Playing In A Winter Wonderland
Playing In A Winter Wonderland
I’ve already stopped seeing cars I remember in the car park and familiar faces on the first tee of the clubs at which I play: they won’t be back until April now.
I get it, we’re long past the dog days of summer now, but it still makes me sad for them: they miss out on what is always a highlight of the year for me - winter golf!
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"Putting your clubs away until Spring is just running away from the challenge"
Robert Hardie
"Putting your clubs away until Spring is just running away from the challenge"
Robert Hardie
Rock up at any historic golf course in Scotland without a tree in sight and greens with their own postcodes: you’ll soon see that coping with whatever weather was being thrown at you on any given day was always part and parcel of getting the ball into the hole.
Wind particularly, but rain also, are challenges in golf just as much as blind tee shots, downhill lies, or double-breaking putts.
But the essential beauty of golf is that it challenges you with every shot, and putting your clubs away until Spring is just running away from that challenge.
The reality is that winter golf is not the same as summer golf but it doesn’t pretend to be, and it also isn’t better or worse - it’s just different.
I learned that as a youngster playing golf with my father and idly tapping with my putter head a frozen puddle just off the side of a green - it was so cold the putter head had become as brittle as the ice and it snapped straight off! 13 holes of having to putt with the leading edge of a wedge and losing pretty much all of them at least meant I never did it again…
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Embracing winter golf is as much about preparation as it is about anything else, but if you get the preparations right you might just come to love it like I do.
1. Layers. Forget about golf being a fashion show and get the best thermal underwear you can.
2. Gloves. Technology has REALLY moved on, and the ones that get more grippier the wetter they get are BRILLIANT.
3. Winter wheels. Buy some. Don’t let your trolley slide around as you’re trying to play a round, and the greenkeepers will thank you too.
4. Drinks. Take a thermos flask, but coffee or soup works better than tea - tea just stews. And thin soups are better than thick ones, just make sure you keep the lid tightly screwed on…
5. Nine holes. Don’t think you have to play 18 every time, especially if there’s a good loop where you play.
There’s no such thing as poor weather, just poor preparation. Get it right and the wonderful world of winter golf is waiting for you.
