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Spicing up the driving range
Sports Illustrated senior writer John Garrity was a 42-year-old 8-handicapper when he suddenly lost his swing. Since December 1989 he has been looking for it -- a modern-day Odysseus adrift on the troubled waters of swing theory. As Garrity travels the world reporting on golf, he visits as many driving ranges as he can, avoiding the dreaded "mats only" ranges that prevent him from teeing it up. Wednesday, Oct. 18 FALLS CHURCH, Va. -- The autumn foliage was a mixture of crimson and gold when we touched down at Dulles Airport yesterday afternoon. I drove out to the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club to pick up my Presidents Cup media credentials, ran a couple of errands, and then went looking for a driving range. The nearest one to my hotel, according to the Yellow Pages, was Woody's Golf Range in Herndon. I tossed my four-club Caddie Carry in the trunk and drove through Tyson's Corner and then nine miles west on Leesburg Pike, arriving at Woody's at nightfall.
Yeah, I said pod. That's my name for them, anyway. When I asked Woody's staff what they called the seven blue target platforms with the red LED masts and flashing blue beacons, they said, "Targets." I prefer pods because the cone-shaped units, about 10 yards in diameter, look like a fleet of little spacecraft, with the nearest one parked 50 yards out and the farthest one 200 yards downrange. The masts are dark until a golf ball lands or bounces on a pod; then the mast lites up in red and the beacon on top flashes. They're like mushroom bumpers on a pinball machine. I had so much fun hitting to these unusual targets that I went back to the golf shop and bought another 75 balls, busting my range-ball budget for the week. Afterward I cornered the young assistant general manager, Rich Rahnama, and got the skinny on the pods. Rich said they were invented a few years ago by the range owner (Woody, it turns out, is Woody FitzHugh, who played on the PGA Tour a couple of decades ago). "At most driving ranges you just come out and hit some balls," Rich said. "Here you're aiming at something. There's consequences. There's pressure." Well, there's pressure if you're playing the game FitzHugh invented to go along with his pods. It's called the Ironmaster Challenge, and it's played like this: Each player gets 50 balls and plays 10 shots each to targets 2 through 5. A hit on target 2 scores 10 points, a hit on 3 scores 15, and so on. The last 10 balls are wild cards; the player can go for any pod, including the closest (five points) or the one out at 200 yards (40 points). There's even a handicap system. Each player starts out with his or her USGA handicap times 10. A nine handicapper gets a 90-point lead on a scratch player, a 20 handicapper gets a 200-point start, etc. "The handicaps really work," said Rich. "The games are always close." He handed me a brochure that had pictures of PGA Tour players Fred Funk, Steve Jones and Ronnie Black, who played the Ironmaster Challenge a few years ago when the U.S. Open was played at Congressional. "Those guys were unbelievable," he said. "They were hitting targets left and right." There are still a few technical bugs to correct before Woody's game can go national. The wood platforms last only two or three years; the LED masts, made of inch-and-a-half Lexan, can be taken out by a direct hit; and the shock sensors are a bit sensitive, triggering the lights when, say, a frog hops on board. "Woody tried fiberglass for the targets, but it was pretty expensive," Rich said. "And when a ball hit that fiberglass, it was LOUD!" Hey, loud is good. I'd hook the pods up to a computer and add video-game sound -- a crisp ping for a pitch shot to the 50-yard pod, an earth-shaking blast for a direct hit on the 200-yard pod. On second thought, the neighbors might not appreciate a golf range that sounds like an artillery range.
Watch this space for another installment of Mats Only. To send John Garrity
advice, share your experiences, or suggest a driving range, click here.
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