This is the third in a series of essays on things to feed your golf addiction in the off-season.

Visit Your Local Clubhouse

Even if the course is closed, there’s a good chance that the clubhouse still is open for drinks and meals. What better place to relive your past season than your favorite nineteenth hole? It’ll be even better if you can get your regular foursome together once or twice a month.

Order a dog and a beer—or whatever you usually get after a round. Then get a scorecard and try to mentally recreate your best round of the past season. Talk about the best day—and the worst. Challenge your buddies to a game of Golden Tee. Or just stare out at the snowy landscape.

My favorite clubhouse sits on a hill overlooking the first tee, the driving range, a creek and the eighteenth green. It’s as beautiful on a snow-covered day as it is in full green summer. The barkeep is friendly, and the chili extraordinary. There’s wifi for writing GolfBlogger posts, and a seat near the window in the early afternoon offers great light for reading.

There’s an economic aspect to this, too. Many courses depend on restaurant sales to ultimately balance the bottom line. In GolfBlogger Country, course clubhouses cater to parties, weddings, meetings and so on. One local club is widely recognized for their Sunday Morning brunch buffet. Eating at the clubhouse may help ensure that the course opens next spring.

Read the rest of the series.

This is the second in a series of essays on things to feed your golf addiction in the off-season.

Maintain Your Equipment.

Cold, snowy days are a good time to give a little tender loving care to your equipment.

Get your bag out of the shed and empty it completely. If you’re like me, chances are you’ll find old scorecards, useless balls, protein bar wrappers and plenty of dirt—the detritus of a busy summer. Vacuum the inside, and wipe it down. Then wipe down the outside. Snip any stray threads. Get the goo out of the zipper teeth; I use Goo Gone for that.

Wipe down your pull-or-push cart. Oil the bearings. Tighten the bolts.

Then take a look at your clubs.

Get the dirt off the heads, and take a scrub brush to the grooves. Then give them a good buffing with a clean cloth. Wipe down the shafts, too. If there’s any residue, try the Goo Gone on that, too.

If your plastic ferrules are nicked or scruffed, you can buff those up, too. Put a little acetone on a lint free cloth and give the ferrule a quick swipe. That’ll take out the scruff marks. If there are deeper nicks, you may need to give it a stronger swipe. Be careful with the acetone. That’s powerful stuff, and not to be breathed. It can cause brain damage, or worse. Avoid getting it on anything plastic or painted. It’s best to do this in the garage with the door open (that’s what I do).

Finally, take a look at the grips. Give them a good scrubbing, at the very least. A better option, however, is to simply replace them. Replacing grips is very easy and relatively cheap if you use rubber, slip-on grips. Here’s how:

1) Get some grips, and double sided grip tape from Golf Galaxy or Golfsmith or Hirekogolf.com.

2)Cut off the old grips with a utility knife.
3) Strip off the old tape. Use a hair dryer to melt the glue if the tape is stubborn.
4) Secure the club in a vice with soft rubber clamps. You can get ones designed for golf clubs from the companies mentioned above.
5) Apply the tape: There are two ways to do this: You can start at the lower end of where the grip would be by running it in a spiral pattern up the shaft. Or, you can run it lengthwise up one side of the butt and down the other. Peel the backing off the tape so the stick side is revealed.
6) Put another small strip over the hole on the butt.
7) Put something to catch the mineral spirits under the butt end. I use an aluminum paint tray for paint rollers.
8) Pour some mineral spirits into the grip while holding your finger over the hole at the bottom. Slosh the spirits around inside the grip.
9) Pour the spirits over the tape. Add a little bit more of the spirits until the glue on the tape is slick.
10) Push the grip onto the shaft.
11) Most grips have a couple of little marks at the top and bottom ends to help with alignment. Make sure that these align with each other. Otherwise, the grip might be slightly twisted, which may affect your swing.
12) You can put the logo up (I do), or down (as most pros do). Just make sure that the marks line up parallel to the shaft.

Read the rest of the series.

This is the first in a series of essays on things to feed your golf addiction in the off-season, when cold and snow drive those of us in the northern climes away from our beloved game.

Play Golf

The best thing a golfer can do in the golf off-season is to play golf. There’s no need to stay off the course just because the weather has turned cold. If the ground is clear of snow, there likely are courses open.

The key is not to expect much. The cold temperatures, hard ground and wind all will conspire to prevent you from scoring well. The course will have temporary, winter greens, so putting is a joke. Some courses in Michigan even reverse the tees. You start with a temporary tee near the 18th, and play backward to the 18th tee box, which has a hole cut in it. The final hole is the first tee.

Proper clothing is essential. Keep your head covered, your core warm, and dress in layers. I wear a wool hat from Tilley (I love the built-in ear flaps), flannel lined pants from LL Bean, Nike turtlenecksand golf fleece, an insulated vest, a wind breaker and wool socks.

Of course, all those extra clothes will keep you from making a full turn. But maybe that’s a good thing. I tend to overswing anyway.

The hard ground makes it very difficult to play irons, so I load my bag up with woods and hybrids. It’s easier to sweep the ball off the permafrost than dig into it. Lob shots are impossible, but that just makes it a good time to practice your sweeping pitches. The winter wind—at least in Michigan—is often strong, so you’ll need to work to keep your tee shots low.

Golf ball selection is important. Get one that has a very low compression and a soft cover.

Winter golf is fun, though. I’ve played golf every month of the year; on Thanksgiving break; Christmas Eve; New Year’s Day; and in mid February and March. As soon as the snow clears, and the skies are sunny, I’m packing my clubs for the course.

Read the rest of the series.

I think it’s probably safe to say that anyone with more than a casual acquaintance with the game of golf has found himself in slumberland standing on a tee box, in a fairway or on a green. Dreaming of the game, I’ve found, is a common experience among the golfers that I know. Some relive great rounds or shots; others are forced to endure nightmares. But anyone who plays with any enthusiasm dreams of fairways and greens.

But I also have a further confession to make. I not only dream of golf; I put myself to sleep thinking about it.

For years, I’ve been something of an insomniac. Although I must get up at five to get to work on time, I can rarely fall asleep before eleven. I’m tired, but just not sleepy. Part of the problem is that my mind runs on endlessly with problems looking for solutions’, kids schedules and what I’m going to teach in class tomorrow.

The age old solution for sleeplessness is counting sheep. It’s something that makes sense, I suppose, if you are a shepherd or otherwise engaged in some agrarian occupation. Counting a flock as they pass through a turnstyle is no doubt boring enough to put even the most alert farmer to sleep.

But I’m a thoroughly suburban creature, and have no interest in sheep whatsoever. So I recently hit upon a solution: Rather than counting sheep, I replay in my head one of my recent rounds of golf.

I close my eyes and imagine standing on the first tee. I pull a club from the bag and tee up the ball. Then the swing. I relive the arc or the ball, usually high and straight,  but not long. It bounces a couple of times and then settles down.

I mostly skip the walk between shots, for I have no interest in playing the entire round in real time. It’s more like a highlight (or lowlight) reel. I replay the second shot and then fast forward to the green. A couple of putts, and then its on to the next hole. I’ve been known to improve my lie and even take a dreamland mulligan.

I don’t think I’ve ever finished one of my insomnia curing rounds, or even a nine. I can remember playing six once, but that’s about it.

I told Mrs. GolfBlogger about my new strategy for falling asleep and she just nodded.

“Now you know how I feel about watching golf on television”

The last drive of the season finds the fairway.

It’s been an unusual fall here in Michigan as we approach Thanksgiving with temperatures still hovering in the low 50s. A year ago at this time it was 35 degrees and two inches of snow already had fallen. Lack of cold weather and snow disappoints Mrs. GolfBlogger, the ski patroller, but I am grateful for the extra time. Every day of mild weather (to hardcore Michigan golfers, anything above 50 is mild), shaves the dark period known as The Void—the weeks between the first snow and the spring thaw.

I fear that my good luck has come to an end, though. Weather forecasts suggest that we’ll get snow Thursday evening, and at any rate, the temperatures will fall in the low 40s by Wednesday, with predicted rain. I’m convinced that my last “real” round of the year was at Green Oaks yesterday, and I’m ready to transfer the clubs from trunk to shed. Almost. There’s something sad about that ritual,  and I’m still putting it off.

Still, if Monday’s round was this year’s last, I will park the clubs with only a hint of wistfulness. It was a fun nine. In spite of wind, chill and not a little moisture in the air, I managed to shoot a 44. Drives were straight (though not particularly long), the irons were steady, and my putting deadly. I even managed a spectacular jailbreak on my one wayward tee shot, punching a five wood through a portcullis of trees.

The last drive hit the fairway. And the last hole was a birdie.