Remember the old New York joke?
“How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”
“Practice, practice, practice.”
Same with golf. For consistently low scores. it’s all about honing the short game.
One of the sad facts of life is that you can’t always get to a driving range or a short game practice facility at the drop of a hat. For example, you’re walled up in a hotel room. Or it’s pouring rain outside. And yet you have a burning, all-consuming desire to take a take a nice smooth swing and feel the kiss of impact. The normal outlets are not available. Your only option is…The Floppy, a new indoor golf ball that can be likened to a dimpled Hacky Sack.
Mr.Softee: The Floppy
The first indoor golf ball of its kind, The Floppy has a specially engineered rubber shell, a hand-woven cover and a proprietary fill core. Extremely durable, The Floppy is built to last through thousands of hits. An excellent training aid that performs best off of plush carpet (shag is OK!) or a hitting mat, The Floppy spins like a real golf ball and supplies true feel and feedback. Take dead aim at a wall or window, and the ball will bounce back towards you without damage—to you or the target surface. Not all PGA Tour stars pursue, ahem, illicit extracurricular activities off the course. A few of them use The Floppy to fine-tune their pitch, chip and flop shots when they’re not busy signing autographs.
So don’t worry about getting a big bill for property damage or outright room wreckage from the front desk. And forget about demolishing your den by accidentally giving a real golf ball a little too much punch. With The Floppy, you can confidently and safely accelerate through impact indoors—and get in valuable, stroke-saving, short game practice away from the golf course. www.thefloppy.com.
On the other hand, there are some players who are nocturnal. You know who you are. For night prowlers, there’s another ball that needs to be considered: the Night Flyer Golf Ball. New this year in Night Flyer Golf’s line-up is the CONSTANT ON Lighted Electronic golf ball, which sets a new standard for after-dark play.
Glow in the dark with Night Flyer
The official weight and size of a normal ball, the Night Flyer CONSTANT ON Golf Ball is a very sophisticated piece of equipment designed to light-up instantly upon sensing a strong impact. Once activated, the built-in computerized timer will keep the ball illuminated for 8-10 minutes, after which time the switch will automatically turn off the light to preserve battery life unless… the ball receives another firm impact.
Ingeniously, anytime the computer senses a strong impact the timer will reset to zero and restart the 8-10 minute light-up period. On a pitch-dark night, that’s a really nice default. Batteries in each ball are sealed and are not replaceable. I’m not sure yet how long they last, but the new Night Flyer is the Pro VI of lighted night balls. These pellets are priced by the piece, but I ordered a dozen in red, green, yellow and blue. This way everyone in the foursome gets a different color. That’s assuming I get the usual suspects to join me this summer. Night Flyer Golf carries cheaper balls that utilize glow sticks, but they are, to my mind, inferior. www.nightflyer.com
