The Off Season
The house creaks and whines as the wind howls outside. Snow reflected in the street light blows horizontally as the adjacent houses become mere mirages on the ghostly white horizon. Trees bend, branches snap noisily, wires toss violently, while inside the lights occasionally dim and flicker. This is the sixth storm in the past five weeks.
Morning brings yet another blinding white landscape. Plows have created four foot piles at the end of each driveway. The morning paper will arrive late today, if it comes at all. The foghorn signaling “no school, all schools” sounds in the distance. A forlorn bird surveys the feeder hanging from the old oak out front, but the wind has emptied the feeder, and the seed is buried deep in the thick white comforter covering the ground. Even though Christmas is long past, the ornamental lighted deer and polar bear remain encased in their white bier next to the front steps awaiting the ground to thaw so that their stakes might be uprooted and they might return to their attic resting place for another year.
I bundle up in layers. Thermal underwear and heavy sweat pants cover my legs and L.L. Bean boots. An UnderArmour cold weather base layer, Duofold and Hot Chillies tops, a sweat shirt and old lined Adidas coaching jacket protect my upper body, while a ski mask, knit cap and jacket hood bury my head. Grandoe ski mittens complete the wardrobe. Now I’m ready to head out and shovel.
In an hour I’m done. Even with two layers pealed from head and upper body, sweat still pours profusely from my forehead despite the 15 degree wind chill. Entering the two car garage, I throw the shovel unceremoniously into the back corner next to my golf clubs.
Looking at the clubs, my mind begins to wander. I’m standing on the first tee, crystal clear blue sky, about 75 degrees with the late morning sun beating down, 400 yards of deep green manicured fairway rolling away in the distance, a shimmering water hazard forming its starboard boundary. After a quick gulp of ice cold Diet Coke, I pull out my driver and a tee, stride up to the white markers, carefully insert the tee into the lush turf using my Titleist 3 as a guide to get the correct height. As I wait for the foursome 275 yards ahead to hit their second shots (not that I’d be any threat to them), I sight two swans canoodling in the water hazard 175 yards out.
A giant icicle crashing down from the edge of the house roof suddenly ends my reverie. Unfortunately, I won’t be teeing it up for months. That’s when I have an epiphany.
Grabbing a step ladder, I climb up into the garage attic. Yeah, it’s still here … 40 feet of rolled up contractor’s netting. The netting is five feet wide, with grommets every 2 feet along the sides. This might work. Since the joists of the attic floor are almost ten feet above the garage floor, I cut the netting into four 10 foot lengths. Then I locate a bunch of small screw-in hooks in the leftover hardware box. Quickly I insert the hooks at two foot intervals in one of the joists and hang one length of netting from them. With some rope I attach one more length to the original, looping the rope through the grommets to create a floor to ceiling, ten foot wide net. Then I similarly hang the other two lengths at 90 degree angles to the ends, once again using rope to tie them all together. From the basement crawl space I salvage a decrepit old 3x8 carpet remnant, and voila … an indoor driving range.
For the next hour, as the wind creates monster snow drifts against the side of the garage, I face Tiger in match play at Augusta National. He spots me two strokes a hole and still wins. But with each whack at the practice ball, I loosen up and feel more comfortable. Eventually I get up the nerve to use a regular ball. Yes, the net holds up, giving slightly to the impact of the ball and letting it drop harmlessly to the garage floor. Finally, my hands beginning to blister, I quit for the day. I remove the rope from the sides of my new range and roll up each section back up into the joists where they remain held in place by short bungee cords.
Fast forward three months. After hitting balls in my garage three or four times a week since that fateful day, I step out on the course for the first time. What a difference! Only once in the past had I broken 100. Today I shoot 90! This improvement continued throughout the season. Rounds in the 80s became the rule rather than the exception. Who knew that the breakthrough in my play would come not at a high-priced, week-long golf school but on a snow-filled early January morning in my own garage?
The house creaks and whines as the wind howls outside. Snow reflected in the street light blows horizontally as the adjacent houses become mere mirages on the ghostly white horizon. Trees bend, branches snap noisily, wires toss violently, while inside the lights occasionally dim and flicker. This is the sixth storm in the past five weeks.
Morning brings yet another blinding white landscape. Plows have created four foot piles at the end of each driveway. The morning paper will arrive late today, if it comes at all. The foghorn signaling “no school, all schools” sounds in the distance. A forlorn bird surveys the feeder hanging from the old oak out front, but the wind has emptied the feeder, and the seed is buried deep in the thick white comforter covering the ground. Even though Christmas is long past, the ornamental lighted deer and polar bear remain encased in their white bier next to the front steps awaiting the ground to thaw so that their stakes might be uprooted and they might return to their attic resting place for another year.
I bundle up in layers. Thermal underwear and heavy sweat pants cover my legs and L.L. Bean boots. An UnderArmour cold weather base layer, Duofold and Hot Chillies tops, a sweat shirt and old lined Adidas coaching jacket protect my upper body, while a ski mask, knit cap and jacket hood bury my head. Grandoe ski mittens complete the wardrobe. Now I’m ready to head out and shovel.
In an hour I’m done. Even with two layers pealed from head and upper body, sweat still pours profusely from my forehead despite the 15 degree wind chill. Entering the two car garage, I throw the shovel unceremoniously into the back corner next to my golf clubs.
Looking at the clubs, my mind begins to wander. I’m standing on the first tee, crystal clear blue sky, about 75 degrees with the late morning sun beating down, 400 yards of deep green manicured fairway rolling away in the distance, a shimmering water hazard forming its starboard boundary. After a quick gulp of ice cold Diet Coke, I pull out my driver and a tee, stride up to the white markers, carefully insert the tee into the lush turf using my Titleist 3 as a guide to get the correct height. As I wait for the foursome 275 yards ahead to hit their second shots (not that I’d be any threat to them), I sight two swans canoodling in the water hazard 175 yards out.
A giant icicle crashing down from the edge of the house roof suddenly ends my reverie. Unfortunately, I won’t be teeing it up for months. That’s when I have an epiphany.
Grabbing a step ladder, I climb up into the garage attic. Yeah, it’s still here … 40 feet of rolled up contractor’s netting. The netting is five feet wide, with grommets every 2 feet along the sides. This might work. Since the joists of the attic floor are almost ten feet above the garage floor, I cut the netting into four 10 foot lengths. Then I locate a bunch of small screw-in hooks in the leftover hardware box. Quickly I insert the hooks at two foot intervals in one of the joists and hang one length of netting from them. With some rope I attach one more length to the original, looping the rope through the grommets to create a floor to ceiling, ten foot wide net. Then I similarly hang the other two lengths at 90 degree angles to the ends, once again using rope to tie them all together. From the basement crawl space I salvage a decrepit old 3x8 carpet remnant, and voila … an indoor driving range.
For the next hour, as the wind creates monster snow drifts against the side of the garage, I face Tiger in match play at Augusta National. He spots me two strokes a hole and still wins. But with each whack at the practice ball, I loosen up and feel more comfortable. Eventually I get up the nerve to use a regular ball. Yes, the net holds up, giving slightly to the impact of the ball and letting it drop harmlessly to the garage floor. Finally, my hands beginning to blister, I quit for the day. I remove the rope from the sides of my new range and roll up each section back up into the joists where they remain held in place by short bungee cords.
Fast forward three months. After hitting balls in my garage three or four times a week since that fateful day, I step out on the course for the first time. What a difference! Only once in the past had I broken 100. Today I shoot 90! This improvement continued throughout the season. Rounds in the 80s became the rule rather than the exception. Who knew that the breakthrough in my play would come not at a high-priced, week-long golf school but on a snow-filled early January morning in my own garage?
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