The Colorado Double-Dip

Lynn Debruin

We all saw the shiny white titleist near the bottom of the ravine, not more than 10 yards away. But on this day, going the extra step to put an extra ball in the bag was not even a consideration.

Our thighs, hips and shoulders cried out instead, and urged us to fi nish the task at hand: completing the back nine of our Colorado double-dip.

Since moving here more than 10 years ago, I’ve always bragged to friends in other states that we could ski one day and golf the next, or vice versa. This was even better. When a late January forecast called for temperatures near 70 in Denver, friends Ron Metzler and Mike McDonald and I were off—fi rst to Keystone for nine runs in the morning, then back down I-70 for nine holes at Deer Creek Golf Club. When it was all done, we vowed to do it again, maybe even throw in a little night skiing just for kicks.

“In a heartbeat,” ski buddy said.

Metzler, a retired educator, had unintentionally planted the seed a week earlier when he mentioned how he had surfed off the north shore of Maui one day then was up at Beaver Creek skiing less than 48 hours later. But this was different and he felt it, mostly in his lower thighs and his racing heart. Just reaching down to pick up a ball midway through the round, he felt as if he had just run wind sprints.

Then there was the adrenaline.

“Unless you’re doing extreme skiing, you never really have the fear factor, but when you see a big wave coming at you, it scares you,” Metzler said of surfing. “Then you take something as calm as golf, but you get the same adrenaline high, especially when you’re on the fi rst tee with people you’ve never played with before. It’s like getting hit by that first big wave.”

Metzler called it a sustained rush—one that kept going and going even as he tried to get to sleep that night. He kept replaying the images in his mind: skiing on squeaky acres of corduroy, flying down wide-open blue trails such as Mozart and Jack Whacker, and lining up a birdie putt on the ninth hole.

“To walk out there and shoot a 48 after skiing was great,” Metzler said.

McDonald, an IT expert, was just as jazzed, even if his score crept a little higher thanks to an untimely encounter with a snow-filled bunker and a swing hindered by stiff shoulders.

But none of it mattered in the end. By 9:30 that night, he’d crashed on the couch, sleeping like a baby.

“When I woke up in the morning, I was buzzed from the endorphins. I jumped out of bed like the Energizer bunny,” he said. “Rock and roll. It was one of the best outdoor days I’ve had in years.”

I felt the same, though it was my hips that were feeling a bit of strain from the two-sport excursion.

But there certainly were no regrets, not on this sun-splashed day and not when I slipped from ski jacket to golf sweater and still managed a 42.

It was a day to swing free and let our minds wander.

Could we really have gotten in 18 holes had we pushed ourselves a little harder?

As the days get longer, that won’t be an issue. But then we’ll ponder other possibilities, such as whether it’s best to golf first in the mountains and then water-ski, or to hike a fourteener before teeing off in the afternoon.

In Colorado, there are always plenty of options.