Tee shots that won’t break the glass

On April Fool’s Day, Glenlivet (a Scottish distillery that produces single malt Scotch whisky) served up drinks, hors d’oeuvres and plenty of golf at Glenlivet City Links, a temporary indoor, nine-hole miniature golf course set up in Manhattan that will be in town until Apr. 11.  (The City Links “course” is touring the country until June; the remaining cities are Denver, Seattle and San Francisco.)

Nestled in the corner, away from the bar and on the periphery of the lower floor of a two-floor golf course, was a familiar sight: a computerized golf simulation contraption that I had tried out at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.  Optronics Ltd., based in Salt Lake City, manufactures Par T Golf (get it?), a “golf simulator” that allows Tiger Woods-wannabes to practice their tee shots indoors by hitting balls against a large cloth screen.  (You didn’t think semi-drunk corporate types would tee it off on the putt-putt golf course, did you?)  A projector displays a faux landscape depicting a real golf course as well as an estimated yardage based on the swing and trajectory of the ball.

But enough of my description.  See for yourself how Par T Golf works…or maybe not because, as a non-golfer trying to hit the faux fairway in the middle of skiing season, even my yardage was better than these folks’: