Sunday, January 25, 2004

Fore! Most Wisconsin golf courses are closed in January, but that's not a problem in Dundee, a Fond du Lac County crossroads in the heart of the Kettle Moraine. Located on Long Lake, Dundee is the site of the Long Lake Fishing Club's annual Sno Golf Tournament, a charity event held each year on the Saturday of the last full weekend in January. A few years back, three friends and I played in this event and taped our outing for Outdoor Wisconsin. We were just there to have fun, but our team ended up coming in second, so we decided to make this an annual outing. In the years since, we have come in second or worse three more times. We played again yesterday, under sunny skies and with the mercury hovering around 10 degrees. No, we did not win. Our fourth couldn't make it, so George Jenek, Rick Piraino and I drafted Dennis Dyken, a "local" who was just enjoying the activities from the warmth of the bar at Benson's Hide-A-Way (An aside for later exploration, Benson's is the place to go to hear about UFOs in Wisconsin. Just pull up a barstool and ask Bill sometime...), the "clubhouse" for this tourney. I loaned Dennis my 8-iron and we were good to go. Most snow golfers carry one or two clubs. I drag my whole bag along on a pull cart because I might want to try a driver and I usually use my SW (snow wedge) for finessing approach shots. Yesterday it didn't matter what we hit. The snow ate everything, including one ball (but George was smart enough to grab a spare). (BTW, you play snow golf with a green tennis ball. Easy to hit, hard to hit straight, hard to lose except in soft snow.) With a tee-time of 3:00 p.m., we were the next-to-last group out. Several inches of fresh powder made for phenomenal snowmobiling, but really cut the roll down on our drives. We were sandwiched in between a foursome with three gals who must have whiffed five times for each swing that connected and a double foursome made up of seven guys who had played earlier this morning and one gal, a lefty named Germaine who used a hockey stick instead of a golf club. Club members plow a nine-hole course on Tittle Lake, a small kettle at the north end of Long Lake. The "greens" are swept clean, and snow (sprayed green with food coloring) is mounded around them to help corral the ball. A generous hole is drilled part-way through the ice with an 8-inch ice auger. A bike flag marks the hole. A couple of the greens had three smaller holes drilled close together, making for a much larger target. I'll spare you the hole-by-hole play. None of us parred a hole, though we did card a respectable bunch of bogies and came in at 254. Dennis played well for a last-minute addition to the team. We voted his 1000-gram Thinsulate-lined boots the best footgear. The winning team carded a 196, second place was 239, so we were in the middle of the pack somewhere. There are more winter golf outings in Wisconsin this year. In addition, there are a few ice bowling tournaments, hundreds of Ice Fisharees, snowmobile poker runs, dogsled races. You name it. If there's a way to have fun and raise money that combines snow and beer, you can find a venue in Wisconsin's Winter Wonderland. For details, check the Wisconsin Dept. of Tourism website. As for me, I'll be spending most of the winter indoors at sports shows, boat show and the like. Check out my calendar for details. Later... 9:00:41 PM    comment []