hands for a high-voltage electric shock should you catch one thin. Sticking a divot repair tool into a socket is less jolting.
Throw in a wind that makes the eyes and nose water and it all adds up to a seemingly miserable experience.
Yet there you are; hands wrapped around a warm styrofoam cup, a knit cap pulled snuggly over the ears, in righteous awe of a deserted course.
And then there are your playing partners; your fellow frozen travelers. Like the crew of Admiral Byrd’s Expedition, you all plod along the tundra not because you like it, but because there is no other choice for the adventurous soul. It is in your blood. It is undeniable. This is what the truly devoted do.
Over dinner with friends, your wife points at you and wondrously says, “He played golf today!”
You smile proudly, chin rising slightly so all may look upon your still-ruddy face. The other “golfers” at the table smile quietly, instinctively bowing their heads in respect. Those that rode out that gray, blustery November Saturday morning on a sofa now feel a bit cowed. The Alpha golfer has been identified. Respect must be paid.
When asked about your score, you wave a dismissive hand. It matters not, you say. In these conditions the old axiom of the course being your opponent truly has meaning. You battled the land, the air, and the water.
Scribblings on a scorecard? Bah! That is how lesser men judge themselves. You are not bound by crude arithmetic. You survived to tell the tale of a 97 with six 3-putts and four balls lost to the leaves. That is all they must know. Legend crumbles in detail.
So next weekend, when those of you in the Arizona desert or the Florida coastal flats see a high of 64 degrees and think, “Seems a bit nippy”, buck up and strap on the Foot-Joys. Do it for those of us who would kill for a 60-degree day in November or December. Or January. Or February. Hell, even March is dicey.
Cold-weather golf, like links golf, is a bit of a different game. And for the truly devoted, it is like seeing a soulmate in a new light. Different, unexpected, but just as beautiful as the day you met.