How To Play Golf in New York City: East River Bikeway Edition

Golf. You'd be surprised at how accessible it is from the island of Manhattan. One of my favoritest routes to get to golf is the one that runs along the shore of the East River and down the entire "Loisaida" (that's local-slang for "Lower East Side", you honky) to the doorstep of the Staten Island Ferry terminal.

The Winter Handicap Challenge

This year I am once again applying scores toward my handicap during all winter months--a radical act that flies in the face of the orthodoxy of organized golf.

Golf in February

February. Winter's last stand. The final frontier. For anyone in the higher latitudes, golf in February is the exception and not the norm. If you look at the history of golf in New York (well my history at least) you'll see that golf in February is a roll of the dice situation, maybe a twenty percent chance in any given year.

Last Gas

Two days before the great mid-Atlantic blizzard of '16 would arrive, I made it out for one last round.

Marine Park in Winter

The End is near. In desperate uncertain times, the winter golfer cannot be too choosy about where he plays.

Since it's practically on the Atlantic Ocean, Marine Park typically sees the harshest weather conditions of all the city courses. But today it's ridiculous cold anywhere you go, plus I haven't seen the course in a long-ass time, and they've slashed tee times to liquidation prices. Marine Park's probably as good (or bad) a choice as any.

'16

Despite some superior January weather, I ended up not playing any golf until the second week of 2016, needing to recover from the flu. On the day that my condition finally took a drastic turn for the better, it happened to be a little over forty degrees out with light winds--that is to say perfect winter golf conditions.

Unattested Handicap Round Blues

photo by byronv2 on flickr

Once upon a time the United States Golf Association held a secret magic formula. Taking a person's last twenty scores and, after trimming down any catastrophe holes, throwing out the bad outlier rounds, and factoring in the difficulty of the courses played, the formula would spit out a number that, better than any other single metric, reflects that person's current ability to play golf. Far from a scoring average, it's a more nuanced data point that manages to reflect the hard reality of What's Going On on the course lately, while also providing some approximation of your so-called potential--a prickly concept to try and measure mathematically if ever there was. Yet somehow golf handicapping actually works.