More fake golf because Spring has foresaken us.

Minnesota is forecast to get 5-9" of snow tomorrow and the next day.  Golf seems a long ways off.  The first few hints of green are showing in yards but the snow will put a stop to that for a bit.

Because of the cold weather I decided to head indoors to a golf simulator at Inside Edge Golf in Eden Prairie.

A little while back I went with my friends to another simulator in Minnetonka.  I would say that Inside Edge was the nicer of the 2.  They have some crazy options to play in a surround style simulator or in a wide screen format, along with the traditional styles. I took the standard single screen option.  All 9 of the simulators are aboutGolf PGA Tour Simulators.  There are 50 courses to choose from along with driving ranges. 

The nice thing about these simulators is all the sensors are above you so the floor is smooth.  Something the other simulators I saw recently lacked.  This makes for much more realistic putting.  The screen is 14 feet from the tee area so if you need to make a 12 foot putt you have to actually putt it 12 feet. 

This experience was the first time I swung a club since November 10th.  I was really rusty.  I also am not sure about playing indoors.  I always feel like I am going to hit something swinging the club inside.  I think that makes my swing a bit abbreviated and jerky. Combine all of this and I had a pretty rough simulated round of golf.

All of my clubs seemed really short on the simulator.  I can't say whether that was my out of sync swing or something with the sensors, but I had to take 2 or 3 extra in my club selection to hit my normal distances.

I ended up playing the TPC Scottsdale, since I will be heading down there in a couple of weeks.  The course was fun to play though the experience of a simulator doesn't give you the perspective of being on the course.  I found hitting touch shots (half swings or pitches) was really hard to judge without the sensory perception of a real target.

All in all I had fun.  The experience pretty much destroyed all confidence in my game but I still had fun.  Maybe I should think about doing this more frequently during the winter so it doesn't feel like I am swinging a potted plant around when I finally pick up a club after the winter.

I will be praying that the upcoming snow melts quickly before I fly down to Arizona.  Otherwise I might be in for a rough trip to the desert.