Winter Golf in Virginia | Chasing the Goal of Breaking 80

Golf in the winter is hard.

For most of my life, once the weather got cold, the clubs went away. Snowboards, winter gear, and other hobbies would come out, and golf would become an afterthought until spring rolled back around.

This year felt different.

Recently, I’ve been trying to focus the little free time I have on improving at one thing instead of spreading myself across several different interests — especially with a toddler keeping life busy. One of the biggest goals going into this year was simple:

Break 80.

And once that goal was in my head, the idea of taking four months off from golf suddenly felt like moving backwards instead of taking a seasonal break.

30 Degrees and Chasing 80

One thing I found quickly was that it’s hard to convince your friends to golf when it’s 35 degrees with a steady wind — something the Shenandoah Valley certainly isn’t short on.

There were multiple mornings where I pulled into the course parking lot and wondered:

“What am I even doing out here?”

Sometimes there was barely anyone there. On a few of those cold mornings, it honestly felt like the only other person at the course was the man behind the desk in the clubhouse. But honestly, those rounds ended up teaching me a lot.

Winter golf in Virginia brings its own challenges.

Daylight quickly becomes your enemy. Forget squeezing in nine holes after work during the week. Most opportunities turned into chasing sunlight, finding a day that wasn’t too windy, and praying it wasn’t sleeting by the time you made it to the course.

And the cold changes the game more than I expected.

If you don’t hit the ball clean, you feel it immediately in your hands. Frozen ground gives instant feedback. Miss-hits sting more, and bad lies somehow feel even worse when the soil is frozen.

The ball also doesn’t travel quite as far. It’s not dramatic, but enough to mess with club selection and confidence. Part of that is probably the cold air, but part of it is likely your body just not moving as freely.

Then there are the greens.

If you managed to hit one, there was a good chance the ball would bounce straight off the back because the greens were like hitting concrete.

Even fixing divots became difficult.

Putting also became unpredictable. Bumpy greens, inconsistent rolls, and frozen patches made speed control feel completely different.

Yup - That’s my ball out in the center of the lake…

But there was also something peaceful about being out there when the course was nearly empty.

At some point, I realized I wasn’t chasing personal records anymore during those rounds.

It became practice.

The slower pace and lack of crowds made me think about golf differently. Instead of constantly pulling the old faithful fairway finder out, I started learning course management. More often than not, a controlled iron off the tee left a much easier second shot than trying to overpower the course. I started paying more attention to club distances, ball striking, course positioning, and making smarter decisions throughout the round.

And with fewer people on the course, there was freedom to experiment.

If I had an interesting chip shot, I’d drop a few extra balls and try different approaches or clubs instead of rushing to keep pace with the non-existent group behind me.

That’s something you rarely get to do during busy summer rounds.

Can’t Warm Up Fast Enough!

At the end of the day, winter golf also became a good excuse to get outside.

Even if the round wasn’t pretty, a few hours of fresh air and sunlight usually left me feeling accomplished afterward.

Although I’ll admit, there were definitely a few days where the car heater couldn’t warm up fast enough on the drive home. Even though I still hadn’t broken 80 by the end of winter, it felt like the work was starting to pay off and that I was in a much better place heading into the spring season. Thankfully, my buddy Nick was nice enough to join me for a few of those cold rounds along the way.

It didn’t take long before winter golf led me down an entirely different rabbit hole: golf simulators.