If you haven’t noticed, it’s not exactly the ideal time of year to be playing golf. At least outside that is.
But unlike prior years, now you don’t have to sit around and stare at your clubs for the next few months. The bad news is that we’re not sending you on an all-expenses-paid trip to a state where the sun is shining and snow isn’t in the vocabulary. If we had that kind of money, don’t you think we’d send ourselves first?
The good news is that we’re here to tell you about the new aboutGolf Simulators at Beaver Meadow Golf Course. You know, those indoor programs that project a warm and sunny golf course on a gigantic screen and make you forget about the layers you walked in wearing.
And as head golf pro Phil Davis put it, “this is the newest and the best.”
There’s a nice fake grass area with a tee station for when you break out the driver. The year-round screen in the clubhouse, which has picture and picture capabilities so you won’t miss any of your daily television programming, is 18 feet by 18 feet and the seasonal simulator in the pro shop is 15 by 15. And you don’t have to wait for the beverage cart to make the rounds because there’s a full bar about 15 feet away.
“You’re not going to miss the football game when you’re playing a round at Pebble Beach,” Davis said.
There’s also no searching for your ball.
“Unless you hit it under the screen,” joked David Gill, Concord Parks and Recreation director.
By now, you’ve probably heard about how much the simulators cost the city to install them improve the clubhouse ($130,000) and the reason behind it (to add revenue in the offseason), so we won’t bore you with all that city government business dealings. Instead, we want to tell you all about our experience stepping up to the indoor tee. That’s right, we met up Davis and Gill last week and took a couple swings on the state of the art machine – and unfortunately left there as the same below average hackers.
On the computer generated driving range, things couldn’t have gone much better for me. Every shot went straight down the middle of the fairway and outside of one that barely went 100 yards (yes I was using a driver), I was feeling pretty confident about my chances out on the realistic looking course. Especially since I didn’t play once this year when golf is usually played in New Hampshire. Jon had a couple of, let’s say wide shots, but seemed his normal confident self.
We traveled all the way to China for a chance to play at the country’s top rated golf course, Huzhou Hot Spring Golf Club – and the first one up for newly formed indoor leagues.
It started out great for me. A couple solid shots and I was just off the back fringe in four. Then it quickly went down hill – literally and figuratively. This pin placement was difficult – to put it mildly. It was at the very front edge with a steep hill leading up to it. Of course, I putted it past and down the hill. Took a few more shots to get back up and then hit it past again. Luckily, the program only allows you to double par so I was saved at least some embarrassment from the guys waiting to play first indoor league matchup in Beaver Meadow history. Jon also doubled par, just had a different way of getting there.
The second hole was a par three surrounded by water. As you can probably guess, we both doubled par again without finishing the hole.
But the league players should thank us because we were so bad and the course seemed to be starting out pretty hard, Davis decided to change the first week’s course to the New Course at St. Andrews, which we learned is not all that new since it opened for play in 1895.
Overall, there are more than 35 courses to choose from, including ones like Pebble Beach, Torrey Pines and some that aren’t even real.
“There’s a bunch of the well-known courses,” Davis said.
There’s even a feature to play mini golf. We played one hole under water and after watching my first shot roll back to the tee after not making it up the incline, I sank my second shot. So it’s kind of like a hole-in-two?
You can rent it by the hour, with as many as six people in your group and choose any course you want. Cost is $30 per hour, Monday through Thursday, and $35 Friday to Sunday. On average it would take a group of four about two hours for nine holes and upwards of four hours for 18. That’s only $30 per person and there’s even clubs to use. You can make reservations up to four weeks in advance.
“They can walk in, but we highly recommend you get a reservation,” Davis said.
League play, which began last week, is running Monday through Friday, 2 to 10 p.m., and spots are still available on select days.
“If people want to start a week late, they can,” Davis said.
The simulators open at 10 a.m. daily and if you just want to work on your swing for an hour, you don’t have to play an actual round.
“There’s a big push for them to make yourself a year-round destination,” Davis said. “And this will be here for regular season rainy days.”
To reserve a spot or find out more, call Davis at 228-8954 or visit beavermeadowgolfcourse.com.
