Golf on Ice, 2008

At the risk of alienating those readers from tropical climates (lousy, spoiled, warm-weather wussies playing golf on 70° January days…), I thought this week’s Thrash would be a good place to give you an update on how the long, dark winter is progressing. If you’re similarly frozen out of golf, perhaps the following can give you a constructive suggestion or two on how to survive the final few months before the spring thaw.

In past years, my principal strategy for winter doldrums was to do everything possible to keep golf’s pulse alive and throbbing, even when actually playing was out of the question. Living in a cold-weather climate usually means your house has a basement, so for me this translated into indoor practice. Over the years, I’ve set up mirrors in the basement and practiced my address position, put lines and tape all over them to try to groove a swing plane, and made Harvey Penick “slow motion drill” swings to try to ingrain the essence of the biomechanically perfect swing into my less than perfect neuromuscular system. One year, I hung a heavy curtain from the ceiling and actually hit full shots off a carpet, but the resulting, rhythmic BOOM… BOOM… BOOM finally pushed Mrs. Bouffard over the edge and quickly ended that practice.

Gotta be careful hitting balls indoors, anyway. Apart from the obvious logistical hazards, such as whacking the ceiling, topping or shanking one into the wall (with the still more hazardous ensuing ricochet), or clipping a darting pet or child on the follow through, hitting into a net can actually mess up your game. While I think you can tell a good deal about the shot from the feel at impact and those first few feet of ball flight, you can’t be 100% sure of what happened without seeing the full shot. So I’m probably better off without my indoor range.

Other elements of the “total immersion” approach for coping with winter include reading: instuctional books, travel books, biographies of stars, articles and books on architecture, history of the game, etc. I have probably read more words about golf in my life than any other subject (including, uh, work-related stuff), and this year alone have read a 1960s-era, out of print instruction book, and a documentary-style diary of the experiences of an American expatriot surgeon who qualified and played on one of the Southeast Asian professional tours. (Anything to keep the moment in my inertia.)

As well as this “keep the fire burning” approach has served me through the years, this year I decided to take the advice of my wife and see if I could change things up a bit and perhaps make the winter pass more quickly. When you think of it, spending your winter dwelling on golf when you can’t go out and play is a risky, masochistic approach that could backfire and end up making the winter seem worse than it has to be.

So, the first, obvious choice for the diversionary strategy was to use the time to accomplish necessary evils, like cleaning out closets, the garage, etc. If you’re going to be miserable, you might as well accomplish something, right? One has to be careful not to look too industrious, however, lest the spouse catch on and provide you with a 43-item list of thrilling household chores. (I wait ’til she’s asleep, and then go clean.)

Work isn’t the only “constructive” activity…I also dragged some old hobbies out of the closet, and even experimented with new ones. I bought a pool table (for my kids, of course) at Christmas this year, and have plans set up for a family ski trip. I’ve been doing more reading, listening, and playing of music (guitar: another childhood addiction) than I have in years, knowing that this is a useful diversion to have in your pocket, since you can basically indulge it at any time in any weather.

And since TV golf is, well, pretty good some of the time during the regular season, but barely one rung above crappy during the winter, I’ve broadened my TV menu by adding HBO and buying the DVDs for The Sopranos.

Golf? Fuhgeddaboutit!