Ocean Resorts Golf Club

Play the simulator in the off-season.

Go ahead, fly to Park City, Palm Springs or Scottsdale, rent a car, check into a $300-a-night hotel, and drop a couple of century notes to swing at a preeminent course (plus cart and caddy fees). No one is stopping you.

Or, drive to Berlin, a few miles west of Ocean City, and test your mettle at Troon North, Mission Hills, or El Dorado. Sound easy? Well, it is.

From November through April at the Ocean Resorts Golf Club, you can play 10 top courses on a simulator—Jeremy Ranch, Troon North, and Priceville, among them—or the “Westin Fabulous 18,” comprised of holes from several premiere Westin resorts. And you don’t need designer golf wear, high-end clubs or a single-digit handicap to qualify.

Outdoors the wind chill is in the teens. Inside the clubhouse it is toasty. While I scratch my head in disbelief, Jeff Fields, general manager of the club, demonstrates. He taps a keyboard hooked up to a computer a few feet away then places a ball on the tee in line with a white ball at the bottom of a very large screen.

Photos of actual courses are projected electronically onto the screen. Fields says photographers take up to 1,000 photos to get the course details right.

This wary reporter steps aside as Fields steps up to an Astroturf pad and prepares to tee off not 10 feet from the target. I’m sure the ball will pierce the sheet-covered nylon mesh, ricochet off the wall behind it and smack me in the eye. I step aside.

He swings. Thwack. An instant later the built-in swing analyzer shows what the swinger did right and wrong.  Appearing on the screen are slow-motion shots of the club striking the ball, the point of contact, distance, ball speed, club speed and club tempo (time elapsed from club-back position to contact).

Field smiles at learning he smacked the ball 204 yards. “I score lots better in here.”

You can opt to learn how many degrees your swing path is out or in, whether the club face is open or closed. You may even enter the wind speed and elevation. Elevation?  Fields explains that the higher the elevation, the farther the ball travels. So if you want to play the Jeremy Ranch course in Park City, altitude 7,300 feet, simply adjust the elevation electronically and “it’s just like being there.”

On Auto mode, the technology will calculate, adjust and compensate for whatever club you’re using, transforming it into the one you should use in the real world. On manual mode, the actual club head speed and impact are recorded. For those who’d rather remain ignorant, there is good news: the analyzer features have an On-Off switch.

Players have the choice of playing on five levels from Beginner to Expert. Or entering the competition for Longest Drives.

You may play with a partner or in a foursome. Or play alone. If you want to work on your swing, you can set up the simulator as a driving range. A bucket of 45 balls is only $5. A grid is superimposed on the screen green for putting practice.

Assuming you get better, you can track your improvement.

Loaner clubs are available, and a small pro shop is onsite. The cost for playing 9 holes on the simulator is $10; for 18 holes, $15. If you want to play the front 9 of one course and the back 9 of another, have it your way.

Ocean Resorts Golf Club is open to the public year-round. The simulator is available November through April.

Simulator aside, the public 18-hole golf course has a driving range, practice green and practice bunker. Winter rates of only $25 (including cart) are in effect until March. Tee times can be reserved at the club’s Web site. Spring through fall a large snack bar, with grille and full bar, indoor and outdoor seating, serves breakfast and lunch daily, 8A.M. to 4 P.M. 

Contact information
Ocean Resorts Golf Club
10655 Cathell Road
Berlin, MD 21811
410-641-5643
www.oceanresortsgolfclub.com