Nah. Like a lot of us human golfers, computers would outsmart themselves. Despite the technical sophistication of many training aids and other gizmos, golf remains an elemental undertaking, however difficult.

That’s the appeal of the gift suggestions below. Not only do they trigger the “why didn’t someone think of that before?” reaction, they’re affordable, especially relative to, say, a golf simulator with a five- or six-figure price tag. They are also portable and – important to fellow golfers in the suddenly snowbound Northeast – can be used indoors and out. Plus, I like their names.

The Zoom Boom. In the absence of actually hitting golf balls, teaching professionals have long touted the value of simply swinging a golf club to maintain flexibility, tempo, and so forth. The Zoom Boom Swing Trainer takes the notion a step further.

It’s a weighted shaft with two counter-balancing nodes that force hands and arms into the correct impact position as you make the swing. Heavy enough to provide a “golf workout” just by devoting five minutes a day, it’s designed to prevent users from repeating swing flaws that may accompany just swinging a regular club.

“And there’s no thinking or analyzing involved,” says Lance McWilliams, the Texas-based pro who invented Zoom Boom. “You just swing the thing. It’s also a great way to warm up for a round or, at this time of year, to winterize your golf game.”

The Little One. The miniaturization concept has been tried in other ball sports: A smaller rim for honing basketball shooting, the rod-like Thunder Stick to sharpen baseball batting skills, even a smaller cup to refine putting acuity. Originally developed by “another frustrated golfer,” Dan Bonomo, a decade ago, The Little One is a club with a head just slightly larger than a golf ball and the loft and heft of a 7-iron. The extra focus required to hit the ball boosts ball-striking consistency.

Bonomo founded Scottsdale-based PSP (for Pure Solid Perfect) in 2007 and recently paired with clubfitting pioneer Henry-Griffitts , who now carries The Little One in their fitting cart. (If you’re already a Henry-Griffitts user, as I am, you can get a custom-fit model of The Little One using the swing specifications already on file in the company’s database.) PSP also offers The Wee One, designed specifically for juniors.

It’s too late in the season to assess The Little One’s potential for improving this writer’s ball-striking, but it’s definitely effective on the practice range: My pre-round warm-up has traditionally been devoted exclusively to physical flexibility, with little regard to quality ball contact. True, you can’t remake your game minutes before heading to the first tee, but The Little One helps me concentrate on striking the ball solidly, not just a limber motion.

Ball of Steel. Even for the pros, the most common culprit in missing short putts is a tentative stroke. As a serial gagger, I can’t wait to reap the benefits of Ball of Steel – Balls, to be precise, as the package includes three red balls, the same size as the regulation golf ball but five times heavier. Again, the concept is elementary: The heavier object’s inertia forces you to make solid contact.

A product of Eyeline Golf , Ball of Steel encourages a rhythmic backstroke and acceleration through the ball. Pulls and pushes are instantly recognizable, reinforcing the importance of striking the ball on the sweet spot.

Unlike the Zoom Boom and The Little One, which have other short-game-improvement applications, the Ball of Steel is intended to improve your putting from six feet and in, not for lag putting or chipping. Also, when there’s snow on the ground, as shown here, be sure to take it indoors.

# # #

Two layouts by Donald Ross seem to beckon repeat play – a residue of his design vocabulary. Today’s example is The Sagamore, in Bolton’s Landing, New York.

The uphill, dogleg left 7th hole exemplifies The Sagamore's rugged topography. Photos: Tom Harack

Though of the same vintage as Mountain Ridge , The Sagamore’s location at the base of the Adirondacks means much more precipitous terrain. Indeed, while you get the sense of a fairly compact site overall – mature hardwoods make great buffers between many of the holes – the course is not readily walkable (having tried it once myself). That’s a deduction in my “course-you-could-play-everyday” score, although several cart-path-only forays per round make a round at The Sagamore a workout.

The panorama from the steeply elevated 1^st tee, with Lake George as the backdrop, is the shot by which The Sagamore is known, but there are other great landforms. These include wetlands and meadows where Ross is said to have planted heather from his native Scotland.

The routing is efficient but varied. Some of the best holes are short ones, but

Landing areas may offer multiple approach angles, but the target remains small and, as here on the 5th hole, a 380-yard par 4, long is big trouble.

even the longest holes suggest safe areas to play, typically to chipping aprons leading to crowned, push-up greens – a difficult but doable shot.

A great example is the 13^th, a par 4 that at 446 yards from the tips approaches the outer limits of golden age golf architecture. Despite a marsh on the right, there’s ample landing zone, but the second shot has to carry marsh #2. As is true of many of Ross’s water hazards, though, a solidly struck ball will easily carry the marsh, though it may come to rest on a 75-yard apron fronting an elevated green.

The Sagamore is, of course, part of the resort of the same name, so most of the packages on offer combine golf with accommodations and dining. Outside play is also welcome, though, and it’s a quality golf experience.

What golf course characteristics make you want to go back, the sooner the better?

Some cross-bunkers are more decorative than strategic, like this one on the 4th hole, but still manage to conform to the overall proportions.

#         #         #

The 16th at Mountain Ridge. Photo: LC Lambrecht Photography

It may seem borderline sadomasochistic to deconstruct the cliché – “a course you can play every day” – immediately following the first substantial snowfall here in the northeast. On the other hand, there will soon be time aplenty to ponder the question.

And unlike, say, “using every club in your bag,” the everyday-course thing is open to interpretation. Certainly there are some traits that would apply uniformly to courses you don’t want to play every day: too long, too difficult, too slow, badly maintained, and, for most of us, too expensive.

But beyond these deal-breakers, there’s plenty of room for subjectivity. Walkability is important to many of us; riding a necessity for others. For a certain stratum of player, no challenge is too stiff; to others, it’s secondary to a friendly staff. Then again, one of my golf buddies, a single-digit handicap, admits to being enthralled by courses conducive to finding golf balls – a throwback to his caddy days.

How do you define that archetypal course you could play every day? Two recent season-beating rounds suggested a partial explanation to me: When playing reasonably well – the test doesn’t work if you’re stinkin’ it up — you feel that the next level of golf competence is just out of reach, but attainable.

That the two rounds happened to both be Donald Ross designs is coincidence, though it’s also true that while they’re playable for the same reasons, even as they’re on substantially different terrain.

Both Mountain Ridge Golf Club, a private in West Caldwell, New Jersey, and The Sagamore, a layout at the eponymous resort in Bolton Landing, New York, are a manageable 6,800+ yards from the back tees.

But Mountain Ridge, in the foothills around the Passaic River Valley, has a more pronounced up-and-down rhythm, with numerous elevated tees and green complexes. Native grasses make some bunkers even more problematic, but most approaches are receptive to a variety of trajectories, and most offer bailout areas, generally short of the putting surfaces. There’s plenty enough contour on those surfaces to make things interesting, but not many auto-three-jacks.

As part of its centennial celebration in 2012, Mountain Ridge will host next year’s US Senior Open. (The Donald Ross design dates to 1931 and was recently reworked by Ron Pritchard.) The place also features a clubhouse from central casting, as well as food that — by golf-writer consensus, anyway – you could eat every day.

Monday: The Sagamore

#         #         #

I’m only half-joking. The underlying assumption of his, er, critique is that playing 18 holes together is supposed to result in a meeting of minds on something other than, say, club selection. As subsequent history demonstrates, unless Pollyanna is in your foursome, this isn’t likely to happen.

No, the salutary effect of playing golf with someone of diametrically opposed views is that, for four hours at least, everyone behaves better than they do most of the rest of the time. That’s why it’s “a gentleman’s game” – a description that naturally invites mockery when tied, across the board, to players rather than the game itself.

And as any seasoned golfer can attest, this really works.

# # #

The closing hole at Kaluhyat

Hurricane Irene was famously capricious in her march through the Northeast, with towns in Vermont and the Catskills washed away and others, directly across the Hudson, doused but otherwise unscathed. And while Turning Stone Resort – Casino, 30 miles east of Syracuse, wasn’t directly in the storm’s path, we didn’t know what to expect in terms of conditioning on the resort’s robust troika of 18-hole layouts.

It turns out, no pun intended, that we’d never seen them in better shape, after a summer with a lot of rainfall but ultimately temperate conditions. The courses remain among the best trifecta at a single property to be found anywhere.

It also seems that the vision of the owners, the Oneida Indian Nation, has in some sense been validated, as the golf operation was conceived to stand on its own, rather than as a standard amenity. Considering that the place only opened in 1993 and that the first 18-hole course – Rick Smith-designed Shenendoah – debuted in 2000, it’s no mean achievement, as Turning Stone has become a household name among golf-centric destinations.

As is frequently the case, it’s tough to top the original, and Shenendoah Golf Club remains a favorite among the regulars. It’s easy to see why, as it touches all the bases of resort-course design: playable, slicer- and women-friendly, with mostly modest forced carries, although it can play as long as 7,129 yards from the most-distant of five sets of tees.

Best of all, it winds through greatly varied topography, forest and meadowland, with the only reminders of the outside world the faint drone of motor traffic where the layout jogs within earshot of the Thruway and the occasional glimpse of the resort’s towering hotel. It’s a showcase for the region’s rugged terrain.

The next course to come online was Kaluhyat Golf Club — pronounced gah-LOO-yut, an Oneida word meaning “the other side of the sky” – a strapping track that slopes out at 146 from the back tees, among the half-dozen highest slope ratings in the state.  Designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr. and built on a 220-acre site, it is hillier and more narrow, though slightly shorter, than Shenandoah.

A glorious survey of the lush local ecosystem, Kaluhyat also has a number of dauntingly difficult holes, like the 11^th, named “Uncertain Passage,” that’s 621 yards from all the way back and 563 yards from the white tees, most of it uphill. The greens also have considerable contour – problematic, no doubt, for first-timers on the course.

Atunyote Golf Club – uh-DUNE-yote, meaning “eagle” – is the most recent course addition and plays the most like a “resort” layout, slightly less punishing than the other two.  Unlike its sister courses, it is several miles from the resort, and the contours of its grassland setting can be reminiscent of designer Tom Fazio’s work in Florida or the tropics — vast open spaces, gently rolling terrain, and some adroitly deployed water features.

Good fun for average players, it can also be made testy enough for the pros, some of whom, including Tiger, were there to play in the fund-raiser for Notah Begay’s charity during our visit.

Turning Stone also has two nine-hole layouts, Pleasant Knolls and Sandstone Hollow, which presumably comes in handy in accommodating guests who play golf only during their annual casino pilgrimage.

It also has the Golf Dome, an elaborate practice facility with academy, clubfitting, and two-tiered range with 48 bays, a truly welcome buffer against upstate New York’s sometimes-punishing winters.

In fact, you have to quibble to find fault with the golf operation – this reporter’s gripe would be that the three courses are unwalkable, for instance. Seen in the context of the whole package, however, it’s pretty remarkable.

Much has been made of the connection between golf and gambling, but the Turning Stone golf experience suggests

Turning Stone's sometimes raucous atmosphere contrasts with its serious-golf counterpart. The Tower serves as action headquarters.

that they can co-exist with limited symbiosis. When we asked about a late checkout from the hotel – The Lodge is the smaller, upscale option – we were given an extra hour, as the desk was expecting the arrival of seven wedding parties for the weekend. The ex-desk clerk in me immediately empathized.

The point is that Turning Stone Resort – Casino generally is a pulsating concern, handling more than four million visitors annually. Establishing a first-rate golf destination that’s both right next door and a world away is a clever twist.

www.turningstone.com;

#         #         #

The natural look: the 8th hole at Narin & Portnoo

No need to deconstruct Phil Mickelson’s motives for criticizing the Atlanta Athletic Club layout as being detrimental to the popularization of golf. And it’s easy to dismiss his concern about it being unplayable for members: With the exception of the criminally insane among them, the members won’t be undergoing a test nearly as severe.

Yet there is something about the PGA Championship set-up tangentially related to static rates of public participation (although there’s also no reason to single it out). The most common term applied to the Highlands Course seems to be “immaculate.” Not only is the grooming preternatural, the water features, with their stone retaining walls, tell you that the course is highly sculpted, the terrain altered.

The acceptance of such conditioning as the game’s default standard has contributed to the golf industry’s current predicament via increased costs for course construction and maintenance. A recent trip to some great seaside links in the northwest of Ireland highlighted the alternative approach.

I know. Not all sites look like the Shannon Estuary or Broadhaven Bay. What’s more, any number of completely “fabricated” courses – Bayonne Golf Club springs to mind – are great layouts. Interestingly, though, even courses like Bayonne most often embrace a minimalist design esthetic.

#         #         #

Wind and rain may be standard elements of golf in Ireland, but sun-and-cloud formations are spectacular. The first hole at Enniscrone. Photo: Tom Harack

In Ancestral Links, John Garrity quotes a recurring conversation between a visiting golfer, about to tee off on an Irish links course, and his caddie.

“What’s the course record?” the golfer asks.

“Two days without rain,” is the response.

It’s a running gag, of course, but it’s also true that vacations in Ireland can devolve into slogfests of wind and precipitation, which is why it’s always good to have indoor alternatives like hanging out at a pub.

The prevalence of meteorological mayhem is also the reason this reporter is powerless to resist the urge to gloat. Not only have the Golf Road Warriors never been rained out during our foray through northwest Ireland, we’ve worn shorts every day – those of us with the legs for it, anyway – and have experienced overcast skies only during our round at Carne. It has sometimes been breezy, but never howling.

What’s more, this has been more or less my fortune during a half-dozen trips to the Emerald Isle over two decades — including visits in the notoriously marginal months of May and October — during which time I’ve been truly and thoroughly doused only twice, once at Royal Portrush, once at Ballybunion Old.

That’s one of the reasons our return to Ballybunion – on what one of our caddies called the best weather day of the year, so far – was such a thrill.

Garrity’s 2009 book is a great prelude to any trip to Ireland’s northwest. Subtitled “A Golf Obsession Spanning Generations,” it’s the story of the author’s sabbatical to research his family’s roots in and around Belmullet.

Certainly it helps to be a golfer in appreciating the tale woven by Garrity, a senior writer at Sports Illustrated. But his story is also part travelogue and also paints a distinctive, often harrowing, portrait of the region’s sometimes tumultuous history. New American Library.

#         #         #

Kilclooney Dolmen

Tour operators and Irish tourism operatives were united in their reaction to our golf itinerary: “Get some help,” was the consensus. We’d sledge-hammered together a daunting combination of copious golf, travel, and work requirements. Throw in the blown-out hip tendon that befell colleague Peter Kessler, and a corresponding trip or two to the clinic and hospital, and your dance card is full.

Which is a shame only in the sense that you miss out on all manner of other stuff to experience in Ireland’s northwest. Following are some recommended diversions proximate to the golf-obsessed itinerary that we concocted.

• Near Ballyliffin is Doagh Island Famine Village.  The name’s a bit misleading, as the complex gives visitors a fairly comprehensive portrait of Ireland’s development since the 1840s.

• In Downings, where Rosapenna is located, there’s also the Singing Pub. It’s hardly the only pub in Ireland where you’ll find singing, but the food’s pretty good, too.

• Near Narin & Portnoo Golf Club is the Kilclooney Dolmen A dolmen is a sort of Neolithic mausoleum and this one, thanks to its size and condition, is among the country’s most impressive.

• Donegal has always seemed a really fun town, and weaving is part of its ethos. Magee Tweeds was founded here in 1866 and stages demonstrations of handweaving and other aspects of the craft, plus it’s a great place to shop for the product.

• Drumcliffe, the site of a monastery dating to the 6^th century and the final resting place of Irish poet W.B. Yeats, is located between Donegal and Sligo.

• Feeling a bit beaten up by your round at Enniscrone? Try the Kilcullen Seaweed Baths, which, thanks to the Atlantic seawater, produce a sensation of weightlessness.

• The area surrounding Carne Golf Links exemplifies the rugged nature of Ireland’s

Céide Fields

northwest and nearby Ballycastle is home to Céide Fields, an excellent way to appreciate the complex ecology and its inhabitants’ six-millennia struggle to survive within it.

#         #         #

Just 10 miles or so from Ballyliffin – though the commute is the better part of an hour – is Portsalon Golf Club. Like Murvagh, its setting overlooks an estuary, Ballymastocker Bay, and thus lacks the towering dunes at, say, Rosapenna. But its panoramic mountain views and shifting atmospherics are worth the trip.

The course itself first opened in 1891, but its modern character is, like much of the region’s golf architecture, attributable to Pat Ruddy, whose 2001-2 redesign added more than 1,000 yards, moving the tips back to 7,100 yards, par 72.

Just 39 miles northeast along Sligo Bay from Enniscrone is Rosses Point, AKA County Sligo Golf Club. Whereas Enniscrone, and Belmullet are conceived rather effectively to exude the timelessness of ancient linksland, Sligo actually is, its first nine dating to 1894. The “new” track is a 1928 redesign by the venerated H.C. Colt and has been home to the West of Ireland Amateur Open Championship since 1923.  Five miles from the eponymous town, Rosses Point an icon of golf in northwest Ireland, playing 6,600-plus yards, par 71 from the back tees.

The craggy terrain adds dramatic changes in elevation to the usual culprits, wind and length — 6,611 meters, 7,222 yards, from the back tees.  Members we talked to, though, cited the 13th, a 196-yard par 3, as the most problematic hole. (www.failteIreland.ie)

#            #            #

Food festivals like Taste of Killarney are evidence of new influences in Irish cookery

Not just yet. But the first time this reporter wrote about dining options on a golf trip to Ireland, it was to recommend pub food as the safe, if uninspired choice. The idea of a progressive strain in the local cuisine was more like the set-up for a Saturday Night Live skit.

Two decades hence, the general level of culinary awareness and sophistication has improved markedly. Hearty simple fare remains the driver of mainstream Irish cookery, but it’s at least tempered by other influences.

And in certain ways, Ireland has always been an unwitting progenitor of current movements in food: Their isolation makes them the original locavores. (One of our restaurant hosts told Jeff he could identify the exact provenance of one of the steaks he serves – not just the farm, but the field within the farm.)

Food festivals like the Taste of Killarney highlight the best of local produce and introduce the gastronomically adventuresome to new international foods and cooking methods, a subject of much-enhanced interest.

#         #         #