[Jason Topp]

Last weekend was the final weekend of the year for our club in Minnesota.  The waning weeks of the season carry a unique charm for me. 

The courses are firmer and the grass thinner making for long drives and difficult chip shots.  Some shots accelerate on impact with the green, others mysteriously stop.  The air is cooler and the wind fresher, requiring a wider variety of shots.  Lies tend to be thin requiring precise contact with the ball.  The rough is wispy allowing hope for recovery, particularly when combined with trees devoid of leaves.  Well struck shots spin more out of bare lies.

Late season golf punishes frailties remorselessly.  The wind eats up imperfect contact with the ball.  The cold air humbles those that believe they can make a heroic carry. The inconsistent bunkers wreak havoc with those trying to hide a shaky bunker game.  The flop shot from a bare lie is beyond the reach of nearly all.  Putting is a unique challenge because the speed of the greens varies greatly from those that have some grass growth and the high, exposed greens that have been dried out by wind and frost.  The yips do not seem to go away at the end of the year – they rise again to punish for a final time.

Most of all, the last weekend of the season is the final connection I will have with friends that I am around for much of my recreational time during the season but likely will not see again until April.  Many stories are incomplete and we will wait until spring to learn of the next chapter. I compete for a job as my company is acquired by another. A grandfather provides a final update on his infant granddaughter. A friend frets through the birth of premature twins.  Marital issues chewed over for the last eight months continue.  We fret over the future of our club.  A young assistant scrambles for work in the winter while another packs up for Florida.  The head pro counts the additional rounds squeezed in before the end of the season.  We tentatively plan winter trips that likely will not happen.

Last weekend we played in a group of six on Saturday and five on Sunday and finished both rounds in four leisurely hours.  We battled for insignificant bets with equal measures of enthusiasm and incompetence.

Patience is a bit thin this time of year and my ability to grind through a rough patch seems to be worn down by the coming approach of winter.  It is time to take a few months off and recharge the batteries.

[Phil McDade]

Jason, thank you for a wonderfully written six paragraphs.  I really enjoyed that read.

Here here! Well done.

A friend and much better writer than I once described the late afternoon sun on these fall days as "a sky the color of weak tea." I always think of that phrase during these waning days of the season.

[Ben Kodadek]

Well put Jason.  You know you're always welcome in the land of strip clubs and strip malls.

Ben

[John Mayhugh]

Well-written, but I'm cold just reading it.
Thankfully winter in KY doesn't start nearly as soon.

[Colin Macqueen]

Nicely written Jason.
Playing golf Down Under is, happily, an all year round affair (love affair?) but I was entranced by your reverie.
It has been so long since I played golf through the spring/summer/autumn season that I had forgotten the feelings that arise when you realise you have to pack up your sticks for a few months. Good stuff.
Cheers Colin

[RJ_Daley]

Jason thanks for putting words to the emotions many of us northern climate golfers feel this time of year.  It is truly a bittersweet time.  I love the low on the horizon golden fall light also.  The course conditions are what I wait for all year.  I've been lucky enough to play 5 of the last 7 days, and intend to play every day this week because our course closes next Sunday also. 

It was spectacular today.  And, I looked around at our dwindling numbers and felt much the way you expressed.  My pal Steve the Marine has taken some sort of superhormone and it sets up an intensive round of radiation to get prostate C under control, yet he made sure to hold off on scheduling until this last golf week is over!  At 79, He is tough as nails and played today, walking, shortsleeve shirt and carried his bag as usual.  He looked so grand on this great fall day.  My pal Jess has left us for a new home in Las Vegas suncity.  Another, has already left for his half year home in Mesquite, and another had his second knee replaced, two weeks ago, and is missing the last action of the year.  So, Steve and I played with some other guys whose regulars are dwindling for various reasons, as well.  We are all oldish farts and so you look at the season dwindling and you get certain thoughts about one more season gone by the boards and the hope for new seasons to come. 

But... those of us left are going to give it hell until Sunday! 

I hope the uncertainties you describe are like the song:

Just remember in the winter-far beneath the bitter snows
lies the seed
that with the sun's love
in the spring
becomes the rose

[Jason Topp]

Just remember in the winter-far beneath the bitter snows
lies the seed
that with the sun's love
in the spring
becomes the rose

Daley and Midler.  Now that would be a show!  Thanks for the comments everyone.

[Jason Hines]

Jason,

I think we must have the same set of friends and issues....

J.

[Rick Shefchik]

The barroom at Stillwater (Minn.) C.C. was packed today and noisier than most days in July or August. It was full of players -- men and women -- who looked at the forecast and figured out a way to get in what will be one of their last rounds of the year. We'll be back again tomorrow, and Wednesday, and perhaps Thursday. The club manager let slip today that, because the overnight temps are predicted to slide into the twenties and even teens early next week, this weekend will be the end. Our superintendant needs a few days to get the greens covered before the snow.

So you play each hole with the knowledge that a good drive cannot be the start of a streak of good driving, that the next birdie -- if it comes -- might be the last for five months, and that the missed four-foot par putt on the 18th hole might be the shot you take with you into the winter and can't forget until next spring.

Jason, I hope you can join us Wednesday for our all-day marathon. It's a great way to end the year, cramming as many holes in as you can, to the point where no individual hole or shot can dominate your memory over the winter. You'll wake up sore the next day and be able to truly concede that you've had enough golf for 2010.

[Jeff Shelman]

It seems very likely that this past weekend was the last at my club as well. When I walked off the 18th green on Sunday, I brought my clubs to my car instead of leaving them at the club.

It is kind of bittersweet at the end of the season. What I think will be my final round of the season in Minnesota (I guess there's a chance for one more) was not very good. I didn't hit the ball all that well and didn't score well. I did have a sand save on my final hole, so I guess I have that going for me.

The reality of the end of the season is that you won't see some of these people again for several months. In the winter, everybody kind of does their own things.

That said, I'm happy with how my 2010 golf season turned out. I played a good bit, I made some progress after a couple of years of regressing, I have a much better idea of what makes me happy about golf and I joined a different club that I think will be a good fit.

While a little break isn't a bad thing (though I will play in Arizona at Christmas), it is always kind of sad.

[Matthew Sander]

Walking off of the 18th green on Sunday, while shaking hands with my Sunday afternoon boys, I said "see you next year after the thaw". As it was coming out of my mouth I was thinking of how bizarre/great the golf buddy relationship is. This game of ours...

[Jeff Shelman]

Drove past the club near my house and the greens were covered.

It is over friends.

[Dan Kelly]

Jason, Jeff, Rick et al. --

I came on here today to find Jason's thread (recommended to me by Rick, during our marathon Wednesday -- 65 holes, from 7:09 a.m. to ... dark -- and I do mean dark; so dark that it was hard to see your ball at address, and never mind trying to see it fly).

And there it was! High on Page 1 -- right where it belongs.

Nicely done, Jason. Well put from beginning to, alas, end.

Fall is by far the best time to play golf in Minnesota. Why does it have to end so quickly?

You (and our long day at Stillwater) have inspired in me a rare desire to *belong* somewhere -- to spend more money than I should on golf, so as to have a group of guys to feel bad with as the season limps off into the past.

But I'm a newspaperman! With two daughters in college! A Membership cannot be justified -- even in the current economy; perhaps *especially* in the current economy.

Thanks, guys, for being my "club." I hope to see you in the Spring, if not before.

Dan

P.S. I was also going to suggest that maybe the season isn't over, after all. Then I checked Wunderground: "Winter Storm Watch in effect from Saturday morning through late Saturday night..." Sigh. You guys might have had enough golf this year -- but I have not! I wonder what the Forecast is for The Harvester ....

[Bill_McBride]

Any of you cold weather Yankees are welcome to come on down to Northwest Florida for some winter golf.  This is not like South Florida, more like Baja Alabama.  We play all winter in light sweaters or shirt sleeves.

Just give me a little advance notice.

One thing I remember from playing in Northern Virginia at the end of the season was trying to find your balls in all those leaves!

[RJ_Daley]

I had resigned myself that yesterday was the last of the year at our Brown county muni course where I have the yearly pass.  Our computer has been down for over 6 weeks and so can't record any handi scores, or round count.  But, I've played nearly 5 days a week this last month.  It is like getting the most rounds in on your yearly pass, reduces your cost per round... And, yesterday seemed like after we finished, that would be it, with bad weather moving in.

But, I am a golfaholic it seems.  While our course is open until Sunday, officially, rainy and possibly sleety windy weather has moved in.  It was cold and drizzly all morn.  But, a small window of no precip is moving in for a few hours.  It is almost noon.  Time enought to go get in the last few holes of the year, just by myself... I think I found something in my swing that has been working the last few rounds to cure my slice that was counterintuitive, so I have to go work on it before I forget...  

[Morgan Clawson]

I decided to hang it up for the year at the Dixie Cup, which finished up on Oct 24.

We had 4 days of perfect weather - sunny and in the 70s.

I finished the trip with a couple of great up and downs for par on the 17th and 18th holes.

I could have played a few more times in Minnesota.

But I kind of wanted to finish the year on top!

Good to hear some year-end thoughts from other Minnesota guys!

Have a good winter all...

[Chris Tritabaugh]

Great post Jason! I wrote about the end of the season from a superintendent's perspective on my blog last week. Compared it to putting our girls to bed. Thought you guys might like to see it.

http://northlandgrounds.blogspot.com/2010/11/end-is-near.html

Its hard to describe the feeling a superintendent gets putting a course to bed. Its very bittersweet. One the one hand the fall has provided a nice little break and I feel like I am ready to get things wound up again. On the other hand I know I need a longer break than that. 

Many battles were fought, some lost but most were won. The course, my staff and myself all came through the season and we are ready to decompress a little, while still be very excited to put the things we learned this year and the ideas we have for next year into place. Next season always comes soon enough.

[Dan Kelly]

Great post Jason! I wrote about the end of the season from a superintendent's perspective on my blog last week. Compared it to putting our girls to bed. Thought you guys might like to see it.

http://northlandgrounds.blogspot.com/2010/11/end-is-near.html

Chris --

If Northland is as much fun to play as those kids are to look at, you've got some very lucky golfers in Duluth.

Thanks for the link.

I imagine that putting a course to bed for the winter feels a lot like sending a manuscript off to the printer. Gimme a drink!

Dan

[Jason Topp]

Thanks for the commentary Chris.  Nice to hear it from your perspective.  I really enjoy your blog and follow it regularly.  

Northland is one of my favorites

[RJ_Daley]

Well I'm back... I got 25holes played in about 3hours.  I played alone, and there was only one 3some on front 9 when I got there, and I saw two other singles wandering around... none of whom I knew.  The afternoon was incredibly mild at about 45-7* and not very windy at all.  It was perfect!!! Yet, no one else came out except those few.  NOw, I'm hearing it won''t be that bad tomorrow as first predicted.  Hell I'm in... it seems only the actual closing will keep me away.

 These are desparate last ditch rounds, and it is like the death rattle... struggling against the ineveitable forced ending. 

[Bill_McBride]

Well I'm back... I got 25holes played in about 3hours.  I played alone, and there was only one 3some on front 9 when I got there, and I saw two other singles wandering around... none of whom I knew.  The afternoon was incredibly mild at about 45-7* and not very windy at all.  It was perfect!!! Yet, no one else came out except those few.  NOw, I'm hearing it won''t be that bad tomorrow as first predicted.  Hell I'm in... it seems only the actual closing will keep me away.

 These are desparate last ditch rounds, and it is like the death rattle... struggling against the ineveitable forced ending. 

"Do not go gentle to that dark night...
Rage rage against the dying of the light"  (or words to that effect) --- Dylan Thomas

Seems apropos!

[Steve Lang]

  So well written.. Jason, I started getting depressed..  and its 75°F here and we played 7 holes into the dark after work..

Hey, I lived and played in NW Ohio for 30 years and never really got as depressed as you MN guys, though I remember playing up there once and folks telling me about the tarps placed in Nov and lifted in April..

Fast , firm, and friggin cold.. get a parka and play on dudes..

or go south 

p.s. Bill McB, holiday time is approaching.. when are you and David coming to The Woodlands?

[Kevin Lynch]

Over?  Did someone say "Over"?  Nothing is over until we say it is!!

As a fellow Northern Golfer (Buffalo), I'm not even close to giving up on this season.  Until there is 5-6 inches of snow on the ground (and stays there for a week), I refuse to take my clubs out of the car. 

I love this time of year, because of the appreciation that each round may be the last, but also for the certitude that my playing companions are passionate and love the game as I do.  Rest assured, if they voluntarily headed out to the course when the thermometer read 35 F (2 C for my overseas friends), you will not hear them complaining about the course conditions.

An actual conversation this past Sunday:

Starter:  We're still in a frost delay.
Me:  No, that's not frost, it's just a thin layer of wet snow.  The grass isn't frozen.
Starter (looking closer):  You're right - OK, you gentlemen are good to go.


Later that day - "I think we hit 40, I can probably take off the windbreaker now."

Keep the faith, my fellow Notherners!  We still have at least 4 weeks left.  Give me 33 degrees, a turtleneck & a windbreaker, and I'll see you on the tee!!

[Scott Warren]

My sympathies to those of you in northern US states and the UK.

My two summers in England I amassed just six rounds in the eight months between Nov08-Feb 09 and Nov-09-Feb10.

Back in Aus, I was hitting balls at the range this morning - mid November - with sweat pouring down my face and neck as the mercury soared past 30.

Just think how excited you will all be to play when the Masters music pumps from the TV next April...

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