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

Look Up An Old Golf Buddy

The holidays are a great time to reconnect with family, friends, and ... old golf buddies. You can feed your golf addiction by bringing back the ghost of Rounds Past with a buddy you haven’t heard from in a while. Invite him (or her) for a few drinks at the local watering hole—or even better—patronize your favorite course’s clubhouse. Then spend the afternoon drinking, watching sports on the big screen tv, and eating bar food (my favorite are the fried mozzarella sticks.

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

Play a Golf Video Game

If it’s too cold to get out on the course, playing a golf video game can be a pleasant afternoon’s diversion and a way to feed your addiction.

I experienced my first golf video game on an Apple II circa 1984. The screen was green and black, and the graphics primitive, but the mechanics not far off from many games today. There was a small bar at the bottom of the screen, and at the top a player’s eye view of the course. To swing, you hit the space bar, and watched a status meter race across the gauge. You hit the space bar again when it a mark at the far end, and a final time when it swept back to a mark on the near side. It was all about timing. If you hit the space bar before the status meter reached the top, your shot would be weak; hit it after the top mark, and you would overswing. Hitting the space bar before the bottom mark caused a slice; after, a hook. Once the ball was struck, the view shifted to an overhead showing where the shot flew.

Since that first game, I’ve owned and played dozens of others, including a hand-held lcd game, several PC based games, Playstation, Game Cube and Wii, on my cell phone and now on my BlackBerry. I’ve had games that featured Jack, Arnie, Vijay and ... ahem ... Woody.

For most of the games, the basic play mechanism has remained the same—timing the status meter. More recent games, however, have incorporated mouse movement into the control. I don’t like those as much.

The golf video game that’s been the most fun is the Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 Wii game. Like all Wii games, it features a motion sensing mechanism. You actually swing the controller like a club to make the ball go on the screen. It’s part simulation, part game. The game aspect involves earning “upgrades” such as better outfits, equipment and access to improved courses.

I like it, but frankly, I’m not very good. Thing One, the teenager, kicks my butt.

A close second was an Accolade Jack Nicklaus PC game that had a very neat course editor. I spent more time designing courses than playing them.

Another game that I really liked was Sid Meier’s SimGolf. In that one, you began with a plot of land and a pile of money and started constructing golf holes. Like all of the “Sim” games, it was all about management of assets, as you developed your backwater course into a fabulous golf resort. You could play on the course you developed, but game play was very simplistic.

Golf games are only going to get more realistic. There are a number on the market that use real clubs and sensors to detect the clubface positions. But those, I think, stray too far to the simulation side of the continuum to be considered a game.

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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.

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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.

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I’m an itinerant golfer. Lacking both a home course and a group of regulars, I’ll play a dozen different courses over the passage of a season (I’ve played seventy different courses in my “career”), choosing one or the other as the urge strikes. Sometimes, I’ll just head out early in the morning in a random direction and play the first course I find with an open slot (you can do that in Michigan, where you can’t drive fifteen minutes without hitting a course). I like variety.

But when my swing goes awry, there’s a place I return to to get it all back together. I think of it as my “Get Well” course.

Get Well isn’t fancy, doesn’t have a practice range, and conditions are ... well ... highly variable. But there’s something about it that brings out the best in my game. When I can’t find a fairway on the road, I’ll go to Get Well and hit every one. When my putting is off, Get Well gets it back on line. When I feel disjointed and awkward, my swings on Get Well groove.

It’s all in my mind, of course, but golf is after all a mental game. I think Get Well is just friendly enough, and familiar enough to take off all the pressure. I nearly always find a friendly group there to join. In fact, the players at Get Well are without a doubt the most easy going I’ve ever met.

My swing is off this week. I’m heading to Get Well tomorrow.

It is Independence Day, and a good time to reflect upon the opening paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence. We spend a good deal of time on this document in my AP Political Science classes, for contained therein is the summation of the work of Enlightenment thinkers, and especially of John Locke. A mini lesson, if you will excuse my wandering from the golf course.

Here are the opening paragraphs of The Declaration of Independence:

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Compare Jefferson’s words to John Locke’s from his Second Treatise:

The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions: for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order, and about his business; they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another’s pleasure: and being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us, that may authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one another’s uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for our’s. Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station wilfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.

Jefferson’s short version:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

More from Locke:

If man in the state of nature be so free, as has been said; if he be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest, and subject to no body, why will he part with his freedom? why will he give up this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and controul of any other power? To which it is obvious to answer, that though in the state of nature he hath such a right, yet the enjoyment of it is very uncertain, and constantly exposed to the invasion of others: for all being kings as much as he, every man his equal, and the greater part no strict observers of equity and justice, the enjoyment of the property he has in this state is very unsafe, very unsecure. This makes him willing to quit a condition, which, however free, is full of fears and continual dangers: and it is not without reason, that he seeks out, and is willing to join in society with others, who are already united, or have a mind to unite, for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estates, which I call by the general name, property.

The great and chief end, therefore, of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property.

Jefferson summarizes:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

And Locke once again:

When any one, or more, shall take upon them to make laws, whom the people have not appointed so to do, they make laws without authority, which the people are not therefore bound to obey; by which means they come again to be out of subjection, and may constitute to themselves a new legislative, as they think best, being in full liberty to resist the force of those, who without authority would impose any thing upon them. Every one is at the disposure of his own will, when those who had, by the delegation of the society, the declaring of the public will, are excluded from it, and others usurp the place, who have no such authority or delegation.

Jefferson’s version:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

If you’ve never tried it, I recommend a full reading of John Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government. It’s hard, but meaningful.