Dave Hippleheuser and Rosario DiMiele are ready to tee off at the 14th hole at Pebble Beach in California.
The Mokena men pull out their drivers and, without so much as a “fore,” swing away. Hippleheuser sits down and watches DiMiele take his next shot.
Hole after hole, they drink beer, tell jokes and give each other advice about how to play the next shot. All that is missing is California sunshine and warm breezes.
“Where else can you go golfing and get a 7 p.m. tee time?” DiMiele asks at about 9 p.m. on a recent Tuesday.
At the Indoor Golf Links of America in Orland Park, a virtual-reality oasis for duffers who want to escape Chicago’s harsh winter but can’t afford a trip to warmer climes.
They can hit the links at Pebble Beach, Pinehurst in North Carolina, Firestone in Akron or Cog Hill in Lemont, where the 1997 Western Open was played in July. The 21 courses available also include the Belfry in England, the site of the Ryder Cup championship in 1993.
“This is a godsend,” DiMiele says of the center, which he first played a year ago. “This summer, for the first time, I broke 100. The fact that I played here five to six times last winter had something to do with that.”
At Indoor Golf Links of America, as at similar facilities around the country, golfers can work on their short game, playing in a sand trap or in a chipping area. Or they can play a full 18 holes, shooting a round without fear of rain or wind. They don’t have to make way or slow down for another party. And instead of taking four hours to walk and play an 18-hole course, two can play the indoor game in half that time.
The center has seven virtual reality booths, called simulators, to bring the sights and sounds of renowned courses to life. Step to the tee, and a television projects the course image onto a screen. A golfer, in the silence of preparing to swing, can hear birds or crickets or frogs.
Players are in control of weather conditions and the greens, choosing soft, normal or hard.
After a golf ball takes off toward the screen, two lasers on the floor measure its flight, speed, spin and trajectory. A split-second after the ball hits the screen, its image appears on the screen, showing the flight and the landing. (The ball actually bounces back softly toward the golfer for the next shot.)
The simulator game’s announcer offers commentary, praising a drive or bemoaning an errant ball. The announcer also tells when a shot lands in the water, the rough or the trees. Replications of a sand trap and the rough adjoin the tee, about 10 feet from the screen, and those surfaces are used to play off of when shots go astray. When the ball is on the simulator’s green, the golfer places it near the tee once more, then putts it toward the screen into the hole.
The screen displays all of the facts a golfer wants to know: the distance the ball traveled through the air and after landing, how far the ball is from the hole, who is up next — if the golfer is playing in a twosome or foursome — and how many shots that golfer has taken on the hole.
The Orland Park center is the idea of Joel Orth, 27, of Tinley Park, who started golfing when he was 16. After college at the University of Pittsburgh, he worked at the Chicago Board of Trade as a commodities trader.
“Being at the Board of Trade, one thing I learned was how to recognize an opportunity,” Orth recalls of his 1993 visit to a New Jersey sports bar, where he first saw the golf simulators. “I recognized an untapped opportunity in the indoor golf business (in the Chicago area) when I saw the simulators. I thought this could be the beginning of something big, something new.”
So Orth took his idea to his father, Dr. David Orth, a professor of ophthalmology at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago.
“I asked my dad if he wanted to open a business together, and he was receptive to it,” says Orth, who oversees the center. This isn’t his father’s first sports venture; he’s also a minority partner in the Chicago Bulls and White Sox as well as team ophthalmologist for the Bulls.
The Orths spent the next two years studying the Chicago golf market. Later, they hired Amy Wong-Nuez of San Francisco, who had designed a home for Joe Montana, to lay out the interior of the golf center, paying attention to features that create an outdoors flavor. About $1 million later, the 10,000-square-foot facility opened in November 1995.
“There are other indoor facilities, even in Chicago,” Joel Orth says. “This is the only one with a real golf atmosphere. People feel like they’re outdoors.”
“We took a lot of pain to build a facility that would be useful to all types of golfers,” said Dr. David Orth. “If you want to have fun, you can play the simulators. If you want to practice your game, you can try the sand trap or the chipping lanes. We are very proud of the facility.”
The center even offers a pro shop and bar for that 19th hole.
The facility is open from 8 a.m. to midnight Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday, from November through mid-April. During that period, it is booked about 90 percent of the time. The summer months, when the facility is open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday and closed Sunday, are slower, and private parties and custom club fitting account for most of the business then. Booths rent for $30 an hour and practice areas for $20 an hour.
Buoyed by the results so far, the Orths are exploring the possibility of opening company-owned franchises in other states.
If golfers become frustrated at virtually chasing that little ball around, they can get some help from the center’s pros, including Ken Malnar of Willowbrook. Malnar, who played in a few professional tournaments, has taught golfers for nine years, including a continuing position at Midiron Golf Course in Lemont.
During a $75-an-hour lesson, he videotapes a golfer’s swing, then analyzes it and tries to explain what a student must do to improve. Malnar puts graphics and verbal instructions on the tape, which students are encouraged to watch at home.
“It is great for the new golfers to learn in the winter, because they have three to four months to practice and learn the techniques,” Malnar says. “So when summer comes, they are not learning to play and instead can enjoy the game immediately.
“For (veteran) golfers, this is great for them to make changes and then play better in the spring and not have to work on changes. The students who come to me outdoors and then indoors, their progression of learning has increased because of the high-tech video that we are using to simplify their instruction. They are focusing on their new swing, not reacting to where the ball goes.”
“This helps significantly,” Doug Cmiel of Tinley Park says as Malnar critiques his swing on the videotape. “In Chicago, you obviously have a three- to four-month break during the winter. By coming here, you can get a jump on the buddies in your foursome.”
Members of the Homewood-Flossmoor High School girls golf team say off-season work at the center paid off this year, when they won the state championship in October. In edging Lake Forest by a stroke, the Vikings broke the 4-year-old tournament championship record for lowest team score (652 for four girls each playing 18 holes for two days running).
Illinois High School Association rules forbid coaches from practicing with their athletes during the off-season, but teammates can work to improve their game. Several times a month last winter, members of the team worked on their short game at the center.
“Even though we came with others from our team, we worked individually, which is something you don’t always do during the season,” says senior Dina Pawlak, 17, of Chicago Heights.
“I think it helped a lot because it made people realize the commitment they need to make to the game,” says senior Emily Gilley of Flossmoor, state individual champion for the last two seasons.
The 1996 team, which finished second in the state, didn’t have the benefit of practicing indoors during the 1995 winter, said coach Horace Howard.
“I know (practicing here in the 1996 winter) kept our girls’ swing and their approach to the game sharper,” Howard says. “It was never like starting all over again, and you don’t want that to happen. If the skill level is average and you don’t work on it all winter, . . . then it is going to take the whole fall to get your game back.”
On a Sunday afternoon in November, all seven video courses are in use. As a Bears game plays on television monitors in the center, Kevin Dexter and his son T.J. of Tinley Park relax after playing a game on Troon North (replicating the Scottsdale, Ariz., course). Father and son play the center thanks to a gift certificate the elder Dexter received for Christmas last year.
“I don’t come enough,” says Kevin Dexter, who played at the center five or six times last winter. During the summer, he hits the links about once a week.
“We enjoyed it,” Dexter says. “(The simulator) gives you a pretty good idea of what you hit. If you slice, it shows it. It is pretty close to the real thing. It might be a little bit harder to read the distance to the pin because of the video, but after a couple of holes you get used to it.”
On that Tuesday night, as players at the other booths are participating in leagues, DiMiele and Hippleheuser are playing for fun.
“This has definitely kept me in practice,” Hippleheuser says. “When I went back out before, it took six or seven games, or about a month, to get back to normal. Even if you come here every other week during the winter, it keeps you in practice. It took me one or two weeks to get back in the swing last spring.”
Taking a break, DiMiele notes that the virtual reality game puts him on a par, in one way, with such golf stars as Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus.
“These are the same courses that the professional golfers play,” DiMiele says. “It is an opportunity that I’ll never have in person. I can’t afford to get away, and I can’t afford the playing fees there. I think every golfer should come here and play every course.”
“This is very pleasing,” Hippleheuser says a few minutes later, as he relaxes in his chair and watches DiMiele tee off. “There is no wind to affect your ball. You don’t have to walk, and you can play until midnight.”
