Monday, January 19, 2009

Screen Golf and all of its glory

So Alick, Mal (see previous blog post for character development) and I try to come up with a new way to spend our Friday (Friday the 16th) evening as opposed to the usual hanging out in a bar and trying to forget about the devil children we are supposed to be "teaching". What resulted was about the best hour to hour and half in the history sport. Welcome to our night of screen golf!

Apparently, it is quite expensive to play golf on a proper course in Korea, like hundres of dollars expensive. I think it has something to do with Korea being quite small and not having a lot of flat, grassy areas but I'm not entirely sure on that. With that said, golf is still quite popular in Korea, so how do you solve this problem? Also, there is no California/Arizona type climate in Korea so there is no place you can golf during the winter months.

So some quick thinking Koreans decided to tackle these problems by making a room where one could play golf. This room isn't some mega indoor complex yet a room the size of a big living room that is in a 3 story building. Awesome!

In the front of the room was the screen which you would hit the ball into. In the back of the room they had a couch for the people waiting for their turn (we call those people Alick)and there was a mini-fridge stocked with juice/health drinks. The actual playing surface was a tee for your woods and then a small turf area for the irons/wedges and putter. There was a computer next to the small playing area which was needed to scan the ball and then it would register where your shot would go. Unfortunately, when the whole screen golf was conceptualized, the koreans didn't consider southpaws as the computer sits across from where right-handed golfers would stand, so basically right where lefties would take their shot. Other than that glitch, the whole screen golf concept exceeded my expectations and then some.

So, the three of us took out our week's worth of aggression on some computerized balls by hitting them into a projection screen. Unfortunately for Alick, Mal and I got more bang for our buck as we had played under 5 games of golf between the two of us prior to the screen golf, so we averaged about 8 strokes per hole. Although Alick did find ways of enjoying himself and he did make the most of his opportunities to play, whether it be making birdies or making holes in the ceiling. Furthermore, his birdie celebrations were priceless. With that said, I did have some good cuts and probably had some of my best 5 wholes of golf.

In summary, the whole screen golf concept is the way golf is intended to be played. No walking, no rain delays and drinking beer and eating pringles while sitting on a couch and waiting for your turn. What more could you ask for?

Ok, so I'm a little behind on my blogging but with good reason as I was in Seoul for the Lunar New Year this past weekend. I have a lot to blog about in regards to the Seoul trip and will probably do a 2 part Seoul post in the near future. Also, pics of both the screen golf and Seoul trip should be up on facebook in the near future. If you do not have facebook, send me an e-mail or leave a request plus e-mail address on the blog for said pictures. Take care all!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

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