Golfing in a Bubble

Tonight Carli and I decided to forgo the typical Friday night of dinner & a movie, or bar hopping, or just hanging out at home and instead we went out and hit some golf balls at a driving range. Not such a crazy idea... until you consider that we live in Ohio, it's early February, and it's 12° F outside with a nice snow/ice mix covering much of the ground.

The Range

We didn't go all crazy like folks from the Polar Bear Club. Instead we hit up an indoor range. It's called the Golf Dome, but I'd describe it as one big-arse bubble.

The facility is a 100m x 100m (estimated) square piece of artificial turf (complete with fake bunkers, greens, pins, proshop, etc...) with a long double-decker concrete structure at one end that holds the tee boxes. Covering the 10,000 sq. meter area is a ginormous (yeah, that's a technical term) air-supported dome. It's a pretty sweet structure to be honest, and I was kind of impressed.

The Swing

I haven't swung a club since a trip to North Carolina a few months ago, and Carli informed me that she's not played since high school - roughly 7 years ago.

I had a pretty good outing as most of my shots seemed to be fairly straight with good distance. Oh, and I even hit the ball-retriever... twice! The first time I got him off a bounce, but the second time I dropped a shot right on top of the cab. It was a beautiful 75 yd shot with the old pitching wedge.

Carli had a bit of a rough shot, but by the end she was getting back into the swing of things. Once she finally stopped worrying about me watching her swing (or taking pictures) her shot started to straighten out. We even started to hear that nice ping sound when she made contact.