Miami twice

Two days of range roving in South Florida

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.

Monday, March 3

MIAMI, Fla. -- It was 90 degrees and muggy when I got off the plane last night. "Record heat," said the man on the radio. "Don't go out without a hat."

So I was wearing a hat this afternoon when I drove down NW 36th Street to a little golf course called Costa Greens. I parked the car in a shady lot and walked over to the practice range for a look, leaving my clubs in the trunk. I hadn't swung a club for a couple of weeks, and I was hoping to find some genuine, living-and-green turfgrass to hit from. What I found instead was a compact, tree-lined range with grass-covered mats.

No, I'm not referring to some new, synthetic/organic hybrid. The mats were conventional, but they were covered with grass clippings from a recent mowing. They smelled good, but I didn't want to hit from mats.

I moved on.

I had a second address and a phone number, which I had copied out of the Yellow Pages, for a range near the University of Miami. It took me 30 minutes in heavy traffic to find the address. But there was no range. It was an old neighborhood of well-shaded, walled-and-gated homes -- the sort of place where the international arms dealer and his pole-dancer wife live in a Carl Hiassen novel. Pulling over on the narrow street, I punched up the number on my cell phone. "We're sorry," said an answering machine. "The number you have dialed is in service for outgoing calls only."

Swell. Of all the driving ranges in South Florida, I had to pick one that hides behind a phony address and a blind telephone number.

I'll try again tomorrow.

Tuesday, March 4

MIAMI, Fla. -- The Jim McLean Golf School is easy to find -- it's at the far end of the driving range at the Doral Golf Resort and Spa, site of this week's Ford Championship -- but this morning there were no golfers hitting from the school's tightly mowed grass. "We can't work outside this week," said Michael Hunt, a staff instructor who teaches tour professionals Len Mattiace and James McLean, who writes a rookie diary for SI.com, and LPGA star Christie Kerr. "It's too dangerous."

It seems that the golf school's grass tee areas and the two buildings housing its teaching bays are a mere 330 yards from the opposite tee. That seemed ample a couple of years ago, when only John Daly and Tiger Woods could drive the ball that far. But now, thanks to advances in club and ball technology, journeymen pros are bombing it. Daly, in fact, has flown one over the buildings into the backing pond.

Enough about the pros. I managed to slip away by mid-afternoon, itching to hit some range balls. This time I carefully copied the address from the Yellow Pages ("Miami's Oldest Course"). Then, to avoid disappointment, I called the listed number and asked for directions. "We're easy to find," said a pleasant woman. "Go to the Miami Springs circle. We're a block off the circle on Westward Drive."

Simple directions, right? But eight or so streets feed into the Miami Springs town circle, and not all of them are marked. When I finally found the 200 block of Westward ... you guessed it, no range. The block was lined with commercial buildings and shops. I parked and went into a supermarket for directions to the golf course. "No problem," said a friendly clerk at the 10-items-or-less register. "Take the road out there" -- he pointed in the direction of Westward, the street I had just explored -- "and drive out to the end. It's not far, you won't miss it."

Thanking him, I hustled back to the car, made a U-turn, and drove out Westward for about a mile, until it came to a dead-end at a canal. There was no golf course. No range.

Thoroughly frustrated, I parked at a convenience store and went in to ask for more directions. "The golf course?" said the affable clerk. "Yeah, that's on" -- he hesitated -- "You know the circle?"

"Intimately," I said.

"Go back to the circle. There's an Aamaco station. Get on Curtiss Parkway. Take it straight on out. You'll see it."

I doubted that, but I thanked him and left. A few minutes later, after a couple more tours around the circle, I turned onto a broad, tree-lined boulevard. Two blocks down, I spotted a street sign -- CURTISS PKWY. A half-mile or so farther, I found the golf course. I parked behind the range. I walked to the clubhouse. I paid $5 for a couple of tokens and walked to a small shed by the range. I ducked under the low door header, fed my tokens into a ball machine, and filled a plastic bucket with balls. I turned to leave. That's when I cracked my head on the header.

I dropped to my knees. Balls bounced and rolled everywhere.

Fifteen minutes later, after dabbing at the gash on my head with tissues and downing a few Advil, I began hitting balls. It was a mats-only day, and the mats were on the firm side -- somewhere between petrified wood and ceramic tile -- but the target field was spacious and the targets ample. A breeze bathed my wound in healing oxygen.

When the balls were gone, I wandered back to the attractive, art-deco clubhouse. The lobby was decorated with big black-and-white photographs: Babe Ruth playing in a golf exhibition at the Biltmore Country Club in Coral Gables; Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford and Joe DiMaggio posing with a putter; Jackie Gleason performing one of his "Away We Go" struts for a laughing Arnold Palmer. Behind a shelf of trophies was an old wooden plaque with the names of the winners of the Miami Open from 1925 to 1955, starting with Abe Mitchell, working through Gene Sarazen, Tommy Armour, Byron Nelson and Jimmy Demaret, and ending with Sam Snead. In previous incarnations Miami Springs was known as the City of Miami Country Club or the Country Club of Miami. It's the course where Sarazen, starting in 1926, set the PGA record for consecutive victories in the same event (four). It's where Nelson started his record 18-victory season of 1945. It's where John Garrity, in 2003, banged his head on a ball-shack door and shouted an obscenity.

I wandered into the pro shop and had a nice chat with Dick McNeill, the head pro. "Before I go," I said, "what is the address of this place? The Yellow Pages have you at 201 Westward Drive."

He gave me his best I-only-work-here smile. "That's the City Hall address. They own the golf course."

My head was starting to hurt again, but I wrote down the real address of the Miami Springs Golf & Country Club. It's 650 Curtiss Parkway, Miami Springs, Fla.

You can't miss it.

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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