Why does Scotland need an indoor golf simulation center?

We as a civilization have become far too dependent on technology - technology that isolates us. It gives us a false sense of reality. We can sit on our computer for 14 hours and think the world is more connected. We can play video games against our friends without inviting them over to our basement. We don’t write grandma as much as we should because she doesn’t have email.

There was a time I used to allow our society to free-fall into the depths of technological solitude.

That time was BEFORE I learned Scotland will open an indoor golf simulation center.

Edinburgh, Scotland’s most entertaining and eclectic city just a short drive from Muirfield, Gullane #1, North Berwick and is just an hour’s drive from St. Andrews, will open up a nearly $2 million golf simulation center. Now, Scots won’t be stuck with their run-of-the-mill St. Andrews, Turnberry and Royal Dornoch. Instead, they can play famous Pebble Beach - without the $425 tag and stench of salt water. They will even be able to play St. Andrews sans pesky wind and annoying adrenaline rush.

I know what you’re saying: “Just because Scotland is the birthplace of golf and has a club on every corner, doesn’t mean they don’t like to swat balls at a projection screen five meters away in claustrophobic darkness.”

And it’s not like these clubs are super-exclusive like Augusta National or Winged Foot. The Old Course, the real Old Course isn’t even that hard to get on.

Excuse me while I search for the right comparison…

It would be like getting tickets to the Super Bowl but watching the game on the plasma screen in the arena bar.

It would be like going to a charming family-owned restaurant in a Tuscan villa and ordering a Pepsi with dinner.

It would be like watching reality television when a re-run of a Seinfeld episode you never saw is on TBS.

When I was in Scotland last October, the weather wasn’t exactly Palm Springs. It was rainy at Royal Dornoch and windy on the New Course. But the Scots I played with shrugged it off. They play in this sort of stuff all the time. They’re so tough.

If that is the case, the indoor golf center will fail, right? If it succeeds, maybe Scottish golfers are just like us fair-weather golfers from Anywhere, Earth.

Sacred ground??? I feel a tremor…