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To the other side of the earth
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. Friday, Nov. 9 KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- I am reminded of the old joke about the guy who is a guest at a golf club. On the first tee he swings and whiffs. He swings again and misses again. He steps back, glares at the ball on the tee. He steps up again, swings mightily and tops it. The ball rolls five feet. "This isn't gonna work," he tells his host. "Your course is three inches lower than mine." Like the guy in the joke, I couldn't hit the ball last week in Houston, and I smartly concluded that the fault lay with the driving range, Brown's Golf World. You know what? I was right. John Novosel, the "tempo titan," invited me out to test the new range at upscale Hallbrook Country Club this afternoon, and I had no problem hitting the ball off Hallbrook's pillowy zoysia grass. Next time I go to Houston, I'll take along a roll of sod. Hallbrook, by the way, will be on my year-end list of best ranges. We used the west tee, which is on high ground. That put the setting sun behind us and cast a glorious warm glow across the field, which offered a natural-looking target green for practically any club in the bag. I particularly liked the green set into the hillside on the south. It was a perfect 6-iron from where I stood, and the sight of a well-struck shot clearing the bank and nestling up close to the flagstick was as satisfying as it gets. "How much is a range membership?" I asked. John shrugged. "Forty thousand dollars?" he said. So much for dreaming. Anyway, it is time for you, the readers, to submit your own nominations for the Third Annual Mats Only Best and Worst Driving Ranges of the Year Awards Thing. As usual, the most entertaining submissions will appear in this cyberspace. There may even be prizes -- a golf book, a toaster, whatever is in the basement. Please limit your entries to 500 words or less. I took this gig so I could hit golf balls, not grade term papers. Tuesday, Nov. 13 TOKYO -- It's good to be back in the driving-range capital of the world. Unfortunately, the rooftop range here at the Hotel New Otani isn't an actual driving range. It's more of a cage. Every time I walk across the sky bridge to the adjoining Garden Court business tower, I look down and see the mats, nets and buckets of golf balls waiting to be struck. But I have yet to see a golfer. There's no benefit in hitting balls if you can't see them fly, so I think I'll pass. This week's assignment is the World Golf Championships EMC World Cup at the Taiheiyo Club in Gotemba City. If memory serves me right, the Taiheiyo Club practice range is pretty basic, but it has a brilliant backdrop: snow-capped Mt. Fuji. The club also serves a great media-room lunch: sushi, tempura-don, tonkatsu, miso soup, cold noodles, etc. Eating in Tokyo is always an education -- an education in economics, that is. A hotel milkshake costs $10, lunch goes for $100, and if you venture into a first-class teppanyaki restaurant they'll slap a lien on you before they show you a menu. On the other hand, the noodle shops and conveyor-belt sushi joints serve up fresh, delicious food for less than we pay in the States. Today's sushi lunch in Akasaka left me full and came to about $8 -- and I had six pieces of that sweet eel! Thursday, Nov. 15 HAKONE, Japan -- Tiger Woods and David Duval aren't the only Americans who get to hit golf balls with Mt. Fuji as a backdrop. Before I caught the media shuttle to the golf course this morning, I carried my four clubs up the switchback road to the Hakone Prince Hotel's driving range, a mats-only facility clinging to the side of a wooded mountain ridge. The tee line faces Lake Ashi, but if you grab a railing and hang out over the cliff you can see one side of Mt. Fuji, off to the west. You can also see your life pass before your eyes, but that's normal for Japanese ranges. The Japanese like to build triple-tiered ranges and then put the mats right on the edge. (Look down from three stories and you get an idea of what it's like to be an Acapulco cliff diver.) Predictably, most Japanese golfers slice the ball. Who wants to make an aggressive follow-through when it could result in a 60-foot plunge onto Astroturf? The Hakone Prince range is single-tiered, but it's on the edge of a cliff. I had no problems hitting my gap wedge and 8-iron, but I gave up on the 3-wood after yanking a few pull-hooks onto a wooded hillside. I simply couldn't get off my right side. So tonight I will enter into my practice diary: "Results inconclusive -- range too high." This blame-the-range thing could turn out to be habit forming.
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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