When golf is not golf

It was late November when Oldgolfdawg played his last round of golf in 2009. An April-to-late-November window of playing time is pretty good for golfers in central Ohio. But if Oldgolfdawg lived where he could play all year, he'd still be out chasing the pea. So what can a golf addict do in the off-season? If he's smart, he'll just accept the cold, hard facts of the situation and enjoy it.

Oldgolfdawg doesn't run with the hardy souls who venture out when temperatures dip into the '30s and '40s. Instead he catches up on golf magazines laying around the house and plots strategy on how he can lower his handicap in 2010.

He was browsing the Golf Digest Web site today when he read an article by Peter Morrice, an editor for the magazine, that captured his feelings on the subject perfectly. It read:

When I think about golf, I see green acres, bright-blue skies, Bermuda shorts, not ski caps and frozen puddles. Not my breath. I know a lot of golfers think they're playing golf year-round. But when you can't feel your grip, or hammer a tee in the turf, it's not really golf. When you're putting on makeshift greens in the fairways, and the bunkers play like a gravel road, it's not really golf. It's just getting out of the house.

I hang up my clubs in November and try to remember where I put them in April. I like those delicious first rounds of spring, when you don't know what to expect of your old game and you feel so damn good just being back out there. Golfers without an off-season deprive themselves of those sweet reunions.

So call me stupid, call me a fair-weather whatever. I'll do it my way, packing on my winter 10, watching too much bad TV. Waiting. But remember, I get to feel that thrilling anticipation of the return, when the grass wakes up and the sun can warm your shoulders. To me, that's when golf is really played.

Oldgolfdawg couldn't agree more. He uses the downtime of winter to recharge his batteries, lose bad habits that were cropping up in his game as the season wound down and to set new goals for the coming year. And it certainly is true that absence only serves to make the attraction stronger. He'll be chomping at the bit to resume the chase when the temperatures return to the '50s and the dormant grass springs to life and returns to brighter, richer shades of green. In the meantime, he suggests just to relax and enjoy The Big Chill.