Name something more “dad” than a driving range (hint: a grille is the only acceptable answer). While I couldn’t provide a barbecue setup for my dad this past Father’s Day, I was able to bring him and my brother to the Chelsea Piers Golf Club to celebrate. My only complaint for the whole experience is that I managed to swing and miss the golf ball almost as many times as I hit it (slight exaggeration, but still).
We arrived at Chelsea Piers around 2:30pm and managed to beat the real line, leaving us with just 30 minutes of waiting for our stall to open up. Once we were given the go-ahead to venture out to our designated slot, we were immediately hit with a wall of heat, but the heavily shaded stalls made it easy to stay hyped to hit. We started off rotating with 2 hits each, which quickly turned into 2 each for my dad and brother and 3 for me until my brother noticed I’d been managing to sneak an extra turn every time. We were offered 3 different clubs, allowing for a variety of results (except in my case, with every shot being too rough not to embarrass me). I’ve never seen anyone take a jogging approach to a tee, or use such a wild swing as my brother, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t effective. My dad had the opportunity to show off what years of experience has allowed him to cultivate into a solid swing with the type of form that comes from countless practice, and I managed to follow the basic instructions that he’s been giving me since last summer regarding my swing (“head against a wall,” “hip to hip”).
Taking on the driving range featured in the movie The Other Guys is a quick and easy process: once you purchase your ball card, you’re good to go. Chelsea Piers is, as expected, more pricey than the driving range I go to at home, but the view of the water and the feeling of being a VIP who can’t be bothered to tee up your own ball is definitely worth it. The amount of balls per card varies depending on if the card is purchased during peak or off peak hours, and my family and I purchased 129 balls for 40$, which was plenty for the three of us. All you have to do is wait for your number to be called, and then you’re shown your stall, instructed to place the card into the machine, and you’re all set.
The stalls allow for privacy if you’re embarrassed of your form, but not to such a degree that you couldn’t show off to your fellow golfers if you tried hard enough. Thanks to the automated tee system, you can always see how many balls you have left to hit, and you have the option of raising or lowering the tee to best suit the club you’re using (which could either be your own or one offered to you at the facility), but it’s no secret that the real appeal to this system is you won’t have to bend at all to tee up.
With 52 stalls, 4 floors, and a 200 yard fairway, there’s no way that you won’t have a genuinely good and wholesome time. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend my Father’s Day, and I truly recommend the Golf Club at Chelsea Piers to literally anyone with even a remote interest in golf, whether you take an aggressive Happy Gilmore approach like my brother, a careful and meticulous swing like my dad, or you’re really just doing your best like me.
For more information: https://www.chelseapiers.com/golf/driving-range/overview/
For (very shaky) footage from inside Chelsea Piers (and the rest of the places we went on Father’s Day), check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBfttCqB9kk
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