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Getting by with three clubs Posted: Monday June 10, 2002 12:08 PM
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. Tuesday, June 4 WILMINGTON, Del. -- Crossing into Delaware by car is like being greeted simultaneously by three different states. "Small Wonder!" proclaims a welcome sign at the border. And then below, in smaller print: "The First State!" Finally -- as if claims to being tiny and old were insufficient to impress visitors -- Delaware gushes, "Home of Tax-Free Shopping!" Thank you, but I don't plan to do much shopping this week. I'm here to cover the McDonald's LPGA Championship at DuPont Country Club. Last year Karrie Webb won, and I halfway expect her to repeat. Sure, Annika Sorenstam, coming off an 11-stroke victory in the Kellogg-Keebler Classic, is the hottest player in golf. But when the pre-tournament hype is full of words like "unbeatable" and "intimidating," the favorite usually winds up playing with the dew sweepers on Sunday morning. I checked into the Brandywine Courtyard and grabbed an apple from the basket by the front desk. Before driving to the course to pick up my credentials, I thought I'd make a little detour up Highway 202. Last year, you may remember, the innkeeper directed me to a "driving range" -- her words, not mine -- just up the pike in Pennsylvania. This "driving range," part of a funky mini-golf and pitch-and-putt complex called the Spring Lake Recreation Center, turned out to be the most miserable practice facility in America. It was, in fact, nothing more than an abandoned tennis court choked with weeds. The mats were black rubber doormats, the kind with drainage holes. The distance to a tall net at the end of the range was a mere 65 yards. Unimpressed -- no, check that, negatively impressed -- I left without hitting a single shot. If memory serves, I made the Spring Lake Recreation Center No. 1 on my list of Worst Driving Ranges of 2001. My mission today was simple: Find out if the place was still in business and thus eligible to maintain its ranking. The answer, I soon discovered, was yes on both counts. There it was, a sorry testimonial to the principle of entropy, on the east side of Wilmington Pike. The crumbling parking lot. The sad, peeling giraffes and dinosaurs. The empty batting cages. The barnlike shop with its pop machines and chirping video games. The only real activity was on the rustic pitch-and-putt course, where sprinklers threw water on tiny greens and teenagers chipped balls off little brush mats. I went behind the mini-golf course to see if the "range" was still there. It was. One sign described it as a "pitching range," but another settled for the more honest "chipping range." Weeds poked out of the concrete. The black doormats were askew. A cobweb, attached to the token slot of a ball dispenser, fluttered in the breeze. No one, of course, was hitting balls. I strolled back to the car and drove away. Even a range rat has standards. Thursday, June 6 WILMINGTON, Del. -- The bag boys at Fieldstone Golf Club didn't know what to do this morning when I showed up to play with only three clubs. "Someone's lending me a golf bag," I explained. "And a putter." Sure enough, my three clubs wound up in a little quiver bag alongside a shiny putter of uncertain make -- uncertain because I couldn't read the logo without my bifocals -- and a golf umbrella. Fieldstone is only a few years old, the creation of developer Buddy Reed and golf architects Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry. Stone walls, revetted sand bunkers and knee-high fescue roughs give the place a vaguely Scottish feel. The terrain is just short of mountainous and heavily wooded, so one will confuse it with Muirfield or Turnberry. But it's a beautiful track and a real challenge from any set of tees. The driving range, where I warmed up with my three clubs, was splendid. You hit balls to well-defined target greens in a valley crossed by a wooden corral fence. Long shots sail over the valley and land on the opposite rise, giving the illusion that the ball is in the air longer than normal. "Did you lose your clubs?" The question came from a teenage forecaddie, Jason, who stood behind me while I hit balls. He was ready to rub a wet towel over a dirty clubface -- if ever I would let go of a club. "No, I'm traveling with three," I said. "Sometimes I carry four, but then I agonize over club selection." Actually, I had never played with just three clubs. I got an invitation yesterday afternoon to play at Fieldstone, and I thought, Why not? Playing with a handful of clubs is recommended by some teaching pros -- the ones, I think, who don't have club-endorsement contracts. It forces you to play creatively and develop your shot-shaping skills. It turned out that my joke to Jason wasn't far off the mark. With only a 3-wood, 6-iron and sand wedge in my bag -- all of different makes and designs -- I had no reason to dither over club selection. The 6-iron proved effective from 110 to 180 yards, as long as I could bounce the ball onto the firm, fast greens. The problem yardage was 100 to 120, if I had to carry water or sand to a small green surrounded by trouble. I knew I couldn't fly a 6-iron skyscraper-high and make it land like a beanbag, so I had to deloft my sand wedge, hit the ball low, and somehow muscle it up there. Every time I tried this shot, I hit the ball squarely and right at the flag ... but the ball didn't fly low enough. It landed on the front bank of the green, kicking back into sand or bog. That aside, I couldn't have had more fun. My playing partners were old pal Mike Kern, sportswriter for the Philadelphia Daily News, and his boss, sports editor Caesar Alsop. Caesar set the tone by bouncing a long approach shot off the flagstick for a tap-in birdie on the first hole. He later made another birdie by slam-dunking a chip. (The ball was rolling so fast it practically snapped the flagstick.) Kern made a couple of birdies of his own, which amazed me. Mike has a backswing so slow that rabbits jump over the shaft for sport before he gets the club halfway back. "I don't know why you even bother with a driver," Mike told me at one point. "You're hitting it 30 yards past me with a 3-wood." Caesar said, "He's a foot taller than you, Mike." "Yeah, whatever." I did manage to birdie the finishing hole, an uphill, dogleg par-5. I thrilled myself by hitting an intentional power fade from the tee, a long rainbow that followed the curve of the tree line and bounded up the fairway. I then hit my 6-iron to the entrance of the green, chipped on with my sand wedge, and made the putt. If I had missed the putt, I would have tapped in with the umbrella. "I've got you down for 86," Mike said afterward. "Not bad for three clubs." The score didn't matter, and I genuinely enjoyed playing with three clubs. Only a few holes into the round I realized that I was playing the game the way the pros play it. Not as well as the pros play it, I don't mean that. I mean the way they play -- weighing options, controlling trajectory, shaping shots, finding ways to make the ball go where it is supposed to go. I'm seriously considering leaving the full set behind in July, when I go to Scotland and the Czech Republic. With no heavy golf bag to drag around, I'll sail through airports and pamper my tired old back. And if some old Scottish pro looks at my skinny arsenal and frowns, I'll say, " Shivas Irons plays with only four." By the time the old Scot finds a copy of the book and checks, I'll be gone. 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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