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.

This is the 20th in a series of posts on things to do to feed your golf addiction in the winter:

Grill

As far as The GolfBlogger is concerned, one of the best smells ever is that of grilling burgers and brats drifting over from the Weber on the clubhouse deck. I’m often finishing my rounds in the eleven o’clock hour, so the smell is perhaps even more memorable.

We Michiganders are a hardy lot, so I grill year round in my back yard. There’s nothing like the sound and smell of meat sizzling on a red hot rack. And there’s nothing quite like the smell of freshly grilled burger to bring to mind warmer, more sunny days.

So this winter, feed your golf addiction by breaking out the Weber and throwing some tasty treats on the barbie.

This is the nineteenth in a series on things to do in the golfing offseason to feed your addiction:

Drink

Summer is heralded not only by sunshine and warmth, but also with smells and flavors not fully appreciated during the rest of the year. The aroma of freshly cut grass, a smoky grill, and the taste of a cool drink are surely as much a part of a round as the game itself.

So this winter, feed your golf addiction by watching the latest PGA Tour event and downing your favorite summer drink.

Most of my friends favor a cold beer as an after-round (and indeed, during the round) libation. Labatts Blue is the favorite among my pals, but Miller and John Adams often make their way into the lineup. Actually, in Michigan, a cold beer apparently is good at any time of year, enjoyed as much by ice fishermen as by golfers.

The GolfBlogger isn’t a beer drinker, however. Indeed, I’m not much of a drinker at all. Most rounds are followed by an Arnold Palmer, the King’s wonderful half iced tea, half lemonade cocktail. Both the name and taste are perfect for a hot summer day. Or if you’re feeling like an Anglophile, you could try a John Panton, named for the Scottish pro who represented England three times in the Ryder Cup. A John Panton is a ginger beer mixed with a dash of lime cordial (For Michiganders, a Vernors with a dash of lime concentrate might do).

When I do drink, however, I prefer hard liquor over beer or ale. Meyers Original Dark Rum and Makers Mark bourbon are the poisons of choice. For my money, either of those in an ice cold coke is as good as it gets. (As I write this, I wonder how an Arnold Palmer with bourbon or rum would taste).

At the risk of sounding less than manly, I’ll admit that I’m also partial to boat drinks, and especially a Mojito, Daiquiri, or a Pina Colada. But my favorite is the Bahama Mama. That’s an ounce of dark rum, an ounce of light rum, an ounce of coconut rum and an ounce of Nassau Royale Liqueur, mixed in with two ounces each of orange juice and pineapple juice, plus a splash of grenadine. I’d also never turn down a Long Island Iced Tea.

So bottoms up, and here’s to another great season of golf.

This is the 18th in a series on things to do to feed your golfing addiction in the offseason:

Visit The Local Pro Shop

A certain way to feed the golfing addiction in the offseason is to spend an hour or so in the local pro shop. If you’re lucky, you’ll have a well stocked shop within driving distance, such as the Miles of Golf in Ann Arbor (pictured), Carls Golfland, GolfSmith or Golf Galaxy (all of which we have in Michigan). I also sometimes drive to nearby Toledo to see the stuffed-to-the-rafters US Golf. A Dick’s might do in a pinch.

While there, I’ll spend time looking at all the new clubs, pulling them out of their racks and seeing how they look at set up. At Carls, and my local GolfSmith, I can also try them out in the outdoor or indoor driving bays. Then I head on over to the putting green, where the shiny new flat sticks stand at attention. None of the shops seem to mind at all if I spend forty minutes trying one putter after another. The stacks of golf ball boxes also are fun, for it’s here that I generally first notice new offerings, and rebranded old models.

I’ll also take a look at the shoes, although, of the local shops, only Carls carries the Ecco brand I favor. New shirt designs are of passing interest, as are the hats. I’ll try on a few gloves.

One of the attractions of US Golf and Golf Galaxy are the large selections of golf trinkets, gadgets and gizmos. I love the variety of things that inventors, marketers and retailers think that golfers need, and a good many of them end up listed as the Ridiculous Golf Item of the Week.

Before I leave, I generally buy some small-ticket item: a box of balls, a ball mark tool, socks (I always need to replace those), or a gizmo. A small golf purchase both satisfies the golfing addiction, and leaves me feeling somewhat less guilty about using the proprietor’s shop as my own personal golf playground.

This is the seventeenth in a series on things to do to feed your golf addiction in the offseason:

Take A Winter Golf Lesson

A winter lesson or two just might be the thing to feed your golf addiction. You’ll get back in touch with your swing, and maybe even get a leg up on the coming season.

There are lots of reasons to like winter lessons. I’m partial to the fact that off-season sessions tend to be cheaper than those in warmer weather. One local facility with heated tees offers four lessons for the price of three—a deal unheard of in spring or summer.

Not surprisingly, the pros also are easier to schedule. In high season, many of our local teaching pros—and especially the better ones—are totally booked. In the winter, they’re much more available. I can get a lesson after work almost any day of the week.

I also find—perhaps counter-intuitively—that I practice more following a winter lesson than one in the summer. When all of my favorite courses are open, it’s hard to convince myself that I should spend my allotted golfing time pounding balls at the range. This time of year ... well ... I really don’t have a choice.