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TRACKBALL TOUR Golden Tee at the Corner Bars Stan Nuttall · Columbus, Ohio · plumber by day, trackball golfer by night REAL GOLF BEST ROUND 101 TRACKBALL BEST ROUND -12

[ How I Got Hooked | Technique | Course Notes | My Best Rounds | Bar Etiquette | The Club Pro | Step by Step ]

I'm Stan. I'm 41, I fix pipes for a living, and I have never broken 100 on a real golf course in my life. I've tried. I've been trying since 1985. My best is a 101 at the city course on the west side, and I needed two lost balls not to count to get it. On the trackball, though, I shoot 12 under. I'm not saying that makes me a golfer. I'm saying it makes me something, and three nights a week, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, I go down to the corner and find out what. This page is for the guys and gals who stand at the Golden Tee machine with a stack of quarters and a beer on the little shelf. It's got how I play, what I've learned about the courses, my best rounds, and the rules of behavior that nobody writes down. Now somebody has.

HOW I GOT HOOKED

January of 1997. An ice storm, and every job I had that week was a frozen pipe. I'd been under houses all day and I stopped at the Corner Pocket for a burger, and there was this machine in the back where the pinball used to be, with a big ball set into the front of it and a golf course on the screen. A guy named Dennis Solis was playing it. I watched him roll that ball back and push it forward, and the golfer on the screen hit a drive right down the middle, and Dennis said "that's a little short," and I thought, well, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Then he put in more quarters and showed me how to play. I hooked my first drive into the water. Then I did it again. I shot something like 14 over. I went home and couldn't sleep. That was about two thousand rounds ago, by my wife Gerri's arithmetic, which she does out loud. Here's the thing about it. On a real course, it's my body that doesn't work. On the machine, it's just my hand and my head, and those two I can train. A plumber knows his hands. I can feel a thread start crooked through a pair of gloves. Turns out you can feel a trackball too.

TRACKBALL TECHNIQUE

You swing by rolling the ball. Draw it back toward you for the backswing, then roll it forward, away from you, for the swing. How hard you come through decides how far the ball goes. That's all there is to it, the same way "hit it in the hole" is all there is to real golf. The secret, if there is one, is straight back and straight through. If you roll off line, the ball curves. Roll off line by accident and you've got a hook or a slice you didn't want. Roll off line on purpose and you've got a shot that bends around trees. Same hand, same ball, and the whole difference is whether you meant it. The other half is everything before the swing: picking the right club, checking the wind arrow (it shows you which way the wind blows and how hard), and reading the green. Most bad rounds I've had, I lost before I touched the ball. I wrote the whole thing out step by step, from wiping your hand to the follow-through: Trackball Technique, Step by Step.

COURSE NOTES

Every version of the game comes with its own set of courses, made up for the machine, and you pick which one you want when you start. The new version came out this year. The Blue Heron Lounge got one first, this spring, and the Corner Pocket and the Driftwood Tap had theirs a few weeks later. That meant a whole new set of courses to learn, and I learned them the only way I know how, one quarter at a time. I know them now like my own basement. I don't go by the names on the screen. I go by what they do to me: The Swimming Pool. Water on what feels like every hole. You can't bail out anywhere. Play it with your short clubs off the tee and take your pars. If you go for everything here, you'll be fishing. The Wind Tunnel. Wide open, not many trees, and the wind blows hard, so it all comes down to the wind arrow. Watch it every shot. It's where I shot my 12 under, so naturally it's my favorite. The Lumberyard. Tight fairways and trees everywhere. Hook it and you're in the trees, slice it and you're in the trees. This is the course that teaches you to roll straight. A few things that hold true on all of them: Learn a course one hole at a time. Know where you want your drive to land on every hole before you play it. Par 5s are where you make up shots. Par 3s are where you lose them. Greens are where the money is. I lose more strokes on the green than everywhere else put together, and so do you. Every machine keeps its own top scores for each course, with your initials. At the Driftwood, SRN is on the board for the Wind Tunnel and the Lumberyard. That's me. I'm working on the Swimming Pool.

MY BEST ROUNDS

The best one, on the scorecard: Thursday, August 12, 1999, at the Blue Heron, the Wind Tunnel. I wrote it down on a bar napkin hole by hole and Darla behind the bar signed it as a witness. HOLE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 OUT PAR 4 5 3 4 4 5 3 4 4 36 STAN 3 4 2 3 3 4 3 3 4 29 HOLE 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 IN PAR 4 4 3 5 4 4 3 5 4 36 STAN 3 4 2 3 4 3 3 4 5 31 PAR 72 · red = birdie · gold = eagle · blue = bogey 60 (-12) Eleven birdies, an eagle on 13, and a bogey on 18 because I was shaking. Darla says she's never seen a grown man three-putt with that much feeling. I still say the 18th green is crooked. The rest of the top five (all 1999, I started keeping track in the spring): SCORE WHEN AND WHERE 60 (-12) Thursday, Aug. 12 · Blue Heron · the Wind Tunnel 62 (-10) Tuesday, July 20 · Corner Pocket · the Wind Tunnel 63 (-9) Friday, Sept. 17 · Driftwood Tap · the Lumberyard 64 (-8) Friday, June 4 · Driftwood Tap · the Lumberyard 66 (-6) Friday, May 14 · Corner Pocket · the Swimming Pool (my best there, and it was a fight) For the record, the good players at the Blue Heron shoot better than this, and there are guys around Columbus who make my 12 under look like a Sunday walk. I know where I stand. I stand about fourth in a corner bar, and I'm proud of it.

BAR ETIQUETTE AT THE GOLF MACHINE

There are no marshals in a bar. There's just the bartender and the regulars, and we remember everything. So: Put your quarters on the glass. If you want next, line your quarters up on the ledge under the screen. That's your place in line. Don't touch anybody else's quarters, ever, for any reason. Don't coach strangers. If a guy you don't know is playing, keep your tips to yourself unless he asks. Nobody needs advice from a man with a plate of wings. If he does ask, help him all night. That's how Dennis got me. Give the man room. Don't stand right at his elbow and don't lean on the cabinet when he swings. Bump the machine during somebody's putt and you're buying. Wipe your hand. Beer glass, wings, onion rings, whatever it is, wipe it off before you touch the ball. The next guy has to use it too, and a sticky trackball rolls like a shopping cart. Don't spin the ball for fun. It's not a toy. Well, it's a toy, but it's the bar's toy, and they're expensive to fix. If people are waiting, play your round and step aside. Don't keep feeding it when there's a line of quarters on the glass. Tip the bartender. The machine's in their bar. They put up with us yelling about putts all night. Shake hands after a match, and the loser buys the next round, whatever the winner's drinking. For me that's usually a ginger ale on a work night. Pipes don't fix themselves.

THE NIGHT I BEAT A REAL CLUB PRO

Friday, July 9, at the Driftwood Tap. A bunch of guys came in after some kind of tournament at a country club up north of town, in their golf shirts, and one of them was the assistant pro there, a nice young fellow named Calvin Blackwell. His buddies pointed him at the machine and said, go on, show these guys how it's done. Now, I followed my own rule. I didn't coach him. I didn't say a word. I put my quarters on the glass and waited. He played a nine and shot 2 over and said the putting was "unrealistic." Then he saw my initials on the board and asked who SRN was, and the bartender pointed at me, and that was that. We played nine holes on the Wind Tunnel, for a beer. He's a real golfer, so he read the wind better than any first-timer I've ever seen, and he caught on fast. He shot 34, 2 under. I shot 30. He bought me a beer and shook my hand and was a real gentleman about it. Then, because I'm an idiot, I asked him to look at my real swing out in the parking lot. I showed him with a broom. He watched me for a while and said, very kindly, that I should probably stick to the trackball. I thought about it all weekend, and I think he's right. On the other hand, he's coming back to the Driftwood for a rematch, and I've got a feeling he's been practicing. I know I have.

GALLERY COUNT SINCE MAY 1999 Beat my 12 under? Tell me where and when, and I'll come see the initials. [email protected] Trackball Technique, Step by Step » Last updated Friday, September 24, 1999