I’ve joined a new indoor golf league for the winter. Here on the Cape, winter has finally settled in. The golf courses are covered with several inches of snow and only the heartiest souls dare to venture out with their hot pink colored balls. I’m not one of them. I’ll play in temps as low as 45 degrees but when the winds are blowing and the air temp measures in the 30s, I head for the indoor golf simulator center.

South Shore Country Club in Hingham, MA has just installed two state-of-the-art simulators for its members to use during the off season, and some of the group I play with during the summers have organized an indoor league. We meet each Thursday to play a round of golf. The simulator can be set to any one of dozens of great golf courses such as Pebble Beach in California or Sawgrass in Florida and the graphics are so realistic you can get a real feel for the course. Last week we played a fantasy course called The Atlantis. This course was well named as each and every hole is on an island unto itself. If Atlantis were a real course, the only way you could play it would be to hop on a ferry boat between each hole. Crazy, and very challenging! I lost most of my golfballs in the make believe water! But, as it was a simulation, losing balls didn’t cost me anything but a bit of pride.

How does a golf simulator work? And does playing in a simulator really help your game? I recently interviewed Joe Keefe, PGA pro at South Shore and Candy H., a low handicap golfer who uses the simulator on a regular basis, and asked each for their take on this hi-tech way of playing golf. Click on the icon below to listen to the interview.

Podcast (golfgurls-podcast): Download (Duration: 7:00 — 3.2MB)

For more information about golf simulators click on these useful links:

• Full Swing Golf
• About Golf
• Par2Pro